The document discusses the challenges of ensuring usability for customized business-to-business software implementations. It describes how consultants often customize applications in ways that negatively impact the user experience. The authors share a case study where they conducted usability assessments of two call center customers' implementations to identify issues and provide recommendations. They provided demos, conducted field research, performed heuristic evaluations, and involved the consultants. Customers found the evaluations valuable for improving the user experience before rollout. The authors suggest strategies like adding user-centered design training to consultant certification programs and establishing design guidelines to help improve customized implementations.

1. A Tale of Two Customers
Addressing the struggle between flexibility and usability in B2B software
implementations
Eileen O’Brien, Usability Analyst,
Salesforce.com
Peter Roessler, User Researcher,
Salesforce.com
UPA 2009 International Conference

2. What we will share today
• Offer perspective on the challenges of ensuring usability of
software that is customized for Business-to-Business (B2B)
customers
• Share our case study to explore methods we used to address these
challenges
• Suggest additional strategies for ensuring ease-of-use for
customized applications

3. THE PROBLEM

4. Our Process

5. UCD not part of post-release process

6. What We Usually Do
As usability practitioners working with Business-to-Business (B2B) software,
our efforts focus on providing ease of use for the ‘out of the box’ application.

7. It works
We can ensure usability to a certain point:
• We conduct formative usability testing on prototypes
• We review the coded screens
• We work with development teams to be sure that UI bugs are fixed
before release
At the point of release, we feel confident in the UI we have worked
to validate

8. HOWEVER…

9. In the realm of B2B software, what the user
eventually sees is not always what was
originally released.

10. A key selling point of B2B software for
the enterprise customer is its flexibility
to be customized.

11. Consultants often customize B2B
applications for larger customers in order
to accommodate their individual
business processes.

12. Implemented
Product

13. Customizations
• New Screens
• New Tabs
• New Field Labels
• Modified Navigation
• Integration with 3rd Party Systems
• Simple Processes Now Multi-Step

14. Yet the developer consultants are rarely
trained in user-centered design methods

15. Example: Terminology

16. Example: Navigation Issues

17. Example: Horizontal and Double Scrollbars

18. Why it is important
• Poor usability increases training costs
• Poor usability increases inefficiency
• We need an on-going relationship with our customers – for
them to be successful we need to make it work

19. Why it is not an easy fix
• Many stakeholders = politics
• Limited Budget = no allotment for design/usability testing
• Time = they paid all this money for the system because
they need it and nobody wants to wait to start to use it

20. CUSTOMER CASE STUDIES

21. The Customers
• Two Call Centers
• Implementation by partner and internal consultants
• System integrations with billing system, product databases
• Addition of non-standard components, new screens

22. What we were asked to do
• Conduct usability assessment of in-progress implementation
• Provide recommendations to improve usability

23. Where we came in
Implemented
Product

24. Special Considerations
• Customers wanted us involved
• But, consultants had completed considerable work and were
nervous that our recommendations would require major re-
work

25. Back Story | Call Center Customers Request Usability Assessment
How can we improve the user experience
What we did implementations?
for these customer
1 Demo 2 Field Research 3 Heuristic 4 Involved the
Evaluation Consultants
Conference call with Contextual Inquiry at Reviewed findings with
customer call centers Group heuristic
customers and the consulting teams
to understand evaluation to identify
development before sharing the
motivations and violations. Prototype
consultants results with the
goals, current task suggested solutions
to walk through the customer.
flows and business and present to customers.
implementation so
far. processes supported
by current products.

26. Back Story | Call Center Customers Request Usability
How can we improve the Assessment
user experience
What we did implementations?
for these customer
1 Demo
Conference call with
customers and
development consultants
to walk through the
implementation so far.

27. Back Story | Call Center Customers Request Usability Assessment
How can we improve the user experience
What we did implementations?
for these customer
2 Field Research
Contextual Inquiry at
customer call centers to
understand motivations and
goals, current task flows and
business processes
supported by current
products.

28. Back Story | Call Center Customers Request Usability Assessment
How can we improve the user experience
What we did implementations?
for these customer

29. Back Story | Call Center Customers Request Usability Assessment
How can we improve the user experience
What we did implementations?
for these customer
3 Heuristic
Evaluation
Group heuristic
evaluation to identify
violations. Prototype
suggested solutions
and present to
customers.

30. Back Story | Call Center Customers Request Usability
Assessment improve the user experience
How can we
What we did implementations?
for these customer
4 Involved the
consultants
Reviewed findings with the
consulting teams before
sharing the results with the
customer.
• documented issues they
were already working on
• documented successes
• gave them time to
determine what
development work they
could salvage & form a
strategy

31. How it was received
“You solved a few dilemmas for us. The
evaluation was very valuable and will help us in
deciding what we want to have accomplished
before the roll out.”
- Customer B

32. How it was received
“I’ve been building call centers for years and the
amount of detail and focus on detail is amazing.
This service could be sold every time.”
- Professional Services Lead

33. WHAT WE LEARNED

34. Timing is important

35. Prototype the recommendations

36. Make it a win-win situation

37. WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?

38. UCD in Consulting Certification Program
• Add basic user-centered design training to consulting
certification program
• Keep content lightweight - touching on usability methods as
well as design standards and guidelines, such as our team’s “8
Guiding Principles of User Experience”.

39. UCD in Consulting Certification Program

40. User Experience Office Hours for Implementers
• Held at standard times 3 days per week
• UI Designers, Usability Analysts, User Researchers staff the
office hours
• Internal and Partner Consultants can present interfaces and
ask questions about ‘Best Practices’

41. Design Patterns
Title Category
Summary
Graphics
Screenshots
Illustrations

42. Standard Components

43. Salesforce Human Interface Guidelines
• Goal is to assist developers building on our platform
• Provides detailed information on fundamentals of good design
• Includes details of the elements of our Interface, including
components, behavior and guidelines

44. Our Key Takeaway
The more flexibility we offer to customers,
the more responsibility we have to provide
solutions for a positive user experience.
Our suggestions are not a panacea, just a
beginning…

45. AUDIENCE ACTIVITY

46. Audience Activity
• Share examples of any related experiences working with
customizable software
• Reflect on proposed strategies and suggest modifications
• Suggest additional techniques the team might pilot in future
projects

47. THANK YOU!
eobrien@salesforce.com and proessler@salesforce.com