SPECIAL REPORTMODERN USER EXPERIENCE

THE JOY OF UX?USER EXPERIENCE GUIDE

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Hello. We are Futureheads. We are digital media recruiters. We understand that in the complex world of digital it’s important to get straight to the talent. That’s why we feel it’s a prerequisite for our specialists to understand your discipline in-depth so we can match the right people to the right jobs.

Futureheads Recruitment, London team@wearefutureheads.co.uk +44 (0)20 7776 9730 Twitter @futurebanterwearefutureheads.co.uk

Digital Media recruitment—User Experience—Project Management—Creative & front end—Executive

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Welcome to the 2012 User Experience Guide to celebrate World Usability Day. The UXPA UK is proud to continue its long association with

and support for the UX Guide, which provides those both new to and familiar with UX a snapshot of the industry.

World Usability Day is an annual global event to raise awareness and to celebrate the achievements of our industry across the globe. More than 40,000 people in 140 cities in 44 countries participated in World Usability Day in 2011 and this year is set to be even more successful. UX agencies and interested bodies will host local events all across the UK to help increase the visibility of the value of our industry.

You can get involved by volunteering either locally or globally, attending events in your area, or you could become more actively involved by signing the charter and agreeing to observe World Usability Day each year, to provide a single worldwide day of events around the world that brings together communities of professional, industrial, educational, citizen and governmental groups for our common objective: to ensure that technology helps people live to their full potential and helps create a better world for all citizens everywhere.

The theme for this year’s World Usability Day is “usability of financial systems” and it’s clear from the demand for practitioners within the financial sector that many companies are taking the need for usability seriously. The focus within the UX industry

has naturally been expanding over time, from the core practice of usability and interaction at a screen level, to considering the entire lifecycle of an experience and a user’s relationship with a company or organisation at a service level. Financial institutions have the added need to consider security and confidentiality as part of the user experience.

As the global economy faces difficult financial times, promotion of more usable financial systems could assist in creating better decision-making models. Events associated with World Usability Day will present opportunities to leverage, integrate, and advance the work of multiple disciplines to make a significant contribution to improving consumer financial knowledge and decision-making. Our London event will include speakers from Thomson Reuters, Misys and Lab49 discussing how user experience knowledge is integrated into their systems.

As our industry matures and the pervasiveness of technology increases, user experience is becoming a much more highly valued part of every product life cycle, not just in financial systems. This in turn is increasing the demand for our services. This bodes well for the future of our profession. It is evident that clients see the value of applying good user-centred design practices across products and services. The value of optimising what you’ve got, and particularly focusing on digital channels, has not only kept UX services in demand, but we’re now seeing a steady increase in that demand. This demonstrates a maturity of thinking about customers, striving to provide a holistic and consistent

approach to engaging with them across channels and ensuring that each encounter they have with you as an organisation is a positive and effective one.

The UX community in the UK is a strong and supportive environment for both practitioners and purchasers of UX services. There is a plethora of quality events both short evening events and more in depth conferences where you can learn and share. These events are run by a variety of organisations that aim to support the development of individuals and the community. The UXPA is one of the oldest membership based organisations and offers a mentoring scheme, jobs board and networking events. But there are so many others that whatever your need or specialty you can find an organisation to suit, whether it be UX Bookclub or a Content Strategy event.

The user experience directory at the back of this guide (page 22) is a list of agencies that offer user experience consultancy either as their core business or as part of a wider set of services. At a practical level, we’re also providing a snapshot of the UX industry with a preview of the 2012 UXPA UK Salary Survey that was run within the user experience industry in September/October 2012 (see page 14). We hope that the UX Guide will offer you a variety of useful information in your quest for the best user experience.

The laTesT experience

Dr Chandra HarrisonPresident, UXPA UKPresident UXPA UK http://uxpa-uk.org

Conference Chair UCD2012 - http://ucd2012.org

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UX STEPS UP ITS GAMET

he last 10 years of user experience has seen rapid change in our industry. UX has matured from a tactical testing service to become a key component of business strategy. Already

we are seeing signs that UX skills and practices are informing a broader range of customer experience initiatives. The age of the multichannel consumer is fi nally a reality. For many brands, signifi cant proportions of business come via the digital channels, and customer experience is a board level issue. Consumer expectations are rising; customers need to feel that they are being treated as individuals, that they are listened to, and that the interactions are ‘human’. These are the emotional experiences that underpin long lasting and loyal relationships.The consequences of getting these wrong as a brand can be dramatic. Broken promises and incidents of poor customer service can be shared with hundreds of thousands in minutes via social media and review sites. In a connected age, everyone can hear you scream.

EVIDENCE-BASED DESIGNDesign decisions based on guesswork bring unnecessary risk into the creative process. As clients increasingly talk about user experience outcomes within their briefs, design agencies have responded by declaring themselves to be inherently user-centric. They incorporate design tools such as personas and

user journeys in their design process and talk a lot about customers to the client, yet many still neglect to actually speak with customers in any meaningful way.Customers can be sophisticated and articulate critics of digital products and services. The things they say can change the minds of CEOs and stimulate change within organisations. Quite simply, design decisions that are evidence-based, referencing genuine customer needs and preferences, are better design decisions.

THE CULT OF DATAOver the last 10 years the quality of the data available to clients has radically improved – but sadly, the quality of its interpretation has not. Data is a direction fi nder, highlighting areas in which improvement and innovation could be valuable, but it can’t directly guide the innovation process or help companies set the right strategic direction for customer experience planning. You need evidence about both the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ to reduce the risks associated with guesswork, and companies that combine qualitative and quantitative insight make better decisions.

ALIGN OBJECTIVES WITH LONG-TERM VALUEIf companies want to deliver consistently good experiences across the customer life cycle, their marketing, sales and service functions must be aligned around a common view of

how they want to be seen, experienced and talked about by customers. And this includes measuring those outcomes across the long-term.As long as business managers are incentivised only to deliver against short-term goals in narrow areas, companies will struggle to make signifi cant improvements in their relationships with customers.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF EXPERIENCE DESIGNIt’s an exciting time to be involved in the fi eld of UX and customer experience, and the people in our industry, whether client-side or agency, are taking lead roles in improving the everyday lives of millions of people through the new experiences they are creating. As technology advances, an even greater emphasis will be placed on user experience, as the devices that we own, and the uses we have for them, converge. Those products and services that work elegantly, intuitively, and straight out-of-the-box, will be the cornerstones of great customer experiences and long lasting customer relationships.

Foolproof’s Peter Ballard talks us through the latest developments in UX.

One of the co-founders of Foolproof, Peter has an extensive background in user experience consultancy and user-centred design, and has led projects at Foolproof for many of the UK’s leading consumer and B2B brands.

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Andrew Girdwood,media innovations director, LBi bigmouthmedia

What are the big issues currently facing companieslooking to improve their UX?

François Roshdy, lead consultant, Border Crossing Media:Overcoming negativity is still a big issue. People seem to be keen to invest in

UX but fear what they may discover and what the consequences might be if they start scratching away at decisions that have been made previously.

Some companies are reticent to pay for the staff and skills required to implement in-house continuous improvement policies and website governance procedures. Many businesses need to stop viewing UX as a silver bullet or a one-off investment: the key to developing a compelling UX is an ongoing investment that, over time, should be internalised.

It can be difficult to secure the time needed from key decision-makers and front-line staff to contribute to the research and validation stages of a UX project. It’s vital to get buy-in from senior decision makers – more often than not we feel that middle-management and frontline staff are often the ones most receptive to change and most willing to invest time to make sure things are done well.

Candy Diemer, design team lead, Technophobia:In some companies, there’s still a mistaken expectation that UX can deliver quick

fixes. UX needs to take into consideration more than just a website or an app – it is the alignment of the all the business’s strategies. The customer does not experience your brand based on your business

structure, so segmenting marketing and business products into screen real estate does not effectively integrate the business objectives into the UX.

Michael Naman, head of creative technology, Weapon7:We’ve found that brands understand user experience but have not necessarily

embraced it. In order to really maximise the UX they need to be able to iterate quickly, get to a MVP (minimum viable product) and test to see how it performs. This is difficult as brands like to know exactly what they are getting and how much it is going to cost. By the time the project is signed off the UX is set in stone and is difficult to tailor to the user as it unfolds. It takes a lot of confidence for a brand to undertake a project with no clearly defined outcome.

Travis McBride, senior UX consultant, Pancentric:Great UX comes from a user-centred culture that starts with brand and business strategy

and flows out to every part of an organisation, from the directors to the person answering the phones. If UX hasn’t got universal buy in, with processes to support it, then it’s never going to be more than a tactic with limited benefits. It’s about long term commitment, not quick fixes.

Emma Kirk, strategic director, User Vision: Companies need to consider how to present themselves on mobile devices.

This raises questions on whether they go the app route, use responsive design, or create a dedicated

mobile site. Having to consider how a site will look and behave across different platforms requires careful consideration. Most users now expect a seamless, consistent experience across all devices.

More and more companies are moving over to agile development so there are issues with the transition from waterfall and the integration of UX with agile. Part of the problem is also dealing with various different interpretations and versions of agile UX.

Have clients’ perceptions of UX changed in recent times?

Lee Duddell, founder and head of UX, whatusersdo:Yes, clients are increasingly recognising how improving UX impacts the bottom-line

not only in terms of increased revenue but also through reduced costs and improved customer loyalty.

As a result of this enlightenment, our clients are now embedding UX testing as part of a user-centred approach. The influence of the HiPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) is diminishing as clients increasingly focus on the experience of real users.

Michael Naman, head of creative technology, Weapon7:Definitely. A couple of years ago there wasn’t the same level of understanding

from most clients as to how essential UX is to any project. Generally if a budget was tight, UX time was the first thing to be scaled back. Now with the meteoric rise in the use of mobile devices and social media channels, clients understand more than ever the positive impact a good user experience can have.

Greg Meek, head of design & development, Stickyeyes:We don’t think so. Most clients still seem to undervalue the importance of UX design

processes. Whether it’s performing full-on user testing or acquisition-focused A/B or multivariate testing, many clients don’t value an ongoing, iterative design process. Ultimately it boils down to a lack of willingness to invest in design, which has long been a problem. It doesn’t help that UX isn’t inherently part of a designer’s toolkit. Web designers graduate into our industry with a plethora of skills, but this usually doesn’t include knowledge of how to implement UX processes. With that in mind, we as designers need to learn on the job and change the perceptions of colleagues and clients if UX is going to become the norm.

What are the big issues facing companies looking to improve their UX?Hayden Evans, creative director, Rippleffect:Even the most groundbreaking of user experiences is only as good as the strategy and organisational culture put in place to support it. A strong UX phase may highlight potential improvements in areas such as content strategy, engagement channels or customer relationship management in addition to traditional design enhancements. While the benefits may be obvious and deemed vital to improve customer experience moving forward, it will often not be a simple case of implementing changes and continuing with life as before. Gaining buy-in from top to bottom within the organisation is vital to encourage a cultural change, while directly involving stakeholders in feedback and testing processes will actively prevent resistance and negativity when a new user experience is rolled out.

A collection of the UK’s leading UX practitioners and consultants give their take on the latest issues and trends within the UK user experience sector...Q&A

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In 2012, what are the most common mistakescompanies are making in relation to UX?

Candy Diemer, design team lead, Technophobia:If digital agencies declare themselves to be inherently user-centric they need to do

more than work off a set of personas and user journeys. More time needs to be spent having actual meaningful conversations with customers. A light touch approach to user research only means more guessing work in the design process. User research takes time with real people and the more we know, the more we can capitalise on in the design process.

Greg Meek, head of design & development, Stickyeyes:Many companies don’t fully understand what UX is. They believe it’s something

inherent in UI design (or any kind of design) but true UX is a methodology that should be central to everything a company does, from the brand values to the marketing to the website. Unfortunately, business pressures frequently get in the way of UX values - limits on budget and time mean UX only gets a fleeting consideration towards the end of any design process, if at all. Undertaking UX principles early on allows companies to spend time on getting the experience

right, when there is less at stake. Companies often leave it too late and end up retrofitting their product or website once UX problems have come to light. Ideally companies should be testing their product with real users early on, allowing for an iterative design process.

François Roshdy, lead consultant, Border Crossing Media:Companies are still not leveraging ‘free’ opportunities to capture valuable customer

data and feedback or, alternatively, are collecting and reporting on as much data as possible as opposed to identifying and focusing on the data that really matters to their business.

Another common mistake is that companies are still thinking about labelling and content from an organisational rather than an end-user perspective.

Are classic UX mistakes being repeated all overagain in the mobile sites and apps being produced for smartphones and tablet PCs?

Greg Meek, head of design & development, Stickyeyes:There is still a lot of debate about the best route to take with mobile. We develop

many websites using the ‘responsive web design’

technique, which means delivering a single website that responds to all devices, whether mobile, tablet, desktop or TV. The benefits are that it’s cheaper to build and maintain than multiple sites and it delivers a consistent content experience, while allowing us to design a different functional experience. That’s not to say that RWD is the best solution for every project.

Travis McBride, senior UX consultant, Pancentric:Some classic mistakes are being repeated but it’s a much better situation than the

early days of the internet. Now the major platforms are at least trying to enforce consistent standards in regards to visual design, navigation and functionality, and users themselves demand better quality by punishing poor apps with bad reviews and low ratings. It’s like Darwinism for the internet – only the best will survive.

Candy Diemer, design team lead, Technophobia:Designing for mobile requires user experience designers and developers

to work more closely together than ever before. This is where design heavily relies on the execution of the code to deliver the perfection the end users expect. The mobile user is ruthless and unforgiving. The slightest

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delay in an animation, a bug or an extra step in a series of tasks can make or break the app and users expect everything in an app to be completely centred around them and their immediate needs. It is paramount that designers and developers work together to ensure that the experience is executed in seamless perfection. Less is more, the devil is in the details!

Hayden Evans, creative director, Rippleffect:Smartphones and tablets are still relatively new technologies, but despite this, the

majority of organisations seem to be identifying the key considerations and getting things right.

Aside from the obvious process of providing simplified experiences for smaller browsers, mobile in particular has presented the new concept of providing an immediate experience based on location. Applications and mobile sites are being developed for physical situations such as locating a place or service, identifying objects or sounds and enhancing a user’s enjoyment of an event.

This has resulted in the need to develop dynamic user experiences based on serving valuable content to the user rather than the traditional approach of providing an information architecture for a user to locate content.

As mobile continues to grow so the goalposts for user experience design will continue to shift.

Emma Kirk, strategic director, User Vision:A good mobile UX needs to consider the context of use, much more so than

a desktop experience. Companies need to consider where are users accessing the service, how they are accessing it and what is going on around them as they do. The answers to these questions will drive many of the aspects of the design. Mobile sites and apps can also make use of many features and technologies that are not necessarily available to a desktop user (eg. geo-location, direct access to call functionality) that may be able to be used to improve the UX.

Any design needs to take into consideration that certain devices won’t identify as mobile devices and not show the mobile site (eg. iPad) even though the mobile site would be better suited to a touchscreen device. Smaller tablets such as Nexus and Galaxy Tab could present issues.

Can you provide an example of a company who is getting UX right at the moment?

Emma Kirk, strategic director, User Vision:Google. Its interface is simple at times, but it works. Google’s cloud based approach

is extremely slick. Within five minutes of unboxing my Android phone, all my contacts, emails, calendar

Are classic UXmistakes beingrepeated all over againin the mobile sites and apps being produced for smartphones and tablet PCs?Peter Ballard, co-founder,Foolproof:Sadly, yes. It is like

the late 90s all over again, where the rush to have a website was driven by the fear of being left behind by competitors, rather than a considered thought process of what that site should do, and how it would meet the needs of the customer.

Today, the same is happening in mobile. Too often we’ve had clients demand a mobile app without knowing what it should do, whether an app is right or not, and what it will do for their business.

The principles of UX remain the same, and should be applied. What customer need are we meeting within mobile, how do we meet that need, and what is the user journey and experience offered by the interface.

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Andrew Girdwood,media innovations director, LBi bigmouthmedia

UX GUIDE 09

appointments and files were on the phone, all from a single login. This is because UX is at the centre of what Google does – one of the company’s ten guiding principles is “Focus on the user and all else will follow”.

Lee Duddell, founder and head of UX, whatusersdo:Amazon.com is an obvious example of a company that consistently gets UX right –

simply because people buy from it even when it is not the cheapest. Amazon has UX nailed and it does this by continually acting upon data and insight. Its user experience is its brand.

In the UK, ASOS frequently fares well – again, this purely online player acts on insight and experiments with new concepts and approaches to enhance its UX.

Hayden Evans, creative director, Rippleffect:Mobile is such a key area right now it can only be a company who have successfully

created a valuable mobile user experience to complement their desktop presence.

One that stands out is ASOS.com, whose simple approach to the structuring of and the providing of a simple filtering process for their thousands of products is complemented by a simple approach to basket, cross sell and up sell processes. Its continuous improvements (such as ‘hide this brand’ and ‘save for

perhaps surprisingly, revealing qualitative insights (eg. in the form of video clips that capture users' frustration) are a great way to influence internal decision makers to take action because they are so compelling. Nobody likes to hear a potential customer leave your site because the UX was poor.

Hayden Evans, creative director, Rippleffect:Attention needs to be paid to both quantitative and qualitative data in order to

gain a full picture of how a solution is performing and were UX improvements can be made.

The quantitative side provides the number crunching vital for measuring conversion and can be especially useful in analysing small changes in design such as the positioning of calls to action were seemingly minor alterations can yield big results.

However, quantitative data will never tell the full story, especially during an initial assessment. In order to understand user psychology and key behaviours, then develop this understanding into valuable customer journeys, it is vital to examine and record user thoughts and where these contradict the quantitative suggestions, pinpoint areas requiring deeper research.

Michael Naman, head of creative technology, Weapon7:It depends on your choice of performance indicators and the ultimate goal you are

trying to achieve. If you're just trying to get a message out then simply viewer stats might suffice. It does raise the point that stats only tell half of the story and that qualitative analysis of posts, comments, tweets, feedback and focus groups is necessary to truly understand how users react to a campaign.

Candy Diemer, design team lead, Technophobia:There has been a steady increase of better quality quantitive data over the years.

CMSs and free data analysis tools offer visibility of what may be good or bad in the experience and the data is always fact, it never lies. However, the crucial skill lies in the ability of a UX designer being able to interpret the data. Without the combination of qualitative data to provide a story around the patterns, dangerous and shortsighted decisions could be made. The UX designer will use the customer research to explain why this data appeared and what to do with it.

later’ on roll over of a product) are supplemented by the development of a simple mobile presence.

ASOS has recognised that the more engaging magazine style features used on the desktop version will simply not translate to mobile and has instead kept it to the point: find your product, view your product, buy your product. All of this is presented in a highly usable manner, presenting an enjoyable shopping experience for its target audience over multiple devices.

Peter Ballard, co-founder, Foolproof:It seems a cliché to say it, but I’d have to go with Apple. Products that work straight out-of-the-box and a high street presence

that blends the best bits of digital and physical retailing. It still leads the way. In fact you can argue that the user experience is so good, most of us forgive Apple for its functional irritations and restrictive practices.

Travis McBride, senior UX consultant, Pancentric:ASOS. It offers a seamless user experience; from its website (desktop and mobile) to its

pricing strategy, returns policy and customer service, everything is perfectly pitched. It’s paying off as well, in the middle of a recession it reported a 31 per cent increase in sales from July to August and it is now gearing up to launch a dedicated Chinese site in 2013. There’s no better example of a British brand that has placed UX at the heart of its growth strategy.

Michael Naman, head of creative technology, Weapon7:Pinterest is really good example of outstanding UX and its stratospheric rise

is testament to this. It is simple to use, has visually engaging content that is relevant to its users, and employs social media to glue it all together. This combination resonates with the target audience.

Is UX performance best assessed and measuredusing quantitative data (eg. performance analytics)or qualitative data (eg. customer anecdotes)?

Lee Duddell, founder and head of UX, whatusersdo:You need a blend of both. Quantitative certainly means you can measure, but

what's the point of measuring if you don't know why? Qualitative provides the why. As importantly, and

Is UX performance best assessed and measuredusing quantitative data (eg. performance analytics)or qualitative data (eg. customer anecdotes)?Travis McBride, senior UX consultant, Pancentric:Both. Qualitative data from focus groups, interviews and usability tests should be used to validate new value propositions, design concepts and features. Quantitative data should be used once a product is up and running in order to continuously fine tune and optimise conversion.

The ability to extract actionable insight from analytics is going to be an extremely sought after skill in the next few years, UX designers need to get up to speed quickly and build good relationships with customer insight teams. Companies need to measure performance and structure their products so they can deploy rapid, incremental improvements.

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WE’RE ALL UX PRACTITIONERS NOWIn the decade that I’ve spent working in user experience we’ve seen steady growth in demand for good UX people, initially led by larger agencies and brands such as the BBC, with requirements for large data driven and information rich sites. Users needed to perform complex navigation and functions and the information architect was the guardian and director of this.

Medium and smaller agencies were quick to follow in the early 2000s, and the trend continues today with software companies, start-ups, companies of all shapes and sizes, looking at how a good UX consultant, leader or fi gurehead can improve the performance of a digital product.

Today, clients who were originally hoteliers, caterers, events companies and ticketing providers fi nd themselves in the same space – digital companies selling services and products just an interface away from the user. We will soon see an equality of focus on UX across all sectors – with retailers, fi nancial services, travel and hotel companies leading from the front. The lessons learned are likely to be absorbed into less likely and less affl uent sectors.

THE EVOLUTION OF UX SKILLSThe UX skill set has expanded further – to sketch a wireframe or to deliver a prototype doesn’t make you a UX professional anymore. It’s about thoughtful design – good design driven by a good idea and the use of the mushrooming technology executed beautifully – keeping people’s eyeballs on your service. Consultancy skills have really strengthened. The initial part of the project is all about having senior client services skills at a premium when

Be Kaler is director of UX at Futureheads Recruitment. Here she explains how UX skills have become more important than ever to the success of products and services, online and offline.

IT’S ALL ABOUT UXhelping any of the above realise their business objectives.

From a candidate perspective, if your background in UX is backed up with an understanding of the visual design, technical process and products, that’s good. But to be great, you have to stay ahead of the curve in terms of methods and tools, and also have good awareness of the moving target of technology. What is possible and how can we give the user the best experience?

In short, the more established professional in the UX space needs to have good client skills, have grown up and understood what could be achieved, married with what is possible to achieve with future technology – and then be able to lead a company and its internal or external resources through the delivery process.

Resourcing UX people for the team has become slightly easier than it was three or four years ago. There is a much better general knowledge of UX. Senior UX roles are much sought after positions, so we’re seeing more transitions from creative, tech and project management. But the real game changer has been the infl ux of so many degrees having modules covering the core principals of research, testing, evaluation and interaction design and information architecture – and graduates choosing this as a career path much earlier than before. Masters courses have become more well-rounded from being focused on research theory into more practical application.

The other reason for companies being able to hire from a more entry-level pool of candidates is that team sizes, on average, have increased and there is an opportunity to have a less established member of the team working on smaller projects and learning the ropes as they go.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?What I love about this marketplace is the evolution, the moving target – the fact that when we think we have got it right, something new comes along that helps us approach UX with a stronger sense of sophistication and real results that we can track and measure. So where might the UX recruitment market move next?

The use of agile methods of production have been adopted wholeheartedly by the UX sector. Companies use these methods to ensure that are continually iterating and improving, but also so that teams work much more collaboratively from the outset and share the common goals of the business and user.

The need to service multiple mobile devices also has leant itself more to a responsive design process, which is more inclusive to the needs of different users and allows appropriate functionality. I might book my fl ight on my laptop, but when I get to the destination I want an app that tells me where to get the nearest lager and bed for the night.

Finally, ‘storytelling’ has featured heavily in the requirements of our clients this year. Acquiring users is important but how does the UX consultant continue to keep the user motivated to stay. What does the user do next and how do we give them a reason to stay?

One fi nal prediction – UX talent will start to be invited onto the board of major business organisations, particularly those in the retail and fi nancial services sectors. We’ve seen a few examples of this already in recent months, but I think this kind of appointment will really start to move into the mainstream over the next 12 months.

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Now, I am passionate about many things. Digital being one of them. So much so, that my non-digital friends call me a geek. But I was out-geeked recently when I attended the inaugural Great UX Debate,

organised by SapientNitro London at the Google Campus in London.

The first global UX Debate took place in Dublin in February, and the response was so enthusiastic, SapientNitro London took the reins in organising a UK event.

Five of the UK’s most passionate user experience practitioners volunteered to be exposed to a debate in front of an audience of 100+ like-minded folk.

On entry to the Campus, the audience was mainly 25-30, 50 per cent bespectacled and 75 per cent male. Of the men, I spotted only three wearing shoes, with the rest dressed in the obligatory skinny jeans and trainers.

UX is the pin that holds many transactions together. How many times have you been led to a site from an offline ad only to discover the experience when you got there was so terrible you abandoned your purpose? In the early days of Lastminute.com, the founders carried out some research which showed for every £1 they spent attracting people to the site, if a user didn’t have a good experience, it cost £7 to get them to come back.

The panel consisted of Daniel Harvey, creative director of experience design at SapientNitro; Marcus Mustafa, global head of UX at LBi; Jane Austin, digital director, IG Index; Jason Mesut, head of UX, RMA Consulting and Chris Averill, managing director, We Are Experience. Chairing the panel was Giles Colborne, managing director of CX Partners and author of Usable Web, Mobile and Interaction Design.

All ticket holders for the event had the option to submit a debate question around information architecture, interaction design, user-centred design, user research or customer experience strategy.

The first topic to be talked about was a chicken-and-egg type question: which comes first, design or research?

Chris Averill, from We Are Experience and Marcus Mustafa, from LBi, are the first to tackle it. After discussing whether design should reign and that if it’s a bad idea, then it should die in public, Mustafa was adamant that it’s “better for ideas to die at a desk than in the public domain”.

Jane Austin from GI Index was a little more flexible. “You need to see what needs people have and see how they will use it in the wild,” she said.

The research question seems to be something the UX community is at odds with. Jason Mesut, from

Mairi Clark reports on the inaugural Great UX Debate, a recent gathering of leading user experience practitioners. how was it for yoU?

RMA Consulting, shared his experience of working with UX developers who obsess about research. “I have a problem with them,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t understand everything about a problem, you just have to get on and do it. The other side is that you get people who just crack stuff out, and don’t really rationalise it very well. You need to have the experience to be able to cut the corners and use just enough research.”

Chris Averill of We Are Experience had a different view. “Don’t confuse research with insight,” he said. “Insight leads to great products and great experience. If you understand what people want, research leads to insight. Don’t rely on research, but if you don’t have insight, you have nothing.”

“I’ve seen more than my fair share of paralysis from research,” interjected SapientNitro’s Daniel Harvey. “There is a risk in forgetting that we are sometimes the customer and sometimes the user. The whole myth of Apple not testing is just that; a myth. It’s just that they’re not beholden to it. It’s not always safe to assume that it’s the clients who are fighting for the research. A lot of clients look at the relationship with their agencies and say ‘you’re the experts, what do you need to do research for?’”

The next question to come from the floor tackled whether there is a need for UX designers. Isn’t it something anyone can do?

Harvey was the first to respond. “I think [UX design] is a way of seeing and thinking. The best people in the field are those who are born naturally curious. We need people like that to thread the idea through the team.”

At this point, Mesut threw caution to the wind and confessed to hating “the term UX”, saying “it’s becoming meaningless. People are using it to describe user interface.” He went on to explain the difference between the two, admitting, “UX can be done by planners”.

Colborne interjected with a question for Averill, asking who actually was responsible for UX. “Not everyone can be a UX designer, most of it’s designed by people who want to get famous,” he said. Having never met a “famous UX designer”, he went on to make a good point that the “most awesome UX designers are product designers”.

Averill’s comment about product designers and Mesut’s complaint about interface designers coveting

the UX brand fired Austin up, who admitted that her company struggled to find good UX designers. “We only got anyone who was an interface designer, which they get hung up on,” she said. Mustafa agreed, saying: “The question is that all the people involved are user design oriented. You can design for an experience but you can’t design the experience. Product designers give good user experience because they think about curiosity and aesthetics.”

The next question was about code, and whether UX designers need to know it. Averill was out of the box quickly with some strong views. “I have a huge respect for people who can write code,” he said. “But I wouldn’t ask my bricklayer to design my house, in the same way I wouldn’t ask my architect to lay bricks.”

Harvey agreed. “You need to know the medium and materials to make what you want to do,” he said. “You need to have the knowledge of the capability of what you can do, but you don’t need to know code.”

It’s on the subject of code that Mustafa came out with the killer comment. “I believe the only reason to know code is so you can win arguments with developers.” This raised laughs from the audience, who clearly appreciated the frustration of those development-led rows.

The rest of the debate focused on technical questions such as wireframes and a brief conversation about OS systems, but the conversation returned to UX when responsive design was mentioned. A couple of the panellists talked about how customers are in control, but Averill probably summarised the issue best, saying “Responsive design is understanding why people are doing what they are doing, and why.” He went on to explain: “I have huge respect for old technology, and it’s easier to filter content. I don’t want responsive design. I want it [websites] to work on what I’m viewing it on, where I’m viewing it.”

Recruitment was also discussed, with the consensus emerging that recruitment companies need to up their game and stop sending UI developers for UX jobs.

At which point the debate ended, with the trainer-clad, skinny-jeaned, pale-looking attendees heading for the nearest pub.

Either way, the debate looks set to continue. If you’d like to be involved in the next one, follow #UXDebate on Twitter.

“Don’T confUsE REsEaRcH wITH InsIGHT. InsIGHT lEaDs To GREaT EXpERIEncE. If yoU UnDERsTanD wHaT pEoplE wanT, REsEaRcH lEaDs To InsIGHT.”

THE DRUM UX GUIDE www.thedrum.com UX GUIDE13

Mairi Clark reports on the inaugural Great UX Debate, a recent gathering of leading user experience practitioners. how was it for yoU?

www.thedrum.com THE DRUM UX GUIDE14UX GUIDE

Entry level

Salary by lEvEl of SEniority

Min

Median

Max

Mean

n=

The Drum presents the highlights and results from the UXPA’s annual survey of UK user experience professionals’ salary levels.

2012 sALARY sURVEY18000

26000

48000

27680

31

Mid-level, non-super

24000

37000

55000

37950

64

Mid-level, supervisor

32000

45000

76000

48278

15

Senior-level, non-super

27000

50000

95000

55092

50

Senior-level, supervisory

10000

63000

110000

62815

42

Director

65000

85000

125000

93427

11

owner/director

37000

58000

74000

56600

5

MEan Salary by lEvEl of SEniority£100,000

£75,000

£50,000

£25,000

2009 2011 2012

EnTRy lEvEl

MID-lEvEl, non-sUpER

MID-lEvEl, sUpERvIsoR

sEnIoR lEvEl, non-sUpER

sEnIoR lEvEl, sUpERvIsoR DIREcToR ownER/

DIREcToR

Salary by lEvEl of EDucation

Min

Median

Max

Mean

n=

70000

70000

70000

70000

1

19500

48000

70000

47167

6

27000

53500

80000

53500

2

10000

47800

125000

53424

75

18000

45000

110000

46177

120

27000

41000

110000

51458

12

35000

44500

54000

44500

2

GcsE A lEvEl DIploMA bAcHEloR MAsTER pHD nonE

Entry level a level Diploma bachelor Master PHD none

MEan Salary by lEvEl of EDucation£100,000

£75,000

£50,000

£25,000

2009 2011 2012

Salary SatiSfaction

under paid fairly paid overpaid not Sure

36% 51% 3%

10%

sAlARIED

under paid fairly paid overpaid not Sure

19% 66%

4%11%

FREElAncE

Min

Max

Mean

Median

n=

120

1300

400

375

39

frEElancE ratESDAy RATE 2009 2011 2012

200

700

443

425

71

220

650

434

420

84

THE DRUM UX GUIDE www.thedrum.com UX GUIDE15

The Drum presents the highlights and results from the UXPA’s annual survey of UK user experience professionals’ salary levels.

2012 sALARY sURVEYSalary by level of experience

Min

Median

Max

Mean

n=

18000

25500

36000

26025

20

0-1 YEAR

22000

33000

50000

33398

29

1-2 YEARs

25000

37500

60000

39135

26

2-3 YEARs

25000

43500

80000

44885

32

3-5 YEARs

10000

50000

80000

50368

27

5-7 YEARs

27000

52000

110000

55957

27

7-10 YEARs

36000

70000

125000

66050

43

10-15 YEARs

42000

63330

125000

77376

7

15-20 YEARs

37000

80000

102700

74171

7

20+ YEARs

0-1 year 1-2 years 2-3 years

Mean Salary level by experience£100,000

£75,000

£50,000

£25,000

2009 2011 2012

3-5 years 5-7 years 7-10 years 10-15 years 15-20 years 20+ years

Salary by age

Min

Median

Max

Mean

n=

18-21

18000

27000

55000

29425

16

22-25

24000

37000

69000

38600

49

26-30

10000

45000

125000

51176

76

31-35

30000

50500

11000

56346

33

36-40

25000

61000

102700

60873

22

41-45

25000

53665

125000

59983

10

46-50

41300

51000

81300

58729

7

51-55

45000

59500

70000

58500

4

56-65

18-21 22-25 26-30

Mean Salary by age£100,000

£75,000

£50,000

£25,000

2009 2011 2012

31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-65

deMographic overview

entry level

Mid-level, non-super

Mid-level, supervisory

senior-level, non-super

senior-level, supervisory

director

owner/director

14%

29%

6%

24%

20%

5%

2%

LEVELS OF SENIORITY

Masters degree

Bachelor’s degree

phd

54%

35%

5%

MOST COMMON EDUCATION LEVELS

hci

interaction design

coMputer science

psychology

28%

10%

7%

5%

MOST COMMON QUALIFICATIONS

0-1 year

1-2 years

2-3 years

3-5 years

5-7 years

7-10 years

10-15 years

15-20 years

20+

8%

11%

11%

14%

14%

13%

21%

5%

3%

LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE

31-35

26-30

36-40

41-45

32%

21%

18%

12%

MOST COMMON AGE GROUPS

london

south east england

international

north west england

southern england

76%

6%

6%

2%

2%

MOST COMMON LOCATION OF WORK

16knowledge bank www.thedrum.com THe dRUM UX gUIde

Lee DuddellFounder & Head of UXWhatUsersDo

wHaTUseRsdoTel: 0845 3024783 Email: Marketing@whatusersdo.comWeb: whatusersdo.comTwitter: @whatusersdo

At WhatUsersDo, we’re about unearthing the WHY of user behaviour, so that web teams can look beyond their analytical reports and really

understand their users. Usability or UX testing is the process by which we reveal user behaviour, which impacts conversion and the bottom-line.

Formerly this process took place infrequently and only during a project – at best this was twice a year. This has now changed and testing occurs at every stage of the development/design life-cycle. It is now commonplace for site builders to research how users respond to competing offerings, test throughout the design phase and build with UX insight in mind.

Most of our clients use WhatUsersDo to not only test their own live website, but also to get user insight into:

Competitors’ websites.•Pre-release websites and prototypes (e.g. Axure).•Observe people naturally searching for products, •starting at Google.Running card-sorting and tree tests.•Content testing of landing pages, email marketing and •other comms.

Appliances.comAppliances Online made improvements to its product pages that led to a 9.5% jump in sales. With the help of videos showing users interacting with the product pages, the retailer was able to both identify improvements, and check that they had the desired effect.

After commissioning 125 user-testing videos from WhatUserDo a lot of work went into identifying potential improvements. Although this was a lot of video, it did give the retailer a broad range of opinion to inform decision-making.

According to Matthew Lawson, Head of conversion at Appliances Online:

“I introduced user-centered design, but I had to get the business bought into it. So I did this by buying 125 videos from WhatUsersDo, where you set a task for a customer to go away onto your site and try and make a purchase.

“This gave us 250 hours of footage, which was too much content to watch through. So I used crowd sourcing... We gave five videos to each senior manager including the CEO and this gave us insight into what we needed to change from our proposition, the size of the images to where we put the buy button and it actually gave our customers a voice which went directly to the managers.”

The company used the videos in conjunction with other tools, such as Click Tale, (which provides heatmaps) showing which elements of product pages users were interacting with the most.

Thanks to this insight, Appliances Online uncovered

several issues with its product pages. For example, 70% said that pages were too busy, 17% said service information needed to be clearer, while 13% thought the video experience could be improved.

Changes Made to the Product Pages1. The buy buttonClear calls to action are important, and factors such as size, colour and context on the page can make them more or less visible.

In this case, the buy button was easily lost in the background of the page. The buy button was moved above the fold instead of having distracting banners at the top of the page. The colour of the buy button was also changed to green to stand out more, while the text ‘add to basket’ made more descriptive.

2. VideoThe user experience when attempting to research a product review was another factor that was improved.

Videos opened in a pop-up screen and took too long to load, something, which understandably annoyed most testers. The solution was to embed the video into the product pages, which was less interruptive. Consumers could also scan up and down the page looking at reviews and product specifications, whilst the video stayed still.

3. Product descriptionsThe auto-generated standard manufacturer product

descriptions were unsatisfactory, and failed to really sell the features of products.

To solve this problem, the retailer now uses creative copywriters to create unique product descriptions, setting out the USPs in a more human tone.

In addition, this unique copy was much better from an SEO perspective. Other online retailers were just using the same standard product descriptions giving Appliances Online a competitive advantage in search results.

The resultsThe changes clearly worked, and the stats proved it. Appliances Online increased its sales by 9.5%, while 37% more visitors viewed the product videos. As viewers of these videos are 57% more likely to add items to the basket, this was a big improvement.

In addition, the number of reviews left by customers increased by 11%, while there was a 33% reduction in calls about delivery, as the information was more clearly visible on the product page.

According to Online Development Consultant Nicole Prior, the process doesn’t stop there:

“User-centric design is a continual process. Now the journey has completed its first cycle, it’s time to re-test, re-design and re-optimise.

“Post project user videos are vital. Not just to confirm the changes you’ve made were the right decisions, but also to test the journey has not been damaged and to kick start the next round of analysis.”

User experience testing and the bottom line

THE DRUM UX GUIDE www.thedrum.com knowlEDGE bank17

Meriel LenfesteyPartnerFlow

FlowTel: 020 7539 3840Email: hello@flow-interactive.comWeb: www. flow-interactive.comTwitter: @FlowInteractive

After 15 to 20 years of squeezing, caressing and growing brands into the digital world, the latest excitement is all about bringing mobile into the

customers’ experience of a brand. Two years ago, simply having an app or mobile

website was sufficient to satisfy the corporate need for mobile presence. This led to a lot of poor mobile experiences. Some were badly designed for a mobile device, illustrating a lack of understanding of the technology. Others were inappropriate for the context of use, illustrating a lack of understanding of the end users. And some were inconsistent with the brand guidelines, often as a consequence of not being taken seriously internally.

Mobile is an emotionally-charged channel and the mobile experience of interacting with brands has a significant effect on overall brand perceptions and loyalty. In a recent study into mobile behaviour, carried out by our sister agency Foolproof, almost 50% of respondents said they had stopped dealing with a brand completely because of a poor mobile product or service.

But on the flip side, the opportunities in mobile are huge. The same study showed that mobile devices have given us a new sense of freedom and control with 57% feeling more in control of their life. People develop emotional attachments to their device and refer to it as being “alive” and an “extension of their own body and personality”. Most keep their devices within easy reach at all times and are engaging with brands in new ways, new times and in new places. This groundswell is driving massive increases in mobile usage, and expectations that it will overtake desktop by 2015.

Mobile is a channel with great potential and one that warrants a strategic approach rather than trial and error. Therefore, brands must take time to think a little harder: to develop multichannel user experience strategies, playing to the strengths, and recognising the limitations of each channel. This means focusing mobile on where it can add real value to the customer’s relationship with the brand.

At the heart of this is the need for a rich understanding of the ever-changing user attitudes – something which requires that design teams follow a user-centred approach – that means observing and learning from behaviour, not just asking people what they want.

How to take your brand mobileDevelop your mobile strategyDon’t assume your mobile presence is the same the web presence, simply reformatted for a different device. This responsive approach to design, which will grow further with the launch of Windows 8, is sometimes appropriate, but seldom the whole answer.

Mobile devices tend to be used on the move

or whilst multi-tasking. Your mobile strategy needs to acknowledge this, and play to it through encouraging location specific features e.g. relating to places, objects or people they are near. And by encouraging real-time or delayed integration with other activities e.g. social networking, enhanced TV, camera or sound recording.

As part of a mobile study, Foolproof developed design principles, based on research, which should inspire effective mobile strategies (see call out).

Develop mobile specific brand guidelinesBrand guidelines for mobile should include standard, and non-standard, interactions and transitions, as well as the more traditional brand guideline content of visual styles, layouts and tone adjusted for mobile devices.

This requires knowledge of devices (smart phones and tablets) and Operating System UIs (iOS, Android and Windows), a thorough understanding of business goals and user goals, and skills in interaction design, visual design and copywriting. Importantly this must be a constantly evolving document to allow for changing technology and evolving user attitudes.

Design specific mobile products and servicesWith a clear strategy and strong, up-to-date mobile guidelines you are in a good position to design mobile experiences which deliver to both the business needs and the user needs.

However, just because you have a guidelines document doesn’t mean that every element needs to conform. If there’s a good contextual reason to break the rules, then do so e.g. developing non-tactile interaction in messy contexts such as cooking, rapid, simple, non-tactile interaction and large visuals which work at a glance in situations where the user is occupied, e.g. driving.

Keep improving and evolvingThe world of mobile is still new and developing fast. Brands must continually listen to users and observe their behaviour to grow their mobile presence and stay ahead of competitors. If you don’t – your competitors will.

View the key findings from Foolproof’s mobile study here: http://www.foolproof.co.uk/insight/going-mobile/key-findings/

More about designing for mobile: http://flow-interactive.com/thinking/article/mobile-and-tablet-specific-guidelines-part- 1-why-we-need-them

User experience testing and the bottom line

Top tips on taking your brand mobile

design principles

Your brand in my pocketYour mobile sites and apps give me complete confidence and build on everything I value about your brand.

My context is kingYou understand what I want to do on my phone, where I am and what else I might be doing.

Always keep me connectedYour sites and apps keep me plugged in no matter where I am. You make the experience great, even when my signal isn’t.

Delightful to touch and useIt is a pleasure to use your mobile sites and apps. Wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, it’s effortless.

Inspire me to do things differentlyYour sites and apps unlock new ways of working, playing and living.

We grow and learn togetherYour sites and apps are constantly evolving and seem to get better and better.

Mobile devices have opened up new time and spaces for consumers to shop, bank or consume media

Oh yes, there were lots of tears after winning my fi rst Dadi award. As soon as I held it in my hand I instinctively knew deep inside that my life was never going to be the same ever again. I’d say winning a Dadi was an awakening, of sorts, for me. A very spiritual and special experience. In the photographs from the night you can see in my glassy eyes that I am struggling to comprehend the enormity of what was happening to me and that my life was going to become so much more fulfi lling from that day forward. I now split my life into two very distinct parts, my pre-Dadi and my post-Dadi. Where would I be today had I not won my Dadi award, you ask? It doesn’t even bare thinking about.*

Tony Foggett, CEO of Code ComputerlovePrevious Dadi (Drum Awards for the Digital Industries) Awards Winner

Improve your life like Tony did by entering the Dadi Awards in 2013Register online at www.dadiawards.com

*The views and comments expressed in this Dadi Awards advertisement are not entirely those of Tony Foggett of Code Computerlove. Some sentences may have been changed completely without him knowing.

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Tim LooUser Experience StrategistFoolproof

foolpRoofTel: 020 7539 3840Email: info@foolproof.co.ukWeb: www. foolproof.co.ukTwitter: @foolproof_ux

“We need to put the customer at the heart of our business” – It’s hard to go a day without hearing a similar refrain from the latest

business leader, now born-again customer champion. In executive boardrooms around the world, customer

centricity is being held up as the antidote to the current economic malaise. It’s how the banks are trying to recover from the collapse in consumer trust in the wake of mis-selling scandals and calamitous risking taking. It’s how consumer electronics companies are healing the near fatal wounds suffered at the hands of Apple and Samsung. It’s how retailers are reconfiguring themselves for the always on, always connected mobile customer.

Clearly it’s much easier said than done. To move beyond rhetoric typically requires big changes, transformation even, in the way that organisations view, conceive of and measure customer interactions and overall experience. This is not a trivial task.

“In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed.” Brian Solis, Principal Analyst, Altimeter Group

As consumers have become more and more digitally enabled and connected, expectations of customer experience are forever increasing. The inability for many large organisations to keep up has created a highly transparent experience gap and consumers are voting with both their smartphones and their feet.

“So this is a matter of survival. Why aren’t we adapting?”Firstly, the proliferation of organisational silos often results in poor alignment of business units and teams who all have a hand in creating a unified experience. The absence of shared vision and targets for experience can result in duplication and even counterproductive initiatives.

Secondly, as digital technology becomes more and more central to the customer experience, legacy systems and processes mean that many companies are effectively allowing the technology and their technology teams to control their primary customer interactions. Often at the expense of the customer and ultimately their own business outcomes.

Having a clear vision and roadmap for aligning and redesigning your customer touchpoints and overall experience to meet both the business and customers’ needs is critical to achieving customer centred transformation. It should paint a clear picture of where you are now, where you want to get to and how you’ll know you’re on track in redesigning and delivering your customer experience. We call this a user experience (UX) strategy.

So a UX strategy is a long-term plan to align every customer touchpoint with your vision for user experience, and achieve a measurable increase in commercial yield.

The four elements of UX strategy1. A clear picture of the current customer reality: a deep understanding of the customer across all touch points and UX moments of truth, where and when they happen and the impact on the customer and the business.2. A shared vision for the future and experience principles: having UX vision and principles is the most critical element of this process because it’s about giving everyone in the organisation – from the CEO to frontline staff – a clear picture of the target experience, business and customer outcomes and win/win behaviours. 3. A UX roadmap: creating a plan for how to get to your vision from where you are today that balances the priorities of the customer with the principles and capabilities of the organisation – what we call the win/win. A good roadmap is an aspirational and credible plan for the whole team for transforming the frontline experience with the customer.4. A measurement and incentive framework: it’s critically important that the measurement of user experience is embedded into the day-to-day activities of an organisation. There are many great visions sitting within companies that will never see the light of day come to fruition because the organisation measured, and therefore, focussed on the wrong things.

Start creating your UX strategy todayWhile some organisations are responding to the customer centricity challenge by creating C-level roles (“Chief Customer Officer, anyone?”) the people who are actually closest to the answers for what is going to make the most difference to customers, are staff at the frontline –

marketing, customer services, ecommerce. It is from here that the foundations for UX strategy can be built.

In many organisations the opportunity does exist for user experience advocates to drive business transformation. You might be the centre of your businesses organisational transformation.

More about user experience strategy: http://www.foolproof.co.uk/our-services/ user-experience-strategy/

Redesign your business for customers

Connected customers vote with their feet when experience doesn’t live up to expectation

Classic behaviours of organisations without a UX strategy

Opinion-driven decision making around what’s •important to customers and how to solve their problems.Inability to articulate what the business is trying to •do for customers now and in the future.Poor visibility and alignment of experience initiatives •across the customer lifecycle.Too much focus on fire fighting today’s problems, •short-terminism in decision making affecting the customer experience.Many ideas but no action.•Many actions but no measurable improvement.•Failure to tackle big customer problems when it •crosses organisational silos.Jumping on the latest trend/technology without •a clear view of how it will improve the. customer experience and integrate with existing channels.

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KNOWLEDGE BANK21 THE DRUM UX GUIDE www.thedrum.com

Becoming a collaborative UX designer

Candy Diemer UX Team Lead Technophobia

TECHNOPHOBIA Tel: 0114 221 2123Email: us@technophobia.comWeb: www.technophobia.comTwitter: @wetechnophobia

Everyone knows the problem: we need to be more innovative. So how do we get together and mobilise creativity? In designing digital

experiences, creativity is often relegated to a designer and the onus is on the designer to provide the creative solution. In user experience (UX) design, the practice broadly defi nes itself as design driven by the study of a person’s experience with a system. If UX designers base the holistic consideration of users’ experience at the core of design, who else can they call on to inform them? You don’t have to look very far. Your project team: your product owner (usually the client), project manager, business analyst, developers and testers are your new creative alliances. People who have vision, commercial awareness, technological experience and most of all commitment to making the project a success.

Becoming a collaborative UX designer starts with making sure you plan in the time you need with your stakeholders. Regularly. Whether it’s Waterfall or Agile project methodology, collaborative creative sessions allow your team to generate rough design ideas before you start building a prototype and they can be helpful when you have a stack of user stories that need to be pieced together. Along with your already accumulated user research and your user requirements, these sessions can help shape and defi ne not only the interface but the scope and technical aspects of the system.

One method of conducting collaborative design sessions is with a rapid sketching workshop. When I fi rst started running sketching workshops, I thought the most I could get out of it was some good design ideas and some help solving design problems. What I discovered was getting a team of experts together to talk through concepts, in a room with space to be able to illustrate, opened up an opportunity for a project team to discuss the intricate details of the design, development and the implications on the business and user. Most importantly I found at the end of these sessions, some major decisions had been made with everybody on the team feeling satisfi ed and excited about what we needed to do next.

Sketching workshops are low cost and in a very short space of time you can rapidly produce a large number of user fl ow ideas and interface designs. The focus can be on anything, as long as you have a good set of personas and user needs to guide the creative process. Once initial ideas have been generated and presented by each individual, a variety of solutions will be up for discussion and debate. There may be one or two good ideas, an obvious winner or maybe a few that are worth merging. The key is that each person has put the end user at the forefront of their imagination; ultimately propelling their interpretation of the solution.

Trying to draw a wireframe for a complex system if you are more used to writing code or project plans

may seem intimidating at fi rst. As a good facilitator it is the UX designer’s role to introduce simple easy techniques that remove any barriers to participation and instil confi dence. All of a sudden idea generation and visualisation doesn’t seem so daunting when you have in mind a person for whose use the system is intended. I have found having testers, who are often left quite far down the development pipeline, contribute to the design process in the early stages a cost effi cient way to debug the design way before it reaches development. Who better to identify potential pitfalls than the experts that have seen all the problems numerous times before?

Other than problem solving and creative ideation, another benefi t of running these sessions is exposing your team members’ individual roles and responsibilities.

The process of sketching a design concept and communicating your design ideas to a group of people naturally exposes people’s specialisms and expertise in their fi eld which can be a wonderful way to get a product owner or client to build trust in the team.

Scheduling regular time to collaborate with your team during the project lifecycle unifi es the design vision, debugs the design, distinguishes team members roles and helps streamline the design and development process. Most importantly, these sessions are fun and are a chance for everyone to be part of the creative process. Even though the design integrity remains entirely within the domain of the UX Designer, in my experience true innovation blossoms when you share experiences and work as a team.

“IDEA GENERATION AND VISUALISATION DOESN’T SEEM SO DAUNTING WHEN YOU HAVE IN MIND A PERSON FOR WHOSE USE THE SYSTEM IS INTENDED.”

Technophobia sketching workshop

22UX Directory www.thedrum.com the DrUm UX GUiDe

Border Crossing Media

We help companies design for people. Based in Edinburgh, we provide user-centred web consultancy services. Our collaborative approach helps our clients build better online products and services. We work with specialists to form the right team for your project. So you get the experience of working with a small, local firm and the depth of talent of a global agency. Call us and find out how we can help you.

www.bordercrossingmedia.comProviding Ue since: 2006Key clients: Pufferfish Displays, Cricket Scotland, PartyBees, Roots Design Workshop, Cuba Casa, The Centre for Middle Eastern Plants, The Tinderbox Project, Simon Kempston

Flow

We’ve worked with many world leading brands helping them envisage new ways of engaging with customers and bringing them to life through novel forms of customer interaction. We specialise in complex challenges, providing elegant design solutions to meet the needs of brands and customers. Flow’s human-centred design approach places importance on collaboration, insight and evidence based decision-making. As part of Foolproof Group, we offer depth and breadth of skills and resources and global coverage.

www.flow-interactive.comProviding Ue since: 1997Key clients: Shell, easyJet, Transport for London, Sony, Tesco

Foolproof Ltd.

Foolproof is one of the world’s largest experience design specialists. We design and optimise digital product and service experiences to create ‘win/win’ interactions between brands and their customers. We use human-centred and insight-driven design to resolve complex business challenges and deliver improvements in business performance; increasing sales; raising satisfaction and fuelling customer advocacy. With offices in the UK and Singapore, and an established network of partners, we offer our clients global coverage.

www.foolproof.co.ukProviding Ue since: 2002Key clients: Unilever, Shell, HSBC, Channel 4, Nationwide, Bupa, Lloyds Banking Group, Sony, Morrisons

Rufus Leonard

We’re Rufus Leonard, an independently owned digital agency defining and refining the power of some of the UK’s biggest brands for over 20 years. Offering full design and usability services, we believe in telling brand stories online by putting the user at the heart of the digital experience and have done so for the likes of British Gas, O2, John Lewis Partnership, Save The Children and Williams F1.

www.rufusleonard.comProviding Ue since: 1994Key clients: British Gas, John Lewis Partnership, Williams F1, InterContinental Hotels Group, Lloyds Banking Group

Technophobia

We are committed to humanising the technology interface between you and your audiences to create great user experiences and increased return on investment. Our immersive collaborative techniques analyse the context of your business, users and technology. We deliver superior alignment of exceptional experience throughout your user journey, not only through research & analysis, strategy, information architecture, design, wireframes, prototyping, testing and visual design but also front and back end development.

www.technophobia.comProviding Ue since: 1996Key clients: PizzaExpress, The Co-operative Bank, Welcome to Yorkshire, Sheffield City Council, Technology Strategy Board

Tobias & Tobias

Experience Design. We are the industry leader creating flawless digital products and services, and delivering engaging experiences for the people who use them. Based on real insight, and on our benchmark process, we design and deliver business systems, websites and web applications, mobile applications, and software for clients in all industry sectors, from financial services to consumer goods, from media to public transport.

www.tobias.tvProviding Ue since: 2001Key clients: Barclays, BBC, Deutsche Bank, Emap, First Capital Connect, Fidelity Investments, HSBC, Intel, Invest in Africa, ITV, Lloyds Banking Group, News International

SapientNitro

SapientNitro is a marketing and technology company. We seamlessly and consistently combine brand communications and transactional expertise to conceive, build and execute integrated, multi-channel brand experiences that lead to tangible business results. Our technical expertise, fused with our depth in strategic insight and creativity that spans both multi-channel marketing and multi-channel commerce, helps our clients build engaging and lasting relationships with consumers across a multitude of online and offline channels.

www.sapientnitro.comProviding Ue since: 10+ yearsKey clients: Marks & Spencer, Ladbrokes, Barclays, Unilever

Nice Agency

Nice specialise in the design, development and strategy of innovative applications. We deliver engaging solutions across the web, desktop, mobile, tablet, connected TV and digital in-store using our UX design-led process and technical expertise. We work across enterprise and consumer sectors to create financial trading systems, video on-demand, second-screen experiences and campaign-led mobile applications. We design applications that simply delight end-users. Now that’s what we call Nice.

www.niceagency.co.uk Providing Ue since: 2009Key clients: Channel 4, UBS, Intel, BlackBerry, IBM

THE DRUM UX GUIDE www.thedrum.com

User Vision

Our focus is solely on user experience and applying the principles of psychology to improve design. Every one of our consultants has real commercial experience and expertise in behavioural research, strategy and information architecture. We have offices in Edinburgh, London and Dubai, and work in many sectors including financial services, ecommerce, education, travel, energy, publishing and the public sector. We believe in practical answers and evidence-based design decisions that add value to a client’s business.

www.uservision.co.ukProviding UE since: 2000Key clients: BBC, Emirates Airline, Channel 4, HSBC, Amazon, NHS, Scottish Government, Tesco Bank, Standard Life, AXA, English Heritage, GDS, Dell, Epson, British Library, Europeana, Jumeirah

Weapon7

Ideas with little beating hearts. We create ideas that live beyond media, campaign plans and budgets. Ideas that understand a user’s perception of a brand is shaped by how they interact with and experience it. So we focus on the brand as an experience, with the consumer at its core. And help brands understand what drives and motivates their consumers. All to create innovative user experiences, that utilise the latest technologies, with a strong emphasis on social media.

www.weapon7.comProviding UE since: 2001Key clients: Mercedes-Benz, Smart, DHL, Microsoft, Ubisoft, ITV, Children in Need, Unicef, Whitechapel Gallery

WhatUsersDo

User Experience (UX) Testing allows you to see your website from your users’ perspective. You can find out what works well (so you can do it more) and you can find out what isn’t working AND WHY – then fix it. You can test almost any aspect of your website, application or online marketing. Find out how to improve performance, increase conversion rates and achieve better results.

whatusersdo.comProviding UX Testing since: 2012Key clients: B&Q, O2, Sage, Northern Rock, ASOS, Lispy, Virgin Atlantic, BT, Appliances Online, Easyjet, JD Sports, Laterooms.com

THE DRUM DIRECTORYShow the world what you can do

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THE DIRECTORY OFFERS

The above Directory is a list of agencies that offer user experience consultancy as either their core business or as a wider set of services these can be viewed on the Drum Directory along with many other Marketing services Agencies who could be your perfect partner.

To view them or to advertise in The Drum Directory please go to www.thedrum.com/directory

If you require any further information please contact Victoria Swan on 0141 559 6070 or email victoria.swan@thedrum.com Gary Delaporte, Craven-Delaporte

UX DIRECTORY23

Zebra People

We’re a specialist User Experience recruitment agency who bring together the smartest digital talent and the best-loved brands, leading agencies and innovative start-ups. We’ll listen to your requirements and work with you from start to finish to ensure the recruitment cycle is seamless and enjoyable. We’re passionate about building professional, long-term, mutually beneficial relationships and really pride ourselves on getting our clients culture and core values.

www.zebrapeople.comProviding UE since: 2003Key clients: Hotels.Com, Which?, Timeout, Guardian, Dare

The UK’s leading UX recruitersSourcing since 2003

Call us: 020 7729 4771nick@zebrapeople.com ben@zebrapeople.com emilie@zebrapeople.com

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