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Life as a UX consultant
This document provides an overview of life as a UX consultant at System Concepts, including examples of projects they work on and the typical stages of a project. It discusses how System Concepts provides UX, usability, and accessibility consulting services, including user research methods like testing, surveys, and workshops. Two examples of projects are described: developing a financial support tool from initial user research and discovery, and evaluating a prototype for catching up on TV shows. The stages of a typical project are outlined as pre-project planning, analysis, conducting research, and delivering findings. The document concludes with a proposed mock project and questions for the audience.
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Life as a UX consultant
- 1. Life as aUX Consultant UCL - HCI-E Practice Seminar Sophie Buda 1 March 2016 @sophie_buda @SystemConcepts
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- 3. Contents • UX atSystem Concepts • Examples of projects • Stages of a project • Try it out! • Questions
- 4. UX at SystemConcepts
- 5. System Concepts UX, usability,acessibility Health, safety and ergonomics
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- 7. What we do ConsultancyOn-site resource Training courses
- 8. Services User testing Requirements capture Diarystudies Quantitative surveys Workshops Focus groups In-context research Accessibility audit and testing Expert reviews Interaction design Wireframes Full designs Competitor benchmarking Writing policies and guidelines UX Ergonomics Selection of new equipment Product design & testing Ergonomics & accessibility audits of premises Procurement ergonomics Office layout and designDSE assessments
- 9. Some of ourclients
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- 11. Product: Financial support tool Devstage: No existing service Question(s): What do our target user need and how do we build it?
- 12. Discovery phase Product: Financial supporttool Dev stage: No existing service Question(s): What do our target user need and how do we build it? What we did User research Client workshops User needs Personas User journeys
- 13. Discovery phase Product: Financial supporttool Dev stage: No existing service Question(s): What do our target user need and how do we build it? What we did User research Client workshops User needs Personas User journeys Alpha phase Card sorting Wireframes Guerrilla testing High-fi prototype Lab testing
- 14. Product: Tool to catch-upon dramas Dev stage: Live HTML prototype Question(s): Is this tool useful? Would people use it in the long run?
- 15. Product: Tool to catch-upon dramas Dev stage: Live HTML prototype Question(s): Is this tool useful? Would people use it in the long run? What we did Diary study & follow-up interviews Face-to- face briefing Participants use the tool and write about it One-to-one follow-up interviews Report with issues and recommendations Presentation and discussion to decide what to do next
- 16. Stages of aproject
- 17. Pre-project Submit proposal Plan the approach Receive request for proposal …and thenwait … • Appropriate methods and techniques • Available resources and budget • Deadlines
- 18. Analyse the data Conduct the study Kick-off meeting Deliver findings Oncewe’ve been commissioned • Understand: The product The requirements
- 19. Deliverables Video highlights Maps Presentations Workshops User-generated material Visualreports Personas WireframesStoryboards Charts Photos Sketches High-fidelity prototypes Prioritised recommendations
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- 21. Product: Mobile application tobook a trip, save the trip details, rate your experiences (hotel, restaurants, activities), upload pictures, etc. Dev stage: Functional prototype Question(s): Is the app usable and engaging? Would people use it during their trip?
- 22. Research approach? Why? Mainproject steps? Resources required for each step? Schedule? Think about: Number of participants and participant profiles Length and structure of the study Sort of data to collect Deliverables Number of days the UX consultant(s) will have to work on this project Product: Mobile application to book a trip, save the trip details, rate your experiences (hotel, restaurants, activities), upload pictures, etc. Dev stage: Functional prototype Question(s): Is the app usable and engaging? Would people use it during their trip? What would you propose?
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- 24. Sophie Buda Sophie@system-concepts.com 020 72403388 www.system-concepts.com @sophie_buda @SystemConcepts
Editor's Notes
- #2 Hello! Thank you for coming in today! My name is Sophie and I’m here to tell you about what it’s like to be a UX consultant.
- #3 Before starting let me quickly tell you a little bit about me. I’m French (in case you hadn’t already noticed!), and I studied Computer Science and HCI. I’ve been working in UX for a little bit more than 2 years. I’ve started my career in a very large software company in the travel industry, before moving to System Concepts. This means I know what it’s like to be on “client” side and on agency side so if you have any questions about the difference between the two, do not hesitate to ask at the end of the presentation!
- #4 Today I’ll tell you about what UX is like in an agency like mine, give you a few examples of projects, explain how we handle projects in general, and them I’ve got a little challenge for you!
- #5 Ok, so let’s start by talking about what UX is like in an agency…. To do that, first, I need to tell you a little bit more about my agency….
- #6 The agency I work for is called System Concepts, and at System Concepts, we actually have two separate service streams: UX and usability…. that’s what I do! And Health and Safety and Ergonomics Some of my colleagues work on both the UX and Ergonomics sides.
- #7 We’re quite a small agency of about 30 people. Several of my colleagues actually studied here. The team is really diverse, in terms of age, country of origin and background. The company is well established and reputed. And because the company is small, it’s a really a nice place to work, where people care about you and helping you to grow your skill set and confidence.
- #8 So, as a consultant in my company, the things you can do are: Work on specific projects for our clients, usually for a small period of time, typically from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 months You can also work long-term at the client’s offices And you can also deliver training courses
- #9 We offer a wide range of services, which is good when you are new to the field because you get to try out everything! Hopefully we will have some time for questions at the end of the presentation so if you have any questions about how we deliver any of those thing and how it can be different from Uni projects write it down and we will discuss it later
- #10 One of the other nice things when you work on agency side is that you get to work with all kind of companies, small and big, and you can get to work across different fields. So you might be working on a cute video game for kids one week, and the next week you might be doing something totally different, like a financial service or a software used by scientists.
- #11 Speaking of which, I want to share a few examples of projects with you, so you can get an idea of what the work is really like…
- #12 The first project I want to tell you about is the one I’m actually working on at the moment. A few months ago, a company came to us to help them create a digital service to offer financial support to people. What happened is that they had tried to do it on their own and it did not work as expected. When they tested what they had done, the feedback from users was really negative, so they realized they needed to start from scratch and be more user-centred this time. So what we decided to do for them was….
- #13 First, we went out to interview users across the UK and gain a better understanding of what they needed. Then, we conducted a series of workshops with our clients, who were very keen to be involved in all the stages. What is challenging with those kind of workshops, when you’re an external consultant, is that you do not always now what the profile of the people attending is. So you’ve got to be ready to explain why things need to be done in a certain way, like why it’s important not to mix user needs and business requirements. We conducted those workshops to deliver 3 things: A list of user needs Some personas And some basic user journeys Then, we were ready to move on to the next phase…
- #14 This time, we started with some card sorting exercises to help us precise our solutions. Then, we started creating very quick wireframes that went out for rapid testing, and started iterating. The next phase was pretty much the same, except that this time we built an interactive prototype in Axure, and we did our testing in labs.
- #15 The next project I want to tell you about is one where we got asked to work on a website to help people catch-up on dramas without having to watch all of the episodes they missed. Our client wanted to know if the tool was working, it is was useful, and also if people would really use it. That’s sometime a bit hard to tell from a one-hour lab session, so what we did was ….
- #16 To do a diary study so we could get data on a longer period and see what people would really do. We started with a face-to-face briefing with our participant to explain how the study was going to work but also to get them involved, because it’s always better when they know who they are talking to. Then they had to use the tool and write their blogs. Some people got really into using the tool, while other clearly would not have gone on the website more than once or twice in total. Then we invited people back for some follow-up interviews, which is always useful to clarify their thoughts on the product. We produced a report for our client, and then we presented the findings to a wider audience at our client’s offices and discussed with them where they should be taking the product next…
- #17 Ok, so now you know a bit more about what projects can be like, let’s talk about the different stages in a project
- #18 No matter what project we are working on, we tend to roughly follow the same stages. It all starts when we receive a request for proposal or an enquiry. If we decide to go ahead and submit a proposal, we need to plan out the whole approach, and think in details about the methods and techniques that we want to use. We also need to make sure that we can meet the client’s deadlines, that we have enough people free at the right time to work on the project (usually 2), and that what we want to do will fit the budget. Obviously, working on a proposal can be frustrating: you get very exited about a project but there’s no guarantee that: A - your agency will win the project B - you will end up working on it
- #19 If we win a project, the steps are always more or less the same as well: First we hold a Kick-off meeting: it’s essential to make sure we have a good understanding of what the clients want Then we conduct the study: that’s usually the exciting part ;) Afterwards we analyse the data: that’s the not so exciting part ;)
- #20 And then we deliver findings / recommendations. That can have various forms: it can be reports, presentation, workshop, materials, etc
- #21 Ok, so we have some time left, and I have a little challenge for you. I would like you to imagine that you are UX Consultants, and you’ve just received a brief ….
- #22 It’s from a company that made a new app that allows you to book your trip, save all your boarding passes and stuff and rate everything in your trip as you go along. |This company would like to know if: Their app is usable If it’s engaging If people would actually use it during their trip or if they would only rate things and upload pictures once they get back home. Right, so if you could split in team of 3, 4 groups - I will give you 10 mins to discuss and let me know what you, as UX professionals, would propose to that company….
- #23 I want you to look at those things [show] To help you, you can think about the things [show] I will let you discuss, and then we will all share our ideas.
- #24 Right, do you have any questions?
- #25 If you think of anything else don’t hesitate to get in touch with me, via email or linkedin or twitter ;)