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¿Qué hay detrás de tu estrategia de experiencia de usuario?

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Hoy me gustaría compartir qué tipo de información trato de comunicar cuando escribo la Estrategia de Experiencia de Usuario (UX Strategy) de un nuevo producto o proyecto que queremos empezar a desarrollar.

Generalmente esta UX Strategy se enmarca dentro de la estrategia general del proyecto por lo que cosas como la justificación del caso de negocio o tecnológica la recogen otros expertos en profundidad (ventajas de empresa grande, ande o no ande…).

Bueno allá va, por mi parte como Design Lead, intento establecer algunos conceptos básicos para que puedan entenderse los pasos tácticos y técnicos para desarrollar el diseño con éxito. No es casualidad que muchas de las cosas que aquí mencionen se asocien con las primeras fases de Investigación y Requerimientos de un proceso de desarrollo puesto que la idea es descubrir el problema de diseño.

Relación entre los usuarios y los clientes

No en todas las soluciones existe una relación clara entre una buena experiencia de usuario y un beneficio directo sobre los clientes que compran el software, principalmente porque las razones por las que se adquiere software a veces están más ligadas a cuestiones estrategicas empresariales o políticas más que por razones de usabilidad o utilidad.
Sin embargo, esto no quiere decir que se imposible hacer algo bien hecho, por lo que es importante que establezcamos los beneficios que tendrá sobre el negocio y sus clientes el hecho de que los usuarios obtengan algún beneficio.
Por ejemplo, ahorrar a un médico papeleo significa que podrá dedicar más tiempo atendiendo a sus pacientes, que la calidad del servicio sanitario sea mejor y más eficiente, etc. etc.

Personas, escenarios y contexto de uso

No sólo como input beneficioso para el equipo de diseño y desarrollo sino para ayudar a comprender el ámbito de los proyectos a nivel de management y como puente entre el problema y la solución, considero importante describir el problema y lanzar las primeras ideas de una posible solución. Las personas nos ayudarán a conectar también con los Actores de los Casos de Uso y los escenarios con las User Stories de desarrollo, guardando siempre la perspectiva que nos interesa: la del usuario.

Key performance indicators

Aunque no todo en software son webs, los KPIs pueden definirse de muchas maneras, un libro del que tiro mucho es el de Measuring User Experience. De él busco definir la mejor forma de medir el éxito de un buen diseño alineado con los objetivos de los proyectos ya que no todos son iguales. Algunos necesitan rediseñar, otros lanzar nuevas ideas al mercado, otros iterar sobre algo hecho, etc.

Finalmente incluyo una sección bastante más extensa para establecer el marco de la estrategia de diseño específica que incluye Form Factors, dispositivos, conectividad, accesibilidad, referencia a guías de estilo y supuestos de la tecnología.

Conclusión

En conclusión, la UX Strategy busca identificar y alinear objetivos y valores para establecer una visión común a través del entendimiento de las necesidades de los usuarios, el cliente y el negocio. Por lo tanto, es importante proporcionar toda esa información que, aún siendo susceptible de evolucionar durante el desarrollo, genera los primeros descubrimientos de cuáles son nuestras oportunidades para afrontarlo con éxito.

Como siempre, os dejo algunos enlaces relacionados de interés:

Personas: manteniendo el diseño centrado en el usuario

By In Blog, Books, User Experience0 Comments6 Views

Últimamente estoy trabajando en al definición e investigación de Personas para el proyecto en el que trabajo, de ahí mis dos últimos posts (libros y UXser Stories), y debo confesar que no me está resultando un trabajo nada fácil.

Por una parte me encuentro con muchos escépticos (sobre UX en general, y Personas en concreto), que vienen a ser principalmente los responsables de conocer las necesidades de sus usuarios y, sin embargo, los primeros que no quieren saber nada de ellos. Este tipo de ir-responsables lo resume todo en 1) Dame una plantilla y 2) ¿No habrá nada por ahí que podamos copiar?

Por otra parte me encuentro con las barreras para acceder a los Subject Matter Experts (expertos de dominio), ex-usuarios contratados para aportar su conocimiento experto en el ámbito funcional. Los usuarios una vez contratados pierden cierto potencial para el testing en mi opinión, pero son más que imprescindibles para hacer escuchar la voz de los usuarios durante el desarrollo. Y es que este es el propósito de una Persona: ser el usuario cuando no hay usuarios cerca. Sin embargo, los expertos de dominio están generalmente para legislaciones, validaciones, hacer casos de uso (si saben lo que es) y traducir software.

Sin embargo es cierto que a veces insistir tanto en una buena práctica de diseño trae su recompensa. Ver, por ejemplo, que sin definición de los target users no se puede justificar un Business Cases o que algunos compañeros que sí confían en el valor de las Personas (léase con doble sentido), son los mejores describiendo lo que necesitan los usuarios hasta el punto de emocionarte al leer ciertas historias es reconfortante..

¿Qué debe tener una buena descripción de una persona? Pues como soy muy fan de leer libros para formarme e informarme os comparto otro recurso muy aprovechable y lleno de ideas sobre como integrarlas en el desarrollo del producto:

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The Persona Lifecycle (en Amazon)

User-Centered Design Book

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User-Centered Design Book

How do you design engaging applications that people love to use? This book demonstrates several ways to include valuable input from potential clients and customers throughout the process. With practical guidelines and insights from his own experience…

Recommended to developers who really want to create user meaningful applications.

The best point in it: the author is a Microsoft .Net developer which give him a practical and interesting viewpoint.

[book] “The Mobile Frontier”

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I’ve recently finished the Rachel Hinman’s book “The Mobile Frontier”, which I was willing to read since the last UIE virtual seminar I watched. As expected, it has been a great reading and a better inspiration.

The book covers pretty much of the aspects of creating new user experiences by designing for mobile devices. It sets some basic concepts for beginners as well as stretches the boundaries of mobility till their real purpose. For me, this book has been both a good reminder of some well-known ideas, and encouraging exercise to design for new ways of perceiving the world.

The book is divided in four sections

  1. What makes mobile different?
  2. Emergent mobile patterns
  3. Crafting mobile experiences
  4. The future of mobile UX

While I was reading this book I couldn’t avoid thinking what mobility really means for the Healthcare industry.

We can see a lot of competitors delivering apps widespread the different market places, some of them just to be there, some others driven by a customer demand, and many others to start up a new business. The meeting point is that all of them are seeking to revolutionize their own current concept of medical services and that is, more or less, what Hinman’s exposes: this is a golden age and “a rich design space is ripe with opportunities to invent new and more human ways for people to interact with information”

In this context, mobility should be the actionable trigger to push a complete cultural refresh where administrative processes are made not only to control or manage resources, but to improve the healthcare as a patient service as well as a care service.

From now on, the paperless clinic based on the digital document translation could shift to the knowledge clinic based on smart technology. Smartphones and tablets frontier are part of promising landscape for design.

[Book] Communicating the User Experience

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If I think I’m good at something in this field is communicating the UX. Whilst I admit I’m terrible creating icons, creating visual metaphors or talking with customers, I really think that as part of my leading role I got to become a good “UX messenger”.

I borrowed this book looking for a complete guide of document support and this is what I found.

Contents

The books is divided into the following chapters:

  • Personas
  • Task Models
  • User Journeys
  • Content Requirements
  • Site maps
  • Wireframes
  • Usability Test Reports
  • Funnel Diagrams

Firstly, I miss reading something about interactive prototypes or Hi-Fi designs as documents. Although they both are mainly considered deliverables, those kind of assets are also part of the message. Actually, if we follow the agile principle, they’ll suffer modifications and enhancements so initially they’re an hypothesis too about what we want o achieve.

Secondly, I’ll remove the user manual inside each section which explains how to make the specific artifact using Power Point or Omnigraffle. If you need to learn this at the moment you read this book something is wrong either in the need or in the book audience. 

As a final though, this book reminded me a lot the one called “Communicating Design” which seemed to be oriented only on web site documentation but it is better focused on explaining document assets.

Good points in it

Nevertheless, there are still some good reasons to get and read this book in my opinion.

  1. Excellent introduction and clear definitions about the main types of documentation used throughout a project lifecycle
  2. Good examples of the key components of each document
  3. Perfect for beginners, including other UX specialists which have spent more time in other areas like Visual Design, Graphic Design or UI Design and need to support their design communication skills

So my advice is don’t buy the book, just “borrow” it 😉

[Book] User Experience Management – Skills for leading effective UX Teams

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[Book] User Experience Management – Skills for leading effective UX Teams

Good reference book for checking from time to time as a guide for the most common management activities. 

I want to remark the consideration about the difference between Leadership and Management that is described in different chapters. The attributes for leadership are expressed as follows:

Leadership

Leaders infect others with vision and generate enthusiasm.

Leaders communicate, and communicate well.

Leaders are trusted, and trust themselves

Leaders handle uncertainty and stress with grace and calm

Leaders are proactive, goal oriented, and go after exciting challenges, rather than only being reactive.

Leaders respect and value their followers and those with whom they work.

UX leaders fight for users, inspire with design, and yet never lose sight of business value.

Leaders embrace feedback and get better.

Leaders inspire others to be their best and to improve, and mentor them.

Leaders know how to leverage people’s strengths, and how to work around or manage weaknesses.

Leadership is hard work, but leaders get in the flow.

Undoubtably, it’s something to aspire. And here is the index of contents:

  • Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Chapter 2: Building the team
  • Chapter 3: Creating your team
  • Chapter 4: Equipping the team
  • Chapter 5: Focusing the team
  • Chapter 6: Creating a high performance team
  • Chapter 7: Nurturing the team
  • Chapter 8: Transforming the organisation
  • Chapter 9: Evangelizing UX
  • Chapter 10: Conclusions

Do you have a project? Wishes > Tasks > Projects

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Puesto que el ser humano – a pesar de sus miserias – tiene una esencial vocación de grandeza, conviene que nos dirijamos a esa grandeza para luchar con nuestras miserias.

Since the human being – regardless of their misery – is an essential vocation of greatness, it is appropriate that we turn to that greatness to fight with our miseries.

J. A. Marina “Los secretos de la motivación” (The Secrets of Motivation).

 

[Book] Mobile First

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Brief, direct and simple. The idea: address your business strategy thinking first in your mobile experience. Why? to force simplicity, to reduce complexity, to get our users focus on content, to understand your product as pills of functionality handable by any user. Which user? that one who is in “one eyeball and one thumb” mode. Appealing, isn’t it? Well, it is challenging.

A book full of tips which helps you to understand capabilities and embrace constraints to take advantage until the minimum detail of the mobile experience.

Web App or Native App? Both. Do you want to know more? Would you like to agree or disagree with this argument? Read Mobile First, it won’t take you more than one day to start creating amazing web applications.

Enjoy it!

HTML5 & CSS3 for designers

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Book CSS3 HTML5

“Start now”, with this statement Dan Cederholm, the author of “CSS3 for Web Desginers” book, encourages us to work with the evolution of web markup style. And his not alone, with the same spirit, Jeremy Keith show us the history and the ‘whys’ of the new version of HTML.

But, is it now the right time? Even if we don’t believe in the consensus, and the first standard recommendation is planned to 2022, even if it’s really up to the vendors to support the new features and still you feel there are not enough of them to make the web styling really cool, even if you have worked with XAML and have in mind “why they don’t just copy it”, and even if you feel that it is a kind of “back to the future” the answer would be “yes”.

This is, as always, a business, the web browser war never counted with designers and developers’ desires, but they used our work to justify their steps ahead. It is like when one of those big companies – I won’t say the name – creates a copied technology to gain developers to gain terrain (to gain money) and it is supported just meanwhile there are someone who keeps on trying it: at the end, if there are not enough people using that “new” technology the company will says “bye” progressively in a gentle way – if you don’t believe me, tell Silverlight developers (oops).

This is only my personal view, I think that if the most of websites are built in HTML documents and are styled with CSS, the evolution of both are the right way to go. It will be slowly and plenty of complaints but always is like so. Is it risk? maybe, is it familiar? of course it is; is it RIA? hummm… we will see it, if we start trying it today.