A Day in the Life of a UX Practitioner

1. A Day in the Life of a UX Practitioner 21 January 2013 Dr Chandra Harrison

2. Who am I?

3. Who am I?

4. Who are you?

5. UCD/UX Community

6. Jobs in UCD

7. UCD/UX Debates • Research Rigour vs. Quick and Dirty • Usability vs. User Experience • Qualitative vs. Quantitative • Academia vs. Industry • Client side vs. Agency

8. What is User Experience?

9. A Day in the Life (Agency) • Business Development • Research Preparation • Data Gathering • Analysis • Presenting Deliverables • Client Liaison • Always short on time and resources • Varied projects, but rarely end to end

10. A Day in the Life (Client Side) • Theoretical Research • Research Preparation • Data Gathering • Analysis • Presenting Deliverables • Internal Client Liaison • Lots and Lots of Meetings • More time to do the work, but more politics

11. Creating a Quote • First contact is usually a RFP emailed through • Its rare to get more detailed information • Discussion with clients is vital, but difficult • Trade offs are always needed • Push back is not done often enough • Timeframes to write a quote are usually short • Agency are seen as gatekeepers, not partners

12. Creating a Quote • Many factors must be considered and documented in a quote • Need to be clear of their objectives • Business and Usability and Project • Staff resourcing is complicated • Clients often have fixed delivery times • Important to confirm the fidelity of deliverables

13. Participants • Participants take time to recruit • Recruit participants from an agency • Screener from the client • Typically 10 – 20 • Demographic/marketing mix

14. Typical Project Plan User Research Pilot Study Kick off Prepare Equipment and Prepare test plan High level Findings Workshop Analysis & recommendations Final Presentation and handover of materials

15. Research Set up

16. Quoting – Brief • Ecommerce website that sells cook wear • Going through a complete redesign • Want to launch end of February • Clickable full resolution prototype • Coding is incomplete and is being done in India • Need to test user experience prior to release because of internal directives • Need to deliver the results to the client by 17 February

17. Quoting – Task • Research Objectives • Participants/Recruitments • Method • Time Frames • Deliverables • Touch points • Staffing resources • Other costs

18. Choosing Methods • Aim for the ideal, settle for best practice • Something is always better than nothing • Integrating people with different needs • Lab set up challenges vs. field work challenges • Time and Budget restrictions • Expert Review vs. User Testing • Guerrilla testing – friends & family testing • High level findings rather than detailed analysis (Steve Krug)

19. Ethnographic observation

20. Diary Studies

21. Card sorting

22. Heuristic Evaluation

23. Lab based user interviews

24. Methods – Brief • Large financial corporation • Testing a consumer mobile phone app • Evaluative testing prior to release • Restricted working prototype through a url • Client wants video highlights

25. Methods – Task • What methods would you use? • Client-side with limited time and limited budget – fit within 2 week agile sprint • Agencywith 4 weeks and £20,000 • Lab or Field • Equipment set up • Participants

26. Methods – Task • Client-side – guerrilla testing in lab • Agency – lab based user test • Equipment set up (Mr Tappy) • Participants (small business owners)

27. Deliverables • Clients very rarely read detail • Want/need bullet points and check lists • Format is important – many different formats • Cost implications of xlsvsppt • Project stage will influence format • Consultation is often not seen as a deliverable • Provide evidence • quotes, videos, photos, transcripts, notes

28. Deliverables • Communicating with clients • Relationship building • Push back • Conflict resolution • Deliverables to Inform Design • Rich pictures • Personas • User journeys, story boards • Audits (detail and summary)

29. Deliverables • Presenting to the Client • Encourage a face-to-face delivery • Explain the research • Explain the deliverables • Answer the questions • Provide the stories • Facilitate the solutions • Encourage follow up work

30. Workshop with the team to identify issues and generate ideas for possible solutions

31. Get the client involved

33. Recommendations: Recommendation 1 Recommendation 2 Communicating Problems This is an annotation without a severity indicator This is an annotation with a severity indicator ü This is an annotation with a severity indicator ! This is an annotation with a severity indicator !! This is an annotation with a severity indicator !!!

34. Example Personas

37. Deliverables – Brief • Large corporate client that has four different bands of clients • Large Retail (Tesco) • Retail Sales • Online Sales • Market Stall Sales • Know little about their customers • Little understanding of the value of UCD • Early in site redesign • Small budget, but good timeframes

38. Summary • There are pros and cons of where you work • Its not always possible to apply best practice • Business needs are very important • Soft skills such as consulting are valuable • I love my job

39. Chandra_harrison@yahoo.com @DrKiwiGirl http://uxpa-uk.org