Embedding usability from scratch

embedding usability from scratch
micheleide-smith

Our journey

1. create awareness
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveknapik/3411517704/

1. create awareness
Show evidence – quotes, analytics data, user testing clips
Focus on business benefits – phone transactions cost around £3.22, as compared to 27p on the web!
Show examples of good and bad design
Identify who you’re engaging or designing online services for
Issues:
We need customer profiling data to develop personas
Everyone is a web expert and usability is a buzzword

2. develop in-house skills
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/t0msk/3983980813/

2. develop in-house skills
Buy and share books, links etc.
Commit to some formal training
Attend free events e.g. Cambridge Usability Group
Write simple step-by-step guides e.g. cognitive walkthroughs
Use consultancy to fast track skills and increase capacity (but in a way that supports in-house teams)
Issues:
We lack hands on experience to turn theory into practise
UX takes time/focus - this is in addition to our day jobs

3. change process & governance

3. change process & governance
Fit UX into existing processes - Prince2 project management, Agile (SCRUM), procurement etc.
Aim to get usability built into all web projects (still working on this one!)
Show it works – build convincing case studies
Build UX into the project business case (cost savings)
Highlight what goes wrong when there’s no UX
Issues:
We need consistent measures e.g. task performance, conversion rates, satisfaction, emotional response
Business owners don’t appreciate the cost of poor design

4. establish a toolkit
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/capcase/2735500813/

Get a mobile usability lab – laptop, webcam, microphoneand Silverback or Morae
Get some sharpies and lots of post-its
Try out web tools that are free or cheap e.g. Loop11, Mockingbird, Crazy Egg
Issues:
Not easy to achieve in a ‘lockdown’ IT environment
Budget for tools is limited
4. establish a toolkit

5. dedicate resource
Illustrationredit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryhart/3964492825/

5. dedicate resource
We learnt that UX research and design is time consuming
Using a UX contractor helped demonstrate the value of dedicated resource, but budget is tight
I’ve skilled up our content team and project managers, but they struggle to do focused UX in addition to their day jobs
But from June, we’ll have a dedicated post 

Embedding usability from scratch

by Michele Ide-Smith on Apr 18, 2010

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