A Day in the Life of a UX Practitioner
21 January 2013Dr Chandra Harrison
Who am I?
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 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
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 off Prepare 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
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
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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
