This document summarizes a presentation on integrating user experience (UX) into an organization. The presentation covers starting UX efforts now using low-cost methods like observations, card sorting, and usability testing. It addresses common arguments against UX like time, money and lack of need. The presentation stresses showing results to gain support, creating information radiators, and building internal evangelists. Overall it provides guidance on launching and growing a UX practice within an existing organization.

1. CodeMash 2012
January 13, 2012
SELLING

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

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

3. Why not do UX?

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

5. Start Now!

6. UX METHODS
•Observations and Interviews
•Card Sorting
•Usability Testing
Page 6

7. 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
• Goals
Page 7

8. Artifacts!
Collect, Copy, Photograph
Page 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/

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

10. 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/

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

12. Show Off & Sell UX

13. 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/

14. 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
• Design
Page 14

15. Sam Peterson
Editor, Math Specialist, 5 Years Experience
Technology Goal
• Does personal banking, shopping • Improve the educational system by
and email online making great courses for teachers and
students
Concerns 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.

16. 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 solutions
Page 16

17. 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/

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

19. 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
manner
Page 19

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

21. 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 dislikes
Page 21

22. 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.html
Page 22
Bias, Randolph, G. and Deborah J. Mayhew. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. 2005.

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

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

25. 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

26. 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/

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

28. 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, 1994
Page 28
http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/roi_of_usability.html

29. We have a survey set up
We are getting data from it
Why would we need anything
more?

30. 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 too
Page 30

31. 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

32. Don’t we need to test
100s of users to get real
results?

33. 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.html
Page 33
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users. March 19, 2000.

34. 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 findings
Page 34

35. 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 defined
Page 35 Albert, Bill and Tom Tullis. Measuring the User Experience. 2008. pg. 119

36. 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 learned
Page 36

37. 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 findings
Page 37

38. 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: A
Page 38
Practitioner’s Guide” by Macefield. Journal of Usability Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.

39. 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.

40. 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-person
Page 40

41. Create Evangelists

42. 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 online
Page 42

43. 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 UX
Page 43

44. 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 within
Page 44

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

46. 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 develop
Page 46
From A Practical Guide to Usability Testing by Joseph Dumas and Janice Redish, 1999. Page 18.

47. 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.D
Page 47
http://www.developer.nokia.com/Design/Usability_evangelism.xhtml

48. Who Benefits from UX?

49. 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/

50. RECOMMENDED READINGS
Page 50
5

51. C O N TA C T C A R O L
@carologic
Email: Carol.Smith@perficient.com
slideshare.net/carologic
and
slideshare.net/PerficientInc
speakerrate.com/speakers/15585-caroljsmith
Page 51

52. REFERENCES
•Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age, Randolph G. Bias and
Deborah J. Mayhew
•The $300 Million Button by Jared Spool
•Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users. March
19, 2000.
•Measuring the User Experience by Bill Albert and Tom Tullis
•Usability Evangelism: Beneficial or Land Grab? by Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D
•http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/roi_of_
usability.html
•Molich, Rolf. A Critique of “How to Specify the Participant Group Size for
Usability Studies: A Practitioner’s Guide” by Macefield. Journal of Usability
Studies. Vol. 5, Issue 3, May 2010. pg. 124-128.
Page 52