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

Who am I?

Who are you?

UCD/UX Community

Jobs in UCD

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

What is User Experience?

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

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

Creating a Quote First contact is usually a RFP ed 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

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

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

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

Research Set up

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

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

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)

Ethnographic observation

Diary Studies

Card sorting

Tieman Refreshable Braille Display Accessibility

Heuristic Evaluation

Lab based user interviews

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

Get the client involved

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

Example Personas

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

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

@DrKiwiGirl