Selling UX at CodeMash 2012

CodeMash 2012 January 13, 2012SELLING  BRING THE USERS: I N T E G R AT I N G U X I N T O Y O U R O R G A N I Z AT I O N PRESENTED BY CAROL SMITH @CAROLOGIC

I N T E G R AT I N G U X 1. Start Now! 2. Show Off & Sell UX 3. Create EvangelistsPage 2

Why not do UX?

ARGUMENTS AGAINST UX •Time •Money •Can’t talk to our Customers •Liability •Not needed •Invisible ROIPage 4

Start Now!

UX METHODS •Observations and Interviews •Card Sorting •Usability TestingPage 6

O B S E R VAT I O N S & I N T E R V I E W S Learn about: • User’s environment • Real process • Interruptions • Attitudes and opinions • Problems • GoalsPage 7

Artifacts! Collect, Copy, PhotographPage 8 http://www.flickr.com/photos/heygabe/ via http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ Actual Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heygabe/47206241/

CARD SORTING Use to determine: • Order of information • Relationships • Labels for navigation • Verify correct audiencePage 9 http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/ via http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

USABILITY TESTING •Real users doing real tasks •Using prototypes or live products •Not guided, but observed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaelquinet/513351385/sizes/l/in/photostream/Page 10 http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaelquinet/

CONGRATULATIONS!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/13010608@N02/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/13010608@N02/2441933336/sizes/z/in/photostreamPage 11 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

Show Off & Sell UX

SHARE WHAT YOU LEARN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/Page 13 http://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/5542172347/sizes/l/in/photostream/

I N F O R M AT I O N R A D I AT O R S •Represent research •Facilitate: • communication • decision-making •Guide decisions about: • Navigation • Features • DesignPage 14

Sam PetersonEditor, Math Specialist, 5 Years ExperienceTechnology Goal• Does personal banking, shopping • Improve the educational system by and email online making great courses for teachers and studentsConcerns Responsibilities• Needs a good tool for tracking all of the • Manages many different projects at once assets for each of his projects • Manages a great group of freelancers• Too much time is spent fixing previous allowing him to focus on other things projects instead of working on current ones • Keeps track of many separate assets for• Resigned to having to go back and forth each project with the publisher a few times to get • Checks work before passing it on to the everything just right publisherSam is 29 years old and lives in New Albany, OH. “I need helpHe has a BS in Mathematics from Ohio State University where he also took keeping track of organizational psychology courses and found that he enjoyed management all of the assets challenges. for each of myHe has never been interested in teaching, but wants to improve the educational projects.” system. When he saw a job opening at an educational company he felt that it would be a great opportunity to do just that.Sam says despite the frustrations, his company is great to work for and the benefits can’t be beat.He isn’t sure what is next for his career - he has taken some training that has been offered but is not currently interested in taking on new responsibilities.

GOALS OF SHARING •You learned something! •Help the team: • understand user’s point of view • prioritize content and solutions • design for user’s needs and behaviors • identify new opportunities • create new solutionsPage 16

SKEPTICS MIGHT ASK http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppini/3211910657/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppini/Page 17 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

OUR DESIGN HAS WON AWARDS, WHY WOULD WE WANT TO CHANGE IT?Page 18

WHY CHANGE? •Visual appearance is important •Must also be usable •Even the best visual design won’t succeed if: • Users can’t use it • Doesn’t help complete their tasks in a timely and efficient mannerPage 19

More than 83% of Internetusers are likely to leavea Web site if…too many clicks to findwhat they’re looking for.- Arthur Andersen, 2001 Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

SAME AS A FOCUS GROUP? Focus Group Usability Studies • Recall what they did • Observe actual process, step (may leave out steps by step, including successes or miss-remember) and difficulties • Louder individuals and/or • Equity among participants strong opinions in a session • Finds patterns of behavior can skew results • Finds preferences of users, likes and dislikesPage 21

RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI) •Usability techniques allowed a high-tech company to reduce the time spent on one tedious development task by 40%. (Bias & Mayhew, 1994) •Cost-benefit ratio for usability is $1 : $10-$100 (Gilb, 1988) •Small increments of time, counted over hundreds of employees, can result in huge savings. http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/roi_of_usability.htmlPage 22 Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

Once a system is in development,correcting a problemcosts 10 times as muchas fixing the same problem in design.If the system had been released,it costs 100 times as muchrelative to fixing in design. - Gilb, 1988 Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

“If you dedicate at least 10percent of your project budget tousability activities, you will see anaverage of 135 percentimprovement in usability"- Jakob Nielsen, principal, NielsenNorman Group, 2003http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/financial/5670570-1.html All Business. Dated:Jan. 8, 2003

ROI (CONTINUED) Small things can make a big difference • $300,000,000 Button • Can’t provide right recommendations without observing and talking with the customers Spool, Jared. The $300 Million Button. January 14, 2009.Page 25 http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/ Button: BD Create

WE KNOW IT’S DIFFICULT, WE HAVE A TRAINING PROGRAM! http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/5181464194/sizes/o/in/photostream/Page 26 http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/

TRAINING •Costs additional time and money •Usually less costly to find and correct issues in design than to provide training to work around the problemPage 27

TRAINING •How much is their time worth? • 1 Hour of training? • 1 Day of training? • 1 Week of training? •Company was able to eliminate training and save $140,000 •AT&T saved $2,500,000 in training expenses Bias & Mayhew, 1994Page 28 http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/roi_of_usability.html

We have a survey set upWe are getting data from itWhy would we need anythingmore?

SURVEYS •Survey questions are an art-form •Words can have multiple meanings and un-intended meanings •Self reporting cannot be trusted •People “save face” • Not that bad, my fault • I’m sure that’s great tooPage 30

HOW ABOUT OUR EMPLOYEES? •Easy to test people within this company •Not the way to get good results •Too close to the project • Know things others wouldn’t about product •Concerns about ego, job, co-workers, etc. •Not the intended user!Page 31

Don’t we need to test100s of users to get realresults?

N U M B E R O F PA R T I C I PA N T S Studies have shown that testing 5 representative users of each user type will reveal ~80% of usability issues. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.htmlPage 33 Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users. March 19, 2000.

L O O K F O R PAT T E R N S • Statistical significance is not feasible • ROI would diminish entirely • Identify repetition • After pattern is found, continuation of study: • Adds cost • Delays reporting • Low probability of many new findingsPage 34

CONTROVERSY OF 5 USERS •Not enough to uncover 80% of issues. •Spool and Schroeder in 2001 found that only 35% of usability issues were uncovered with 5 participants • Not enough to take into account individual differences • Scope of the website being evaluated was very large even though the task was well definedPage 35 Albert, Bill and Tom Tullis. Measuring the User Experience. 2008. pg. 119

W H AT T H I S M E A N S •Very specific user group - 5 works • Must know your user and recruit carefully •Less well defined groups require more users (8-15 or more) •Budget for 15, do three tests with 5 users • Catch mistakes early and often • Redesign using what you’ve learnedPage 36

D O E S N O T M E A N T H AT … •Testing five users is always enough •Can test anyone and have the same results •Smaller groups equate better findingsPage 37

N U M B E R O F PA R T I C I PA N T S D E P E N D S O N PURPOSE Main Purpose Explanation # of Participants Convincing skeptics Demonstrate that serious usability 3 problems exist in their product and effectiveness of usability testing. Find serious problems Drive a useful iterative cycle: Find 9-12 serious problems, correct them, find more serious problems. Find all serious Find all serious usability problems Unknown problems Find all problems Find all usability problems Unknown Measure Usability Measure key usability parameters, >20 (time to complete key tasks, user satisfaction, etc.) Adapted from: Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group Size for Usability Studies: APage 38 Practitioner’s Guide” by Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.

IF TEST QUALITY IS POOR, GROUP SIZE D O E S N ’ T M AT T E R •Uneven or poor facilitation •Invalid test tasks •Poor use of the "think aloud" methodology •"Results of usability tests depend considerably on the evaluator" - Jacobsen and Hertzum, 2001 Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group Size for Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide”Page 39 by Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.

1 0 WAY S T O P R O M O T E U X 1. Invite everyone to observe via remote observation 2. Schedule testing at a regular time 3. Promote availability of testing internally (Yammer) 4. Network within organization and share what you do 5. Hold Brownbag sessions 6. Invite staff to local UX events 7. Share recommendations and successes widely 8. Post information radiators in shared locations 9. Hold a World Usability Day Event 10. Invite everyone to observe UX sessions in-personPage 40

Create Evangelists

WHO IS ALREADY THERE? •Pay attention to who approaches you. •Look for your comrades •May not be in your area of the organization •Make time to chat with them • Share recent articles about UX • Invite to a UX event locally • Invite to join LinkedIn or other groups onlinePage 42

C R E AT E N E W E VA N G E L I S T S •Use promotions to find new evangelists •Remind everyone of successes •Provide templates for planning that include UX activities •Provide highlights and/or reports that will help them sell UXPage 43

B U I L D U X I N T H E O R G A N I Z AT I O N •Find a C-level person who could be a supporter • Get their support for a small study • Invite them to sessions • Make sure they see benefits gained • Remind them of this next time •Build department from withinPage 44

U N D E R S TA N D U X •Help everyone understand shared goals: • Increase sales • Save time and money • Create happy customersPage 45

B E N E F I T T O C O M PA N I E S •Sell more product and discover unmet needs •Enhance company’s reputation •Save money on internal products •Reduce: • Support costs • Training costs • Need for updates and maintenance releases •Make documentation and training easier to developPage 46 From A Practical Guide to Usability Testing by Joseph Dumas and Janice Redish, 1999. Page 18.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE “Customers are the only stakeholders who are not represented in design meetings. If it hurts users and will cause customers to leave? Silence. Unless you speak up. So do it.” -Jakob Nielsen Usability Evangelism: Beneficial or Land Grab? By Jakob Nielsen, Ph.DPage 47 http://www.developer.nokia.com/Design/Usability_evangelism.xhtml

Who Benefits from UX?

EVERYONE! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/Page 49 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/613445810/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Selling UX at CodeMash 2012

by Carol Smith

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