Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice

by Eric Schaffer, Apala Lahiri

Overview

“This book is a great how-to manual for people who want to bring the benefits of improved user experience to their companies. It’s thorough yet still accessible for the smart businessperson. I’ve been working with user-centered design for over twenty years, and I found myself circling tips and tricks.”

–Harley Manning, vice president & research director, customer experience, Forrester Research

 

”Some argue that the big advances in our impact on user experience will come from better methods or new technologies. Some argue that they will come from earlier involvement in the design and development process. The biggest impact, however, will come as more and more companies realize the benefits of user-centered design and build cultures that embrace it. Eric offers a practical roadmap to get there.”

–Arnie Lund, connected experience labs technology leader and human—systems interaction lab manager, GE Global Research

 

“User experience issues are a key challenge for development of increasingly complex products and services. This book provides much-needed insights to help managers achieve their key objectives and to develop more successful solutions.”

–Aaron Marcus, president, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.

 

“This handy book should be required reading for any executive champions of change in any development organization making products that demand a compelling user experience. It does an excellent job in laying the foundation for incorporating user experience engineering concepts and best practices into these corporations. In today’s competitive economy, business success will greatly depend on instituting the changes in design methods and thinking that are so clearly and simply put forth in this most practical and useful book.”

–Ed Israelski, director, human factors, AbbVie

 

“If you’re tasked with building a user-experience practice in a large organization, this book is for you (and your boss). Informed by years of case studies and consulting experience, Eric Schaffer provides the long view, clearly describing what to expect, what to avoid, and how to succeed in establishing user-centered principles at your company.”

–Pat Malecek, former user experience manager, AVP, CUA, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.

 

”For those of us who have evangelized user experience for so many years, we finally have a book that offers meaningful insights that can only come from years of practical experience in the real world. Here is a wonderful guide for all who wish to make user experience a ‘way of life’ for their companies.”

–Feliça Selenko, Ph.D., former principal technical staff member, AT&T

 

“Dr. Schaffer’s mantra is that the main differentiator for companies of the future will be the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying user experiences. This is a book that provides the road map necessary to allow your organization to achieve these goals.”

–Colin Hynes, president, UX Inc.

 

Computer hardware no longer provides a competitive edge. Software has become a broadly shared commodity. A new differentiator has emerged in information technology: user experience (UX). Executives recognize that the customer satisfaction that applications and websites provide directly impacts a company’s stock price.

 

While UX practitioners know how to design usable, engaging applications that create good user experiences, establishing that process on an industrial scale poses critical IT challenges for an organization.

 

• How do you build user-centered design into your culture?
• What infrastructure do you need in order to make UX design faster, cheaper, and better?
• How do you create the organizational structure and staffing solution that will support UX design over time?

Institutionalization of UX shows how to develop a mature, user-centered design practice within an enterprise. Eric Schaffer guides readers step by step through a solid methodology for institutionalizing UX, providing practical advice on the organizational change, milestones, toolsets, infrastructure, staffing, governance, and long-term operations needed to achieve fully mature UX engineering.

 

First published in 2004 as Institutionalization of Usability, this new, expanded edition looks beyond the science of usability to the broader, deeper implications of UX: Once customers can use your applications and websites easily, how does your organization ensure that those engagements are satisfying, engaging, and relevant? Contextual innovation expert Apala Lahiri contributes a new chapter on managing cultural differences for international organizations.

 

Whether you are an executive leading the institutional-ization process, a manager supporting the transition of your organization’s UX practice, or an engineer working on UX issues, this guide will help you build a mature and sustainable practice in UX design.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780133123814
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	12/11/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dr. Eric Schaffer’s prediction that the most profound differentiator for corporate computing would be a positive online user experience has made him a visionary of the “Third Wave of the Information Age.” Dr. Schaffer saw that differentiation would come from getting the user experience design job done efficiently, easily, and without frustration. Founder and CEO of Human Factors International, Dr. Schaffer has been in the field since 1977 and has run consulting and training operations worldwide.

 

Apala Lahiri, global chief of technical staff at Human Factors International and CEO of Institute of Customer Experience, is one of the world’s top experts in cross-cultural design and contextual innovation. The Bollywood Method, Bizarre Bazaar, and Funky Facilitator are just a few of the creative techniques she has developed to help companies understand user experience in diverse cultural and economic environments.

 

Table of Contents

Preface           xiii

Acknowledgments        xvii

Read This First!        xix

About the Authors        xxxix

 

Part I: Startup              1

Chapter 1: The Executive Champion              3

The Value of Usability  4

Beyond Classic Usability  11

CEO Wants a Great Customer Experience: Now Don’t Fall for UX Fads or Half-measures  16

Who Can Be a Champion?  22

The Role of the Executive Champion  22

Keep Moving on the Strategy, Keep Expanding and Innovating  24

 

Chapter 2: Selecting a Usability Consultant         29

Staffing  32

Completeness of Solution  33

Domain Expertise  34

Methodology  35

Tools and Templates  36

Object-Oriented Approach  37

User-Centered Size and Stability  38

Corporate Cultural Match  39

Specializations  40

Organizational Structure  41

Change Management Ability  42

Quality Control and Feedback  42

Ongoing Training for the Consultancy’s Staff  43

Summary  44

 

Part II: Setup          45

Chapter 3: Institutionalization Strategy        47

What to Consider When Developing the Strategic Plan  51

A Proactive Organization 52

Coordinating Internal Staff and Consultants  53

The Importance of Sequence  54

Targets of Opportunity  57

Slower Can Be Better  58

Phasing in Design Standards  58

Key Groups for Support or Resistance  60

Training  63

Methodology and Infrastructure  64

The Project Path  65

Levels of Investment  65

Summary  66

 

Chapter 4: Methodology           67

What to Look for in a User-Centered Methodology  68

An Outline of The HFI Framework  73

A Quick Check of Your Methodology  82

The Challenges of Retrofitting a Development Life Cycle  82

Templates  87

Summary  88

 

Chapter 5: Interface Design Standards          89

What Is an Interface Design Standard?  90

Types of Standards  91

Screen Design Templates  92

Patterns  94

Other Contents of a Design Standard  95

The Scope of Design Standards  96

The Value of Design Standards  98

The Process and Cost of Developing Standards  100

Disseminating, Supporting, and Enforcing Standards  102

Summary  105

 

Chapter 6: Standard User Profiles and Ecosystem Models         107

The Worst Practice  108

Thin Personas: “Jane Is 34 and Has a Cat”  110

Quality Personas  111

The Best Practice: Working with Full Ecosystems  112

Standard User Profiles and Ecosystems  113

Static versus Organic Models  115

Summary  116

 

Chapter 7: Tools, Templates, and Testing Facilities        117

Introduction to Your Toolkit  118

Testing Facilities  119

Recording of Testing Sessions  122

Modeling Tools and Software  124

Data Gathering and Testing Techniques  131

Advanced Methods  134

The Special Needs of International Testing  135

Recruiting Interview and Testing Participants  137

Summary  140

 

Chapter 8: Training and Certification         141

Types of Training  142

Certification  149

A Typical Training Plan  151

Conferences  151

Summary  153

 

Chapter 9: Knowledge Management          155

Why Conventional Knowledge Management Fails  157

The Cost of Failure  158

Object-Oriented UX  159

Professionals Don’t Start from Scratch  162

Linkages   162

Summary   164

 

Part III: Organization           165

Chapter 10: Governance           167

The Roots of the Governance Problem   168

Memes That Kill   169

Education Helps   172

Verify That a Methodology Is Applied   174

Closing the Loop on Standards   178

Checking If the Practice Is Alive   180

Summary   184

 

Chapter 11: Organizational Structure        185

Organizational Structures for User Experience Design Teams   188

Placement of a Central Team in the Overall Organization   192

Escalation of Problems   198

Graphic Artists, Writers, and Other Usability-Oriented Staff   199

Summary   200

 

Chapter 12: Staffing        201

The Chief User Experience Executive   203

The Central Usability Organization Manager   204

The Central Usability Organization Staff   206

What to Look for When Hiring  219

An Offshore Model  230

Summary  233

 

Chapter 13: Projects         235

Doing It Right  237

Managing by Project Importance  237

Who Will Do the User Experience Design?  239

Different Strategies for Practitioner Involvement  240

Working Smart  242

Efficient Project Planning  244

Estimating Experience Design Work  244

Summary  246

 

Part IV: Long-Term Operations       247

Chapter 14: Long-Term Activities of the Central Team      249

Maintaining Respect and Negotiating Effectively  251

Maintaining Momentum  252

Evangelizing  255

Training  258

Mentoring  259

Supporting Standards  260

Supporting the Community  262

Performing Usability Testing  263

Focusing on Metrics  264

Having Responsibility  266

Reporting to Executives  267

Summary  271

 

Chapter 15: The Future        273

Symptoms of Leaping the Chasm  274

Maturity   276

Your Organization’s Maturity   277

Process, Capabilities, and Staffing   277

Strategy, Innovation, and Persuasion   280

New Technologies   281

 

Chapter 16: Design for Worldwide Applications          283

Do International Markets Really Matter?   283

How Does Bad Cross-Cultural Design Happen to Good Organizations?   284

Internationalization, Localization, and the Challenges of Current Practice   285

Between the Idea and the Reality Falls the Shadow   287

The Criteria for Success   287

A New Global Delivery Model for Local User Experience   288

Critical Tools   290

Local Understanding, Global Success   291

Are There Populations We Cannot Reach?   294

Can We Look Forward to a Unified Globe?   296

Emergence of the “Third China”   298

 

References        301

Index         305

Introduction

This book is a guide to making usability a routine practice within an enterprise, be it commercial or government. Every organization has special needs: there is no one simple approach that fits all organizations. What this book provides, however, is a solid methodology, not for usability engineering (that's been done before and exists in various forms), but for the part that is truly missing--the institutionalization of usability. This institutionalization methodology is not new. It is simply a synthesis of the best practices and insights from hundreds of companies in the forefront of this effort. This book will give you insights into the appropriate institutionalization activities, infrastructure, and staffing. It will give you tips on how to recognize quality, and how to time and sequence components. The combination of elements is unique for each organization, but this book can be a road map, a mine detector, and a shopping list for you.

There is a misconception that the institutionalization of usability will simply be a matter of doing more of what we have done in the past. A simple analogy will illustrate why this is a misconception. Imagine that we are back in pre-industrial times and that we have a small hut in the forest where we have made a primitive brick forge to produce swords. We create the swords by using a hand bellows and then hammering the metal against a rock. We find the swords to be very useful and realize we need one for everyone in our army. We need thousands of swords. Is our solution to build lots of little huts? Of course not. We need a factory.

Today, the usability engineering process is still being done in a hut. Usability engineers are typicallythrown alone into a large organization and left unsupported. There is no established user-centric methodology or set of tools. Every questionnaire is reinvented from scratch. Every deliverable is conceived and crafted by hand. Then we wonder why user-centered design can seem inefficient! It should be no surprise if the results are not consistent, not repeatable, and not reliable.

Currently, good usability practitioners know how to make software usable. We have a billion dollars worth of research and 50 years of practice. But, the usability industry has not matured nearly as much as the software development industry. Usability professionals rarely complete a systematic and repeatable methodology. They rarely work with a complete toolset and set of standards. They are rarely formally trained to complete all the tasks in their area of responsibility. They rarely have comprehensive quality assurance. And perhaps of greatest concern, they are rarely integrated into the routine development process. We know how to make an application usable, but we don't generally know how to put these techniques into practice in a systematic way that is efficient and works well within an organization. This is the next frontier in the usability field and it is also the focus of this book. This book provides insights into the deep changes necessary to put user-centered design to work routinely within your organization. This book also provides a guided series of activities and milestones that will chart your course to fully mature and institutionalized usability engineering.

This book is about how to create a usability "factory". It is about how to create a reliable and repeatable process. It is about how to ensure efficiency. Following this process means that usability efforts will have to be done differently than before. Just as a computer programmer would never suggest going back to the early days "in the garage", no usability expert should accept the lack of a systematic methodology and professional infrastructure. Usability practitioners of the future will look back with amusement at our current piecemeal approach. This book is a guide to this more mature usability engineering process.

It is time for us to get serious about the institutionalization of usability because usability has become extremely important. Usability is now the key differentiator in the information age. Imagine the CEO of a large insurance company standing before her stockholders and telling them there is bad news this year. The company has been vanquished by the competition...because the competition has better laptop computers. Seems like an unlikely excuse? That's because hardware is now a commodity. It takes serious work to create good hardware, but everyone has it, and it does not represent a differentiator between companies. You just buy adequate hardware.

Hardware was the first wave of the information age. In the 1980's, it was a challenge to get adequate hardware, and it was an important differentiator that could determine corporate success. But at the end of the 1980's, the software industry realized that "software sells the hardware," and good software became the differentiator. Companies who could create stable software with the right functionality won big. This was the second wave.

Now in the new millennium, software has become a commodity. Everyone can create a database. Everyone can get connectivity. Children can code in HTML. Software is no longer a differentiator. Software coding is being done with better and better power tools and being outsourced to countries with lower labor costs. We are now entering the third wave of the information age.

What is the remaining differentiator in this information age? It is the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying applications and web sites. Very few companies do this well, because this requires creating a full and integrated usability engineering capability. As you will see throughout this book, the journey to routine usability requires a serious effort and the path has many pitfalls.

Organization of This Book

This book contains four major sections, or "phases." The first phase, "Startup," covers the process of alerting the organization to the need to make usability a routine internal capability. It then outlines the steps toward finding an executive champion and consultant to support the initial process.

The "Setup" phase explores the essential core infrastructure of methods, templates, standards, and internal training. "Organization," the third phase, describes the need to properly staff the factory you have built. You will need a small, centralized, internal organization to support usability engineering. If you are a large organization, you will need usability practitioners reporting within your project teams. The Organization Phase then ends by outlining the importance of applying your usability methods to a set of projects and discussing challenges that occur as resources are stretched (as often happens at this point). The last phase, "Long-Term Operations," characterizes the established operation of the central usability group.

Audience

This book is a guide to the institutionalization of usability in the software industry. It is not an introduction to usability or a guide to good design. This book is for everyone who is working to integrate usability-engineering practices into their organizations.

If you are an executive or manager within an organization, then you will want to focus on the steps you can take to get institutionalization started. You will want to concentrate on a high level strategy, and deciding on the staff and resources to fully implement the institutionalization process. Pay particular attention to the chapters on being an executive champion and creating a strategy. You are the one who must move your organization from piecemeal usability to a managed process.

If you are currently part of a usability team that is struggling to make usability routine, you may need to look at the process of institutionalization in a new light. Perhaps you are struggling because you can't do it alone. You may need to focus on finding an executive champion to give power to the effort.

If you are part of a large organization, all the steps in the institutionalization method will be critical, and you will likely have to involve many others along the way. If you are with a small or medium size organization, then you may be able to do much of this on your own. The steps will still be appropriate for you, even if they are scaled down.

No matter who you are, or how far along you are in the institutionalization process (even if it is at the beginning), if you are considering how to institutionalize usability in your company, this book is for you. If you have decided to proceed to build usability into your software design practices, this book is required reading. Whether you are an executive leading the process, a manager supporting the transition, or a staff member advising others and working on usability issues, this book will guide you to success.

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Editorial Reviews

This book is a great how-to manual for people who want to bring the benefits of improved user experience to their companies. It’s thorough yet still accessible for the smart businessperson. I’ve been working with user-centered design for over twenty years, and I found myself circling tips and tricks.”
–Harley Manning, vice president & research director, customer experience, Forrester Research

”Some argue that the big advances in our impact on user experience will come from better methods or new technologies. Some argue that they will come from earlier involvement in the design and development process. The biggest impact, however, will come as more and more companies realize the benefits of user-centered design and build cultures that embrace it. Eric offers a practical roadmap to get there.”
–Arnie Lund, connected experience labs technology leader and human—systems interaction lab manager, GE Global Research

“User experience issues are a key challenge for development of increasingly complex products and services. This book provides much-needed insights to help managers achieve their key objectives and to develop more successful solutions.”
–Aaron Marcus, president, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.

“This handy book should be required reading for any executive champions of change in any development organization making products that demand a compelling user experience. It does an excellent job in laying the foundation for incorporating user experience engineering concepts and best practices into these corporations. In today’s competitive economy, business success will greatly depend on instituting the changes in design methods and thinking that are so clearly and simply put forth in this most practical and useful book.”
–Ed Israelski, director, human factors, AbbVie

“If you’re tasked with building a user-experience practice in a large organization, this book is for you (and your boss). Informed by years of case studies and consulting experience, Eric Schaffer provides the long view, clearly describing what to expect, what to avoid, and how to succeed in establishing user-centered principles at your company.”
–Pat Malecek, former user experience manager, AVP, CUA, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.

”For those of us who have evangelized user experience for so many years, we finally have a book that offers meaningful insights that can only come from years of practical experience in the real world. Here is a wonderful guide for all who wish to make user experience a ‘way of life’ for their companies.”
–Feliça Selenko, Ph.D., former principal technical staff member, AT&T

“Dr. Schaffer’s mantra is that the main differentiator for companies of the future will be the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying user experiences. This is a book that provides the road map necessary to allow your organization to achieve these goals.”
–Colin Hynes, president, UX inc.

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