The User Experience Brief

The User Experience Brief
John Yesko
IA Summit 2011

About me
Now: Director of User Experience at Walgreens
Web!
1993
1995
2000
2005
2010
Information Architect / UX Designer
Web Designer
Medical Illustrator

User Experience at

User Experience at
UX group
Organized by lines of business
13 UX designers
Information architecture
Interaction design
Taxonomy
User research
Just announced deal to acquire Drugstore.com
60K more products
3M loyal customers
Several strong URLs/brands
Looking for experienced UX help in Chicago!
And small agencies

Basics

What is the UX brief?
Early-stage strategic approach document with two primary goals:
Summarizes what we know so far = output of Discovery process
Sets up how we intend to attack the project

Who is it for?
Stakeholders
Clients (external)
Business owners and executives (internal)
“Downstream” team
Creative
Technical

Where does it fit?
DISCOVERY
DESIGN
Delivery to Creative and Technical
Business Requirements Document
User Experience Team
UX Business Insight
UX Brief
Implementation / Product Assignment
UX Business Insight
User Flows *
User Flows and Wireframes: Conceptual
Wireframes: Detailed / Annotated
Input from Stakeholders
User Research
User Research
*Your process may vary

Why do we use it?
To get a head start on building consensus
To discover any early “red flags”
As a touch point to reference later (CYA)

Composition of the Brief

What’s in the UX brief?
“Master” content outline includes:
Project overview
User experience inputs
Organizing principles
Deliverables
Issues and risks
Tailored to the particular project
Varies in length depending on needs (and audience’s attention span)
Often doesn’t include every possible element

User Experience Inputs

User experience inputs—what we know
Insights from:
Analytics
User research
Competitive
Stakeholders
User experience / heuristic

Inputs
Analytics insights
Statistics
Survey results
Other metrics
Customer satisfaction
On-site behavior
5%
21%
6%
16%
4%
11%

Inputs
User research insights
Usability tests
Card sorting
Surveys
“I can’t find where to refill my prescription.”
“THIS APP SUCKS!!! IT DOESN'T BRING UP MY PHOTO ALBUMS...WALGREENS, I USED TO WORK FOR YOU, I BUY YOUR CRAP, SO GET YOUR [EXPLETIVE]TOGETHER!!!”
“Let me finish my primary task first—then I’m OK with being upsold.”
“No additional features - the Home page is so crowded now that I want to give up now rather than slog through the ads and options for what I'm after…”
@heyhiLindsay
“[Expletive] just ordered a calender on walgreens.com and it was literally the hardest thing I've ever done in awhile, [expletive] that.”

Inputs
Personas and scenarios
May be developed specifically for larger / longer-term projects
Existing “approved” personas can be referenced where applicable
Scenarios may reflect requirements and preview functionality

Inputs
Competitive insights
Best practices
Opportunities to fill a missing need
Emerging standards, e.g., common functionality or taxonomy

Inputs
Stakeholder insights
Goals and challenges from those sponsoring the project
Consensus, or alliances on controversial topics
“We have a great story to tell. We need rich case studies to show what we’ve done in the past.”
“Booking appointments online is great, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we can get them into the shop right away when they show up.”
“When a potential customer sends an email inquiry through the site, it typically gets shuffled around to five or six people. We don’t have any way to track whether it’s been followed up.”

Inputs
User experience / heuristic insights
Observations from the UX team
May be hypotheses, not yet proven by user research (or unprovable)
Potentially confusing category labels
Inefficient global navigation

Inputs
Stupid elevator buttons

Organizing Principles

What are organizing principles?
Loosely interpreted:
Fundamentals and strategies we will observe while designing
Major areas of UX focus
High-level design approach
Range from general to specific
Generic UX guidelines
Project-specific design ideas
General
Specific

May include other “deliverables”:
Concept map
User flow
High-level wireframes
Suggestions of look and feel (e.g., mood boards)

Examples from several diverse projects…

Examples
Really means…
There will be several influences, but we’re ultimately making the decision.
Leverage multiple inputs to taxonomy design
Industry Standards
New
Taxonomy
Internal Business Insight
User Experience Team Analysis
User Research

Examples
Really means…
We care most about what customers think of our higher-level taxonomy. Once we get down to the deeper levels, we need the internal team to make decisions—because it’s harder to test (and it’s a lot of work.)
Leverage multiple inputs to taxonomy design
The inputs will have different levels of influence at various levels of the taxonomy.
User Research
Internal Insight
Influence
Industry Standards
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4

Examples
Really means…
If we can’t figure this out pretty soon, it will be hard to proceed with the UX design at all. We’ll give you our opinions, but it’s primarily a business decision that we don’t have authority to make.
Establish the online relationship among the three brands

Examples
Really means…
There are parts of the site that we’re not going to touch—but others that we need access to and cooperation on.
Position the holiday content as free-standing, but with key hooks into permanent site features

Examples
Really means…
Just what is says—this one is more about a design philosophy.
Treat the product as the core, and organize the site around it

Examples
Really means…
We’re getting rid of all this crap that you all fight over, but users don’t care about.
Eliminate underused or poor-performing content
Candidates
Low usage; poor content
Low usage; poor labeling
May be consolidated
Low usage; especially frames 2-5
Low usage; redundant

Examples
Really means…
You came to us for a re-design of your site, and we’re doing that. But your main call-to-action is that users should contact you to establish a relationship. If you screw that up, it doesn’t matter how good the site is.
By the way, we don’t do CRM systems—this isn’t an upsell.
Develop a lead management / CRM solution

Examples
Really means…
This is a multi-channel experience (even though we’re only working on one channel). If we promise something on the Web that the in-store experience doesn’t follow through on, both are screwed.
Adapt store operations to integrate with eCommerce

Examples
Really means…
There’s a real “cool factor” with your work, but your 100x100 pixel graphics aren’t cutting it.
Also we have a bunch of visual designers with hipster glasses who get tired of combing through stock photo sites.
Leverage the rich visual nature of the company’s work

Examples
Really means…
This kind of shopping is still new to a lot of people. If they don’t understand the overall concept, it won’t matter how usable the site is.
Introduce customers to the concept of buying online, not just buying from us
1
2
3
4
5
Make an appointment at one of our certified installers
Go in for your installation appointment, and you’re done!
We ship your tires to the installer
Choose your tires
Check out online

Examples
Really means…
We’re going to expand the use of dynamic menus.
Expand the use of dynamic menus
Fly-out menus can empower more direct user navigation to deeper content and functionality
Accessibility and mobile device limitations need to be considered
Pharmacy
Refill Prescriptions
Transfer Prescriptions
New Prescriptions
Express Refills In-Store
Chat With a Pharmacist
Automatic Refills
Example

Considerations

Risks and limitations
May quickly become out-of-date as details are fleshed out
Approach evolves as design details are worked out
Treat as a “snapshot” in time
Can create a perception of added time that could be spent designing
Although it probably saves time in the long run
Stakeholders may not understand what they’re agreeing to
Can be too abstract for some to provide meaningful feedback
May not engage until they’re seeing design treatments

Wrap up
Helps survey the situation
Who has strong opinions? How much weight do we need to give them?
What factions are going to clash?
What important issues may have been missed?
Encourages collaboration early (or at least healthy discussion)
Can save time defending solutions later
Winning over key allies can smooth the road
Builds credibility for UX
Demonstrates that a lot goes into the design process
Positions us as strategic thinkers and experience planners, not order-takers

Thank You
John Yesko
www.yesko.com
@jyesko

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The User Experience Brief

by John Yesko on Apr 05, 2011

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The User Experience Brief — Presentation Transcript