The importance of UX

Who Am I?

• An (ex) html jockey & web designer• A UX evangelist• A customer• A consumer• A user

UX

Sharepoint

intranet web

applications

Does this sound familiar?

1. “It’s hard to use & ugly!”

2. “I just don’t understand how to use this!”

3. “The performance of this application sucks!”

4. “Was this application designed for me or an engineer?”

The User’s experience is failing

Why?

?

WHAT IS

Ux??

User Experience

Makes the difference between being merely functional and actually improving the way business is done via software.

User Experience is a CREATIVE part of Software Development.

“I thought it was just about making it pretty”

Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.

Douglas MartinBook Design: A Practical Introduction

Turns out, no

Turns out, noDesign is about making business sense

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

User Experience(if designed well) well)

1. Differentiates a product or service

2. Creates business opportunities

3. Improves efficiency

$It affects your bottom line

UX differentiates

Creates business opportunity

Improves efficiency

10%

0%

30%

20%

50%

40%

70%

60%

Before After

Page Interactivity: high % of users left the page without even interacting.

Field Analysis: Small % of users interacted with the form fields.

Link Analysis: Links distracted users from the registration process.

Last Field Changed Analysis: High pct. of users who abandoned last changed the State field before leaving, indicating friction.

Click Density Analysis: Users frequently clicked the non-linked image

Scrolling Analysis: Over half of users did not even see the first form field.

The page was redesigned based on AO recommendations and resulted in a 50% increase in registration conversions

Click Stream Analysis

The proof is in the returns

Year 1Year 3

Year 5

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Design Organizations

S&P 500

Stock performance of 63 “Design Oriented Companies” versus the S&P 500 over 1, 3 and 5 years Courtesy, Peer Research 2007, Fast Company, October 2007

A valuable investment

• “Every $1 invested in usability returns between $10 and $100” -- IBM, Cost-Justifying Ease of Use

• Investing 10% of a total project budget yields:Metric ReturnSales/ Conversion rate 100%Visitors/ Traffic 150%User Performance / Productivity 161%Use of (Key) Features 202%

Jakob Nielson, Return on Investment for Usability

Tales from the field

• A mid-western utility was able to cut average customer support call cost from ~$10 to less that $1.00 per incident as a result of redesigning their web presence

• A major eCommerce retailer saw a 45% increase in average order size as a result of redesigning their shopping experience

• The same retailer saw a 10% conversion increase as a result of better organizing product information

• Implementation / customization costs for an Enterprise Software Vendor were cut by 40% as a result of a better “out-of-the-box” experienceWill Tschumy, Microsoft User Experience Evangelist

Just in caseYou need a bit more...

• The cost to business of poor user experience and satisfaction is equivalent to $40,000 per person in lost business each year, based on one hour a day being spent sorting out software usability problems (Marketing Opinion Research International/MORI)

• Users will wait a maximum of 10 seconds for a software response before become distracted or losing interest (Constantine/Lockwood, 1999)

• 63% of Web projects overrun their budgetary estimates, with the top four reasons being usability problems

• More than 40% of ERP implementations show user adoption issues or lack significant ROI (AMR research)

• 57% of SAP customers don’t believe they’ve achieved a positive ROI from their project because of poor user acceptance (Nucleus Research)

*Source: APO UX FY08

$It affects your bottom line

Our entire online existence is based on UX

Our entire online existence is based on UX

(good or bad)

The User Experience Lifecycle

Attract

Orient

InteractRetain

Advocate

How do users find you?

Do they know what to do?

Do you make them feel good?

Will they use you again?

Will they tell their friends?

Put a different way

Put a different wayAdvocacy is the key indicator of long term customer value and retention

How do I do it?

Maslow’s Hierarchy

Self-Actualization

Esteem

Love / Belonging

Safety

Physiological

A Design View of Maslow

Desirable

Efficient

Usable

Useful

Functional

Courtesy of Rob Girling, Artefact Group

So if I’m desirable, I’m all set?

So if I’m desirable, I’m all set?Not exactly. There are other considerations…

So if I’m desirable, I’m all set?Not exactly. There are other considerations… Design is a process that balances conflicting sets of constraints

What’s Viable?

What’s Possible?

What’s Desirable?

For every problem, 3 Constraints

Larry Keeley, Doblin Group, among others

What’s Possible?

What’s Desirable?

Business: What can I bear?• How much can we sell it for?• How much can it cost?• Is there acceptable ROI/NPV?What’s

Viable?

For every problem, 3 Constraints

Larry Keeley, Doblin Group, among others

What’s Viable?

What’s Desirable?

Technology: What can I do?•With my technology?•Within regulatory constraints?•Within business constraints?

What’s Possible?

For every problem, 3 Constraints

Larry Keeley, Doblin Group, among others

What’s Viable?

What’s Possible?

Design: What should I do?•Who are my users?•What are their needs?•What is their mental model?

What’s Desirable?

For every problem, 3 Constraints

Larry Keeley, Doblin Group, among others

GUIDELINES

What does the UX proVisual designerUsability designermotion designerdo?

Robbie Ingebretsen “ Design Fundamentals for Developers” MIX09

Project Complete

Use cases created IT + User / BA

Prototyping IT

Developmentof Services IT

UI is created IT

User Testing User / BA

Project StartsUX Methodology

Project Complete

Use cases created IT + User / BA

Prototyping IT

Developmentof Services IT

UI is created IT

User Testing User / BA

Project StartsUX Methodology

Project Complete

Use cases created IT + User / BA

Prototyping IT

Developmentof Services IT

UI & ServicesIntegrated IT

User Testing User / BA

Project Starts

Development Of UX

UX Professional + User/BA

+ UX Professional + User/BA

Development OfSoftware

IT + UX Professional

UX Methodology

Use cases created IT + User / BA

Prototyping IT

Developmentof Services IT

Project Starts

Project Complete

UI & ServicesIntegrated IT

User Testing User / BA

Development Of UX

UX Professional + User/BA

+ UX Professional + User/BA

Development OfSoftware

IT + UX Professional

IT + UX Professional + User/BA

Development of Services

UX Methodology

What users want

1. Users don’t care about how the software is built. They want performance, convenience and results

2. Unless it allows them to get their work/task done faster, they don’t want to learn a new/different way of doing something

3. They want a responsive UI with visual clues as to ‘what next’. They don’t want to guess what to do (or hunt for it)

4. As far as they’re concerned the experience is the product

Robbie Ingebretsen “ Design Fundamentals for Developers” MIX09

A few basic rules

1. Make your application consistent

2. Let users know what's going on

3. Keep It simple and pretty

4. Put the user in control

5. Forgive the User

WEB 101

WebsiteBanner Search

Life use to be simple

Banner

Widgets

Video

Mobile

Paid Search

Organic Search

Social

convert

assist

informentertain

Games

connect

IP TV

But the consumer/user changed

Email

Website

Banner

Widgets

Video

Mobile

Organic Search

Social

convert

assist

informentertain

Games

connect

IP TV

And integrated

Email

Print

TV

DirectMail

LeadGen

RatingSites

Blogs

Paid Search

Call Centre

Branch

Web site

What is Social Media and Web 2.0?Groundswell: A social trend in which people use technologies to

get the things they need from each other instead of from companies.

Web 2.0: A set of applications enabling efficient interaction among people, content, and data to collectively fostering new business practices and social structures.

Social media: Blending Web 2.0 tactics into the marketing mix to engage with customer communities and draw value from social interaction.

Forrester Research

According to a 10/2008 Forrester report “3 in 4 US Online adults now use social tools to connect with each other.”

Social Media: What’s the fuss?

1. It’s enormous

2. Broadening demographic

3. Everyday routine

Impact of Social Influence MarketingTM

Razorfish Digital Outlook Report 09: March 2009 – “Social Influence Measurement: What’s It Worth?”

UX

Sharepoint

intranet web

applications

Sharepoint

intranet web

applicationsDocument Management Customer InformationApplicationsLearning

Sharepoint

intranet web

Document Management Customer InformationApplicationsLearning

Similarities & differences

• INTRANET– Taxonomy– Document storage*

• Potentially large volumes of documents

– Traditionally narrow scope of content and little attention to how user accesses or finds info.

• WEB– Navigation– Customer information*

• Copy kept brief, to the point

– Traditionally rich in types of media and ways for user to access. Experience is key.

Similarities & differences – cont.

• INTRANET– Brand low priority– A designer and/or devs

involved in UI– No SEO– Internal facing

applications get low UI priority

– Social media, web 2.0, web 3.0 not yet part of every day use within corporate structure

• WEB– Brand representation is

everything– Designers/IA/UX involved in

UI– Sites lives or dies by SEO

rankings– External applications get

high UI priority– Social media, web 2.0 etc

key for reaching users and creating community around brand

Lastly

• INTRANET • Accessibility low

priority

• *

• WEB• Accessiblity is becoming

law

• *

IN CLOSING

UX = ROI (TIME & $)

GOOD UX REQUIRES EMPATHY FROM BOTH DESIGNER & DEVELOPERA WEBSITE IS PRIMARILY A BRAND EXERCISE IN ALL THAT IT DOES (AND MORE THAN JUST A LOGO)

WEB & INTRANET ARE CONVERGING

WEBSITES CONTINUE TO EVOLVE, THE PLATFORM NEEDS TO BE AGILE

Acknowledgements

• Will Tschumy: Design Matters (Microsoft)• Robbie Ingebretsen: Design Fundamentals for

Developers (Pixel Lab)• Michael Köster: Introduction to UX (Microsoft)• Forrester Research: Groundswell• Rob Girling: Artefact Group• Larry Keely: Dablin Group