A Kit For Building User Experience Teams Within Product &
Service Organizations
Paul
Sherman
Sherman
Group
User
Experience

I
could
do
the
UX
kit
spiel
in
less
than
5
minutes.
It’s
actually
quite
a
boring
presentation.
What’s
interesting
is
why
I
needed
one,
why
you
probably
need
one…
and
what
we
should
be
doing
about
this.
2

 The
sad
truth
about
the
need
for
a
“UX
kit”
 The
kit
itself
 A
discussion
about
launching
UX
teams
and
spreading
UX
in
medium
to
large
orgs
3

User
experience
practice
needs
to
be
embedded
more
securely
into
product
development
lifecycle
activities.
4

Despite
what
we
may
think,
UX
is
still
poorly
integrated
into
product
ideation,
design,
and
development
activities.
5

Like
Jared
said
in
his
UPA
2009
keynote,
there
are
gaps
in
our
field.
I
believe
that
one
of
them
is
the
lack
of
organizational
structure
and
process
guidelines.
6

Why
isn’t
there
good
stuff
out
there
on
how
to
integrate
UX
teams
into
organizations?
There
are
discussions.
A
few
books.
But
there
doesn’t
seem
to
be
many
lively,
ongoing
discussions
about
UX
and
organizational
structures,
cultures,
etc.
7

But
isn’t
setting
up
a
team
a
precondition
to
actually
DOING
user
experience
work?
8

1. It’s
a
trivial
problem…
I’m
stupid
and
everyone
gets
this
stuff
but
me.
Note:
this
is
a
definite
possibility.
9

2. It’s
a
particularly
thorny
problem
or
a
problem
that
our
field
is
not
equipped
to
work
on.
But
we
have
so
many
research
psychologists
in
our
ranks!
10

3. It’s
just
not
as
interesting
or
sexy
as
other
problems
in
our
field.
11

1. It’s
a
trivial
problem…
I’m
stupid
and
everyone
gets
this
stuff
but
me.
2. It’s
a
particularly
thorny
problem
or
a
problem
that
our
field
is
not
equipped
to
work
on.
3. It’s
just
not
as
interesting
or
sexy
as
other
problems
in
our
field.
I
choose
#3
12

…always
working
on
the
unsexy
problems.
13

14

I’ve
worked
for
several
organizations
that
claimed
to
do
UX.
Some
of
them
actually
did…
15

Some
orgs
*thought*
they
were
doing
UX.
But
what
they
were
really
doing
could
be
called
“UX
in
name
only.”
16

A
cargo
cult
is
a
type
of
religious
practice
that
may
appear
in
tribal
societies
in
the
wake
of
interaction
with
technologically
advanced,
non-­‐native
cultures.
The
cults
are
focused
on
obtaining
the
material
wealth
of
the
advanced
culture
through
magical
thinking,
religious
rituals
and
practices…
17
<lazy>Yes
I
took
this
from
Wikipedia.</lazy>

Cargo
cults
…
conduct
rituals
imitating
the
behavior
they
have
observed
among
the
holders
of
the
desired
wealth
in
order
to
receive
the
wealth
themselves.
18
<lazy>Yes
I
took
this
from
Wikipedia.</lazy>

19

20

21
A
cargo
cult
in
Second
Life?!?
Cool.

The
term
"cargo
cult"
is
invoked
as
an
English
language
idiom
to
mean
any
group
of
people
who
imitate
the
superficial
exterior
of
a
process
or
system
without
having
any
understanding
of
the
underlying
substance.
22
<lazy>Yes
I
took
this
from
Wikipedia.</lazy>

Some
orgs
do
something
resembling
UX…
but
it’s
not
really
UX.
23

Admit
it…you’ve
seen
this
too.
24

At
my
former
company
I
was
asked
to
help
put
together
UX
teams
in
other
product
groups.
It
took
me
one
failure
to
realize
that
I
needed
to
give
them
more
than:
“You
need
a
user
researcher
and
an
interaction
designer
and
a
usability
analyst.”
25

26

I
did
what
PhD’s
do
best:
I
wrote
a
paper.
And
then
I
ate
my
own
dog
food
and
cut
it
down
by
2/3.
So
people
would
actually
read
it.
27

Senior
managers
and
directors
who
needed
advice
and
consultation
on
how
to
set
up
a
UX
team.
Most
had
no
idea
that
they
would
have
to
change
processes
and
procedures
to
benefit
from
UX.
28

29

30

I
know!
31

32

33

Service Lifecycle Phase Description Provides:
Investigation of users’ goals, objectives, tasks, and
Rich descriptions of users’ goals,
Contextual inquiry Ideation limitations/constraints; at the users’ place of business (or
motivations, environment.
other appropriate use context).
Task analysis Ideation Step-by-step, granular identification of users’ work tasks. Details of the users’ processes.
Detailed reports of real users; what they do, how they do it, A “library” of user profiles that can
User profiling Ideation
etc. be used to guide design.
An abstracted description of users, based on the attributes A “design target” specifying who
Persona creation Ideation
of real users. the design is aimed at.
Role/task matrix Additional details about who does what in a particular
Task/object matrix environment, as well as the importance of particular tasks. “Quasi”-quantitative information
Design
Task frequency & about users, roles, tasks, etc.
criticality ratings
Scenarios Designs describing the flow or transformation of information Information about how a design
Use cases Design through a system, and how the system and user interact should work in the “real world”
Process flows with each other. when implemented.
Early-phase usability Testing the process flows and scenarios to ensure that they Validation of the design and
Design meet real users’ needs.
testing correction opportunities.
A lo- or medium-fidelity representation of the feature or A working system that can be
Wireframes & Validation &
product. tested in late-phase usability
prototypes documentation
testing.
Validation & The formal, complete documentation of the feature or A specification to code and inspect
UI / interaction spec
documentation product’s user interface. against.
Validation & Formal documentation of the visual design for the product A specification to code and inspect
Visual design
documentation or feature. against.
Late-phase usability Validation & Usability testing using a working prototype or mockup. Validation of the design and
testing documentation correction opportunities.
Usability testing of a finished version of the product,
Summative usability End-of-cycle Information to feed into the next
measuring key indicators such as average time-on-task,
testing validation
error rate, etc.
lifecycle’s activities.
34

35

I
provided
crazy
amounts
of
templates,
data
sheets,
recruiting
forms,
report
formats,
etc.
Note:
when
you
steal
from
me,
you’re
stealing
twice…
36

37

Hire
at
least
3
direct
contributors
–
user
researcher/usability
analyst,
interaction
designer,
visual
designer
–
or
more,
depending
on
the
size
of
your
product.
Hiring
a
manager
or
a
director
is
also
highly
recommended.
38

Budget
for
between
US$10,000
and
US
$60,000
in
research
expenses,
depending
on
the
size
of
your
product
team
and
how
many
products
you
support.
39

You
can
spend
as
little
as
US$1,000
or
upwards
of
US$75,000
on
usability
and
user
research
equipment.
In
any
case,
build
the
team
and
budget
the
research
dollars
first.
40

Be
aware
that
you
will
HAVE
to
change
your
ideation,
design
and
development
processes
in
order
to
successfully
implement
user
experience.
If
you
don’t
explicitly
make
room
for
design
research,
ideation
and
iteration
in
your
processes,
you
will
not
be
successful
in
implementing
user
experience
practices.
41

42

Meh.
At
first,
anyway.
43

44

It
took
about
a
year.
But
eventually
the
product
groups
started
making
the
transition
to
more
fully
incorporating
UX
activities.
They
didn’t
always
go
as
far
as
my
team.
But
they
went
further
than
they
had
ever
gone
before.
45

 Strategic
user
experience
 Agile
and
other
methods
 How
to
deal
with
force
reductions
46

My
UX
kit
has
gaps.
It
doesn’t
cover
smaller
orgs
or
startups.
Use
at
your
own
risk!
47

Absolutely.
It
helped
several
teams
avoid
making
mistakes
that
organizations
typically
make
when
integrating
UX
teams
into
existing
processes.
48

49

Kit:
ShermanUX.com/Files/UXKit/UX_Kit_Jun09.doc
This
preso:
ShermanUX.com/Files/UXKit/UX_Kit_Jun09.pdf
50

What
are
your
experiences
doing
this
sort
of
thing?
51

Paul
Sherman
Sherman
Group
User
Experience
www.shermanux.com
paul@shermanux.com
Twitter:
pjsherman
52