Slides from plenary session at the UK web managers conference, IWMW14. Presented at University of Northumbria, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, 17 July 2014. Audience comments on Twitter tagged #iwmw14 #p6 Advertised in the conference programme (http://iwmw.org/iwmw2014/programme/) as "Marketing is Dead, Long Live UX!" I evolved the focus somewhat during writing. Hence the new title. TRANSCRIPT **************** A transcript is available on my blog: http://usability-ed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/whats-with-ux-in-higher-ed-iwmw2014.html

1. "Any fool can
make something
complicated.
It takes a genius to
make it simple."
-Woody Guthrie

2. “Genius is one
percent inspiration,
ninety-nine percent
perspiration.”
-Thomas Edison

3. Hello
I’m Neil Allison
@usabilityed
#iwmw14 #P6

4. The University Website Programme
• 2006: Established at Edinburgh as a project
– To “Roll out the CMS”
• 2008: Embedded as a programme
– Managing the CMS
– Focus on web publishers’ skills
• 2012: Website & process enhancement
– User experience, analytics & website appraisal
– New CMS devt, focus on web publisher experience

5. The University of Edinburgh website
• 250,000 web pages
– 50,000+ published with central CMS
– Around 700 supported CMS users
• 5 million unique external visitors in 2012
– To the pages we monitor

6. • Communication and engagement has been a
common thread throughout my career…
<Insert something
catchy and
insightful here>

7. “The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction
with which specified users
achieve specified goals
in particular environments.”
- ISO 9241 definition of usability

8. • Imagine for a moment you’re a classroom
teacher. How do you know how you’re doing?

9. A few metrics for a teacher…
• % who did their homework
• % who brought everything they needed to class
• Average noise level
• Did the class enjoy themselves?
• How many kids did I need to sanction?
• % of required content covered
• Topic test scores
• End of year exam scores

10. • Are all these metrics equally important?
• Is there different emphasis in different schools?
• Even within the same school, do all teachers measure
themselves the same way?
• And how do your metrics align with those of the
headteacher? For the school? For each pupil?
– Your head would say they want students to enjoy your lessons,
but how would they know? And if results were good, would
they even care?
• It’s a lot like this for us as website and service managers in
devolved organisations.

11. • I presented at last year’s Chartered Institute of
Marketing Higher Ed conference: “Marketing is
Dead, Long Live UX”.
– Went well, I thought…
• At first I intended a repeat for this conference,
but as I thought more about you all as a group of
web professionals, and the state of our
profession in our sector I realised I wanted to say
something slightly different.
– So apologies for the last minute title change…

12. Marketing is dead…
What’s with UX in HE?

13. Job ads
• Lots of jobs in UX out there. The growth in
demand is phenominal

14. • But we’re not seeing the same in higher ed

15. • As I went looking on jobs.ac.uk for a shot to
illustrate my point, typical! A new position
advertised. (Kudos to Oxford)
• But this is only the second explicit job I’ve ever
seen.
• Both relatively junior, both focusing on
interface design.

16. “I'm wondering out loud how many HEI's in the UK
have positions directly responsible for improving
the user experience…
…the usual mix of adverts for web developers and
web content editors, but nothing related to UX or
IA.
This is in stark contrast to private sector companies,
who are recruiting UX consultants like there's no
tomorrow...”
Dan Jackson (UCL)
Email to Jisc web managers list

17. • Dan was asking pretty much the same question as
me when he emailed the list last year.
• I was the only person to reply on list. I had a chat
with him. He’d had a few more replies that he
shared, but in a nutshell nothing much
happening.
• So rather than ask the question to the list again, I
ran a survey

18. http://bit.ly/uk-he-ux-survey-2014

19. So… UX in HE
• Is there a problem?
• Is there an opportunity?
• Should we care?

20. What is UX?
User
eXperience
• “A star to sail your
ship by”
– Jesse James Garrett
– http://bit.ly/TFjryP
• “A flag in the sand
on the horizon”
– Jared Spool
– http://bit.ly/TFj4En

21. Usability, UX & Brand

22. Usability and UX – a scenario
“The customer, looking for a new digital camera, goes to the large
electronic retailer’s website. She quickly finds the camera she wants,
puts it in the cart, and without incident, pays for it using the option to
pick it up at the store that same day. Quick, easy — she is pleased and
excited to receive her camera.
When she arrives at the store, she initially doesn’t know where to go,
as no visual clues present themselves. After a ten-minute wait at the
customer service desk, she’s told she’s in the wrong place and needs to
find another desk, this one labelled “Online Receiving”. Once she finds
that desk, the clerk, who obviously can’t wait for his shift to end, sighs
and says the camera she’s purchased is out of stock. She can buy a
different camera at this point, but to receive a credit for her original
online purchase, she needs to call an 0845 number. She ends up leaving
the store without a camera and a charge on her credit card she needs
to resolve.”
Jared Spool http://bit.ly/1oeExxA
Website usability
User experience

23. “Advertising is about getting the
customer to love the company.
UX is about getting the company
to love the customer.”
Whitney Hess
http://bit.ly/1iXt9bC

25. • Jakob Nielsen said usability is like cookery.
Great analogy.
• I’ve spent my career at Edinburgh encouraging
colleagues to try making beans on toast.
That’s all many of us need, and definitely
don’t need a consultant/chef for this.

26. Everybody is responsible for the user experience.
We need to get to a place where UX empathy, curiosity,
communication is just part of a basic skills set.
Imagine if we were talking about writing. How crazy
would it be to expect one person on the team to do all
the work when stuff needed writing down?

27. Motivation
• But what’s your motivation? Like Edison said,
there’s a lot of perspiration involved?
• What’s in it for the developer, the project
manager, the marketer?
• What’s in it for me as a training and support
lead?
• My examples on website and CMS
enhancement projects

28. “UX is not sellable” - Lis Hubert
“UX is not about being nice to users; it’s about
money.” Renato Feijo
Talking about wireframes, testing, personas etc is
fine in this forum, but to senior managers it’s
meaningless. Need to talk about the benefits.
Usually money related, but in higher ed, risk
aversion is also a motivator.

30. • Path developed at UoE by maths undergrads to meet
their own need. Scrapes data from the DRPS system.
Scaled up to school, then multiple schools, now taken
on by Information Services to ramp up to whole uni.
• But what happened here? Were we lucky to just find a
couple of genius designers?

31. Having a good designer
doesn't eliminate the need for
a systematic usability process.
- Jakob Nielsen
http://bit.ly/1lXTO82
Actually, You Might
Be Your User
- Jared Spool
http://bit.ly/1qQFPS2

34. 1. Accept that what we have is customers.
Prioritise them as such.

35. 2. Appoint people accountable for
managing the user experience.
Beginning to end, across the silos.

36. 3. Establish what we want from and for
our customers.
Share this vision everywhere.
And incentivise great UX.

37. 4. Measure and improve.
And measure and improve.
Forever.

38. “…there is no such
thing as UX strategy.
There is only
product strategy.”
- Jeff Gothelf
http://bit.ly/1iXK91A

40. So – what’s with UX in HE?
• Is UX not a differentiator?
• Is the nature of the product is such that
customers tolerate poorer UX?
• Is it because it’s just too hard?

41. Thank you
Neil.Allison@ed.ac.uk
The University of Edinburgh
www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme
@usabilityed #iwmw14 #P6

42. Image credits
• 1: Woody Guthrie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie
• 2: Thomas Edison http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
• 6: Neil Allision at IWMW12 http://stawebteam.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/iwmw-2012-in-edinburgh/
• 8: Classroom www.flickr.com (michael 1952)
• 10: Tape measure www.flickr.com (william warby)
• 11: Angry business people: www.iStock.com licensed use
• 17: Tumbleweed www.flickr.com (Denise Rowlands)
• 18: Our survey said http://paulfarrisentertainment.com/bespoke-game-shows/our-survey-said/
• 21: UX circles model www.nngroup.com http://www.neospot.se/usability-vs-user-experience/
• 23: Witney Hess http://eduiconf.org/whitney-hess-and-stephanie-hay-join-edui-line-up/
• 24: Iceberg www.flickr.com (Marie and Alistair Knock)
• 25: Beans on toast www.flickr.com (Robyn Lee)
• 26: “Everyone is responsible…” Lis Hubert quote on wall http://t.co/nILAB5oIE7
• 27: Windsor Davies http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jan/06/secret-to-motivating-a-team
• 28: No sale www.flickr.com (Rich Renomeron)
• 29: Old till http://nhab.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/old-fashioned-cash-register-isomorphic-view.jpg
• 31: Jakob Nielsen www.useit.com
• 31: Jared Spool www.uie.com http://www.lingscars.com/who-is-jared.php#models
• 32: UX consultant cartoon http://rachelnabors.com/
• 33: Gov.uk logo https://www.gov.uk/transformation
• 34-37: Humps road sign http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Japan_road_sign_209-3.svg
• 38: Jeff Gothelf www.jeffgothelf.com
• 39: UX organisational maturity model http://johnnyholland.org/2010/04/planning-your-ux-strategy/