agile user experience design at ibm robin stafford rstafford@uk.ibm.comrstafford@uk.ibm.com

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ROBIN S

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Abstract

The principles of Agile development emphasise design in small teams and rapid change. Good User Experience design requires uniformity and careful planning. The purpose of this talk is to describe practice within the Business Analytics team at IBM as they attempt to marry these 2 principles.

Agenda

- High level view of agile dev process- UX challenges- UX@IBM team role – current - Big challenges – web versus rich

versus mobile

Dev PROCESS - Agile

Every release has many priorities

UX challenges - TECHNOLOGY

• Lots of new technology and web frameworks eg Dojo

• Lots of legacy technology – C++, Eclipse, Java, SWT

• Lots of new platforms – mobile, tablet, iOS, Android

• New input techniques – eg touch screen• Localisation (text length etc)• Accessibilty (colour, mouse etc)• BiDi. Right to left rendering. (Overall

screen layout).

UX CHALLENGES - IBM

• IBM acquires most of its software products• Integrating them is a high priority but often challenging

owing to differing architectures and technology• Surface branding (IBM splash screen, about box, install

location etc) is deemed sufficient• Deeper usability and experience issues are lower priority

• Existing customers don’t want it to change (retraining etc)• New customers may only purchase one IBM product, BUT …• Many will purchase the whole stack

• Competition doing a much better job around look and feel eg Oracle/Hyperion and Microsoft.

HOW Do we improve UX?

• Customer feedback (iterative)• Prototypes evaluated• IBM mandated – eg Accessibility, BiDi, Installers,

Consumability• IBM wide initiatives – IBM One UI, Improved error messages• Business Analytics wide initiatives – BestX

• Dedicated UX professionals• Research

• In the labs and conferences• Persona Depot• Standards

• Some examples …

IBM One UI

BeST X

Persona Depot

Error messages

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Cognos-Koans.aspx

Error messages

This experience does NOT engage

15

““Extremely Borin

g,

Extremely Borin

g,

No Fun,

No Fun,

I Don’t K

now”

I Don’t K

now”

We are trying!

16

Recently Used

FavoritesFavoritesFavorites

My Group…

Engage everywhere - consistently(Mobile, Tablet, Web)

Thank You

Any Questions?