StUX - IA Summit 2005 - Peter Boersma

Peter Boersma Senior Information Architect for EzGov [email_address] IA Summit 2005, Montréal, Canada, Sunday March 6, 4:15 – 5:00PM This StUX! integrating IA deliverables in a web application development methodology

Peter Boersma, EzGov
Senior Information Architect EzGov European headquarters in Amsterdam.
Training in Human Computer Interaction, combined with 10 years of experience with analysis, structuring, functional design, UI design, and evaluation of online, interactive applications.
Active member of local and international HCI/IA/UX networks; organized and presented at information architecture and usability related conferences.
Peter organizes IA Cocktail Hours in Amsterdam.
[Beep] ( http://www.peterboersma.com/blog ).

Agenda
Who’s EzGov, and what’s RUP? 5 min
RUP isn’t enough 5 min
EzGov’s fix: StUX 5 min
Promoting StUX 5 min
Impact and future of StUX 5 min
Lessons Learned 5 min
Examples of other approaches 5 min
Discussion 10 min

EzGov transforming the business of government
EzGov [easy gov], e-Government Technology Specialists since 1999, designs, delivers and maintains transactional web applications .
offices: Atlanta, Washington, Amsterdam, London
services: Consultancy, Design, Development, Hosting, Training, Partner Program
software: FlexFoundation® core, business transaction manager, developer studio, payment & gateway plug-ins
clients: USA Customs & Excise Immigration and Naturalization Services (DoHS) Small Business Administration State agencies (Georgia, Mississippi) UK Inland Revenue Department of Work and Pensions Justice Department

EzGov organizational chart User Experience Solutions Engineering Quality Assurance Product Mgmt. Sales & Marketing People & Finance Delivery Mgmt. Mgmt. Team Service Delivery

EzGov organizational chart User Experience Solutions Engineering Quality Assurance Product Mgmt. Sales & Marketing People & Finance Delivery Mgmt. Mgmt. Team Service Delivery 5 20 70 10 15 8 14 40 8

UX department responsibilities
The User Experience department works on:
Requirements Gathering
Content Analysis
Information Architecture
Interaction Design
Information Design
Visual Design
Usability Evaluation

EzGov uses Rational Unified Process (RUP)

RUP = a software development methodology
IBM’s Rational Unified process (RUP) is a configurable software development process platform.
RUP is iterative (phases & iterations) and role-based (disciplines)
Includes software tools to change the default process, add corporate knowledge, and view & distribute the results.
Nobody uses the tools , but everyone uses the artifact templates .

RUP isn’t enough

RUP doesn’t support User Centered Design
“ User experience and interface design in the context of creating software represents an approach that puts the user, rather than the system, at the center of the process. This philosophy, called user-centered design, incorporates user concerns and advocacy from the beginning of the design process and dictates the needs of the user should be foremost in any design decisions.”
From Microsoft’s MSDN Library, User Interface Design and Development section at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/anch_uidesigndev.asp

RUP isn’t enough
The Rational Unified Process (RUP) was not developed for front-end heavy projects: “For systems with a significant amount of user interaction, the development team should also create a UX model and storyboards within that discipline. This integrates usability concerns into the RUP development approach.” From “ User experience storyboards: Building better UIs with RUP, UML, and use cases ”, Jim Heumann, Requirements Evangelist, IBM Rational

RUP’s UX Model isn’t enough
Rational’s fix, the User Experience model, was not developed to model the non-technical aspects of the user experience: “User-Experience (UX) modeling [...] is used to describe the technology aspects of the user’s interaction with a Web-based system.” From “ Transforming User Experience Model To Presentation Layer Implementations” , Wojtek Kozaczynski ( [email_address] ), Jim Thario ( [email_address] ), Rational Software Corporation, USA

EzGov’s Fix: StUX

EzGov’s non-technical additions to RUP
EzGov added non-technical roles and deliverables :
Main roles: Information Architect, Visual Designer (but also: system analyst, usability & accessibility planner/tester, content designer, interaction designer, information designer)
Main deliverables: Screenflows, Wireframes, Mockups (but also: field-level requirements, personas, usability test strategy, content inventory, visual elements, styleguide, and more)
We mapped these user-centered design roles to the RUP process and described the deliverables and their relationships, leading to EzGov’s Standards for User Experience (StUX)

StUX = deliverables diagram and descriptions

StUX deliverables diagram (1/3)
Maps deliverables to RUP phases Deliverables are either mandatory for projects (solid line) or optional (dotted line)
Shows input/output relationships Relationships are either implied (horizontally aligned) or explicit across roles (arrows)

Integrates standard RUP artifacts with EzGov UX artifacts

Defines non-technical competencies, spanning three EzGov job-descriptions
Systems Analyst Requirements gathering and management, mostly RUP-based
Information Architect information architecture, interaction design 1 , usability & accessibility testing, content design
Visual Designer visual design, information design, interaction design 1
(1) shared between Information Architect and Visual Designer

StUX deliverables descriptions (1/2)
One-page description for each of the 28 (*) deliverables:
Place in process owner, phase, input/output, etc.
Contents goal, description & detailed contents
Quality aspects reviewers, signoff
Pointers templates & instructions (under construction)
(*) or 41 if you count different versions for different phases

StUX deliverables descriptions (2/2)
Inception Phase Deliverables - Vision, Use Case Model, Supplementary Specification - Glossary, Use Cases, Requirements Management Plan - Interaction, Usability, Accessibility, Content & Visual Requirements - Task Analysis, Personas, Scenarios - Content Inventory, Screenflows - Usability Test Strategy, Test Plan, Test Report - Moodboard, Concept Presentation
Elaboration Phase Deliverables - Field-Level Requirements, Requirements Reports - Visual Elements, Mockups - Wireframes, J-Flow - Style Guide
Some deliverables appear/develop in different phases, e.g. “high risk screenflows” are developed in Inception, “all screenflows” are developed in Elaboration.

Introducing StUX to the company

StUX design process (first 2 years)
Initial inventory (Q4 2002) - brownpaper + post-it™s - inventory of artifacts - suggestions for order in the design process
Diagram design & evaluation (Q4 2003) - small team sets up diagram design - small team of seniors evaluate order
Descriptions writing & evaluation (Q2 2004) - small team writes descriptions, fine-tunes diagram - larger team collectively reviews descriptions
Promotion materials (Q3 2004) - small team designs promotional artifacts - display in public spaces - slowly incorporated in overall process

StUX promotion materials (1/2)
The UX department developed these materials:
Three posters with deliverables by System Analysts, Information Architects, Visual Designers

StUX promotion materials (2/2)
A poster of the Deliverables Diagram

StUX Impact & Future

EzGov organizational chart (zoomed in) Information Architects Visual Designers Solutions Engineering Delivery Mgmt. Quality Assurance Systems Analysts Service Delivery User Experience

StUX impact
UX Department
speak the same language
develop consistent deliverables
have access to examples
Delivery Managers, Solutions Engineers, QA-people
use consistent deliverables
know what to expect in new projects
begin to speak our language
Sales, Management
see our posters, are getting curious
begin to speak (but abuse) our language
use sample deliverables & process in pitch materials

StUX future
UX Department
improve templates from examples
develop metrics & measure
improve estimates based on measurements
Delivery Managers, Solutions Engineers, QA-people
speak our language
improve our deliverables
link processes together
Sales, Management
stop abusing our language
develop business cases for UX
use UX as differentiator

Lessons Learned

What can you do?
Don’t copy our diagram/deliverables the value is in creating your own, with your people
Set up your own standards team a few motivated people with some spare time is all it takes
This should scale up & down the only limitation is paper size, and that can be fixed by taping pieces together
It will take time brainstorming, consolidating, documenting, deciding on name conventions, endless tweaking to make it clear, promotion, etc.

Others have done it before
In-house:
AOL/Netscape (USA)
PeopleSoft (USA)
Nose (Switzerland)
Rabobank (The Netherlands)
Brooks Automation (USA)
Consultants:
Satama (Finland)
IconProcess (USA)
Cooper (USA)
Tools:
Stencils for UCD activities and deliverables

AOL/Netscape
Specified relationships between deliverables, as well as conventions (styleguides) for deliverables.
http://www.leacock.com/deliverables/

PeopleSoft
http://www.visualvocab.com/projects/peoplesoftuescm.html

Nose
Document with high-level overview for customers. Interpretation of RUP.
http://www43.nose.ch/nose/ref_portfolio.php?id=3

Rabobank (no, not Rob-a-bank)
Just started working with standardized list of deliverables, selecting a set for each project. Gathering examples, mapping to both RUP and SDM methods. thanks to Joris van Gaal

Brooks Automation Inc.
Standard Operating Procedures specified in document “Usability in Software Projects”. Described roles, tasks, outputs and high-level metrics. Based on Agile/XP approach.
thanks to Bruce Brolsma

Satama
Extra Phase, extra role. Booklet with all deliverables. Training materials. Intranet with templates and examples for deliverables. (disclaimer: I managed the development of this at Satama at some point)
http://www.satama.com/english/index/How_we_do_it/Basis_of_operations/Process.html

IconProcess.com

Cooper http://www.cooper.com/content/why_cooper/the_process.asp

Tool: Omnigraffe stencils for UCD
“ These two stencils were created to help communicate user-centered design activities and proposals to clients and development teams.” thanks to Todd Zazelenchuk and Elizabeth Boling

Summary

What can you do?
Don’t copy our diagram/deliverables the value is in creating your own, with your people
Set up your own standards team a few motivated people is all it takes
This should scale up & down the only limitation is paper size, and that can be fixed by taping pieces together
It will take time brainstorming, consolidating, documenting, deciding on name conventions, endless tweaking to make it clear, promotion, etc.

Questions?
Peter Boersma Senior Information Architect EzGov De Schinkel Rijnsburgstraat 11 1059 AT Amsterdam [email_address] http://www.peterboersma.com

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