Message Design and Content Creation 23 January 2007 Kathy E. Gill

Agenda Review: Nature of Design and Teams Overview : PM/UCD Team/Project Discussion Leaders Team exercise

1. Nature of Design and Teams Is there anything about “design” or “teams” that you’d like to share?

2. Overview: PM/UCD The Challenge One Possible Answer Benefits The Process Summary

The Challenge Only 28 percent of IT projects are delivered on schedule and within budget Only one-sixth software projects completed on time and within budget

The Challenge, cont’d One-third of complex software projects fail, costing U.S. companies $81 billion Cost overruns add another $59 billion Of the challenged or cancelled projects, the average was 189%over budget, 222% behind schedule and contained only 61% of the originally specified features

Answering the Challenge Projects fail because “the system did not meet user needs” Enter: User-Centered Design  Central tenet: who is the audience?  Not a “step” but a “process”

Value for Investment $1 invested in usable software = $ in benefits 80% of maintenance costs are due to unforeseen user requirements; only 20% due to failures

Relevance and Impact Productivity - People and Systems  Call-centers, e-commerce web sites User Perception  Tivo v Replay, VCR Plus Training Cost  Large component of new implementation Cost of Errors  Medical errors, airplane crashes

An Engineering Approach (1/3) Concept  Determine objectives – clearly identify audience(s) Basic Design  Functional specification (hardware, software, human); requirements; task analysis

An Engineering Approach (2/3) Interface Design  Apply empirical data, mathematical functions, experience, principles, population measures, and design standards Production  Integrate production requirements, test, and update

An Engineering Approach (3/3) Deployment  Investigate use, modify, evaluate Follow up  Procedures, product evolution

And Yet … The process is NOT linear! Nor is it a “waterfall” (a traditional software development process)

UCD: ISO Provides a clear understanding of the ‘context of use’: users, tasks and environment Iteration of design solutions using prototypes Active involvement of real users Multi-disciplinary design

Then Why Is It So Hard? No accepted/agreed-upon structure for web/digital media design teams No industry-wide standard for web project management Cross-functional teams have disparate working/communicating styles

Some Keys to Making UCD Work Have the right project manager  Organizes resources: team, equipment, $  Leads development of all deliverables : audience definition, functional spec, etc  Creates overall project plan  Ensures workflow works  Figures out how to stay in budget  Coordinates Communication

PM Resources Project Management Institute, Association for Project Management (UK), International Project Management Assn.,

Steps (1/2) ID Goals (audience, client) Determine Stakeholders (define) Research Market (needs, competition, etc) ID Team Roles, Responsibilities

Steps (2/2) Create Project Workflow (w/milestones)  Creative Tasks  Technical Tasks  Admin Tasks  Marketing Tasks ID QA Concerns Manage Scope Creep!

Summary Good interface design enables increase in productivity, reduction in errors, and better user experience The key to good design is customer- focus

3. Team/Project Review individual goals. Review possible projects Move someone from Team 3 to Team 1 and/or are the groupings still correct?

4. Discussion Leaders There are only three members of Group 1 here … are you OK with leading discussion on standards? (I forgot to go over this with Group 1 last week – my bad!)

5. Exercises Review website examples Also, eReserve (add document), Cingular (review phones) v Palm (review devices)

Next Week: Finalize Team, Project, Roles Task Identification