1. User Experience Development Process Gary Macomber ERCOT User Experience Architect

2. 2 2 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 Agenda Background Expectations of Market Participants and ERCOT The Pieces Background information, team, materials, methods, and results The Full Process All of the steps The Plan - Part 1, Initial Evaluations What are we doing and when by project The Plan - Part 2, Integrating UIs Across Projects Looking across projects to UIs in the context of jobs The Plan - Part 3, Long Range Plan What’s Happening Where are we and some important caveats

3. 3 3 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 Background Market - TPTF Existing ERCOT applications have different user interface styles Market is discontented with existing user experience provided by ERCOT – ease of use, consistency, and integration across applications TPTF is emphatic about the need for an improved and integrated user experience –Wants to see ERCOT’s plan –Expects ERCOT to follow the plan Market wants to see emerging designs and to have the opportunity to influence the final products ERCOT – Nodal Program ERCOT has established User Experience and Visual Design Guidelines and provided these to the vendors Guidelines establish the UI Development Process as well as expected results in style and design approach This briefing describes the plan for ensuring MPs have adequate opportunity to review market-facing user interfaces

4. 4 4 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 The Pieces Testing by Users Expert Evaluation Testing by Surrogates Methods Card Sort Use Cases User Descriptions Guidelines/Industry Standards Background Information Test Cases Wireframes Prototypes Live Interfaces Materials Cards Annotated Screens Redesigned Screens Revised Process Flows Revised Visual Design Priority/Impact Results Team User Experience Usability Testing Visual Design MPs ERCOT Project Teams

5. 5 5 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 The Full Process Use Cases Wireframes Prototype Production Evaluation Post Production Evaluation Information Architecture Use Cases/Task Analysis – define activities and order required to perform the activities Information Architecture – define structure of information across the activities, establish information organization Wireframes – provide a low fidelity method to evaluate task flow and organization Prototype – provides a visual representation of the user interface, allows more extensive testing, may involve more than one iteration Production Evaluation – evaluate the performance of the interface by the intended users performing Post Production Evaluation – evaluate the performance of the interface after the users have had several weeks to use it This process will be applied to each User Interface, modified based on what the vendor provides Eval 1Eval 2 Part 1 Part 2Part 3

6. 6 6 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 The Plan - Part 1, Initial Evaluations User Interface Types UI Developer Status Project ERCOT or Market ERCOT or Vendor Use Case Status WireframePrototypes 1st Interface Eval 2nd Interface Eval EMSERCOT JunJul MMSBoth (SCED)Jul (redesign) Jul (Base) OSBoth In Review CRRBothVendorJun (ERCOT) MISBothVendorJul/Aug S&BERCOT CMMERCOTVendorJulJun (Base) FTERCOT NMMSBothVendorJun PTC indicates reviews by MPs Goal: ensure individual projects follow user experience and visual design guidelines Basis: Design artifacts and individual software evaluation indicates reviews by ERCOTNot being PerformedERCOT facing UIs only

7. 7 7 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 The Plan - Part 2, Integrating UIs Across Projects Goal: provide a consistent user experience across applications as users perform their tasks Basis: end-to-end test cases, user roles RoleERCOT SystemsEDS Trader/SchedulerMMS, CRR, MIS, OSEDS 3/4 SettlementsMMS, CRR, MIS, OSEDS 4 OperatorOS, MIS, MMSEDS 3/4 PlannerOS, MIS, NMMSEDS 3/4 RetailMIS, Retail PortletsEDS 4

8. 8 8 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 The Plan - Part 3: Long Range Plan Make User Experience an essential element of the Change Process –Iterative process –Evolutionary process –Goal directed Form the User Interface Design Council –Market Participant focused, extension of MIS subgroup –Collaborate on designs Provide means for getting feedback –Structured System reviews Surveys –Unstructured Help Desk ticket analysis “Comment Box”

9. 9 9 UI Development Process26 Jun 2007 What’s Happening Finishing first round of internal UI evaluations Readying Market testing of redesigned MMS and first build of MIS NMMS, CRR and MMS –Testing system in Fall Starting work on OS Caveats –Budget impacts may restrict how much a Project does –Where we are at in aggressive schedules may impact amount and timing of updates –COTS software UIs may be more difficult to modify What do we need –Support for plan –Access to users to test UIs