the ux power tools behind compelling software ...info.macadamian.com/rs/macadamian/images/ux...
TRANSCRIPT
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
Prepared for: Macadamian Technologies
No. of pages: 6
Audio recording Identification: UnSalted_ep3 00:09:55
Transcript prepared by : Capital Transcription Services
Host: Graham Machacek, Manager of Marketing Communications, Macadamian Technologies
Guests: Anneliis Tosine, First user experience researcher, Macadamian Technologies
Sara Fortier, User experience designer, Macadamian Technologies
6/11/2013
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
++Audio++ 00:00:01
[Intro music]
Welcome to Macadamian’s audio Podcast- unsalted. Strategic insights on software development and
user experience design. We are bringing you snack-sized discussions your brain can munch on. Join the
conversation at macadamian.com.
Graham Machacek: Hi everyone. I’m your host Graham Machacek, manager of marketing
communications at Macadamian. Welcome to our mini-series focussing on the
power tools behind compelling software. And these are the things that we
provide our clients as we move through the user experience research and
design process when we create software products. In this installment, we are
focussing on experience maps and I am joined today by, again two of my
colleagues here at Macadamian, first user experience researcher Anneliis
Tosine.
Anneliis Tosine: Hi, great to be here—hello.
Graham Machacek: And also Sara Fortier, joining us from California. Sara is a user experience
designer with Macadamian—Sara, how are you doing?
Sara Fortier: Good thank you.
Graham Machacek: Sara is joining us via Skype. So, let’s talk about experience maps. Sara, what is an
experience map and where does it fall in the UX process?
Sara Fortier: So, experience maps have really only come about, in UX, over the past two or
three years and they have gained a lot more popularity recently. The idea
1
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
behind an experience map is that they are essentially an info graphic that shows
all the different touch points that a user or a person might go through along a
journey with a company. So, if you consider, say, grocery shopping or doing a
grocery shopping app where you are looking at the whole experience from the
time they leave their house and they are planning their grocery shopping list to
the time that they go to the store and they are looking for things and then they
go back home and unpack. It is really showing that whole journey from
beginning to end. It allows you to sort of see the experience at each one of
those touch points and the connections between different products and
different people that may interact with them throughout that journey. It kind of
gives you the overall feeling that the user walks away with after interacting with
that product or service.
Graham Machacek: Yes, Anneliis, so why are experience maps important and what role does UX
research and design play in the development of these maps?
Anneliis Tosine: Experience maps should be formed by conducting research such as
ethnographic research which we spoke about in our first podcast. They can also
combine one or multiple end user personas. What you are trying to uncover
with the research is answers to questions like: who is your user, what are the
user’s motivations, what tools or artifacts do they use, what are the biggest
influences on their experience, decision or their goals, for example, what are
their social interactions influencing tasks? We can also answer questions of
modes of communication or identify user pain points or issues. Collaborating
with your designers at this point as a researcher is great. The experience map
2
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
can show insights in a really clear fashion. You can also include opportunities,
discover through UX on an experience map and also throw in a few
complimentary statistics to help support the experience of the users. Not only
are all of these things identified on a map, they are the elements teams can
really rally behind to make decisions.
Graham Machacek: Sara, I’m going to ask you—I feel like you are always the go-to for the case
studies, so I’m going to ask you about some case study examples of experience
maps in action.
Sara Fortier: Sure, I mean, we have done a few at Macadamian and one of them that was
particularly interesting—I’m going to give you two case studies, but one that we
did was for an insurance inquiry and it looked at the mapping, the journey that
both the call centre representative goes through simultaneously with the
member who is actually calling in to find out about certain insurance coverage
or what they are covered for. It looked at sort of the emotional experience that
everyone can relate to when you are on hold, you know, you are waiting and
waiting and it is taking forever and so your experience is sort of going down. The
call centre representative’s experience is sort of—he is getting more stressed as
he is waiting and trying to find out all of this information. Another one we
actually have done for our own customer experience at Macadamian was
looking at where there are pain points and opportunities along the journey our
customers and clients experience working with us at Macadamian.
Graham Machacek: Okay, Anneliis, how do experience maps differ from other or more traditional
forms of UX deliverable? Essentially, why are they so special?
3
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
Anneliis Tosine: Right, like Sara mentioned, they are quite new, so we are finding that they really
pack a punch. When done right, they combine research from all different kinds
of areas and it connects them visually together. Instead of looking at the user in
a vacuum, let’s say, you can begin to understand them as people and other life
factors that may influence them at any given moment. They are highly
actionable documents and you can start pin-pointing and showcasing
opportunities for improvement, as Sara mentioned to you, those pain points
and insights along the journey. Those three things—the improvements, those
pain points and those insights are typically called out separately all on that
experience map.
Graham Machacek: Okay, Sara, what are some challenges that come about when creating
experience maps? I mean, that seems like a lot of information to put on the
map, so what do people need to know about that?
Sara Fortier: That is exactly it. As I mentioned, it is really trying to showcase this whole
experience from beginning to end with a company or with an activity and trying
to show all of that complexity on one map and not overwhelm the reader can
definitely be a challenge. We use a lot of icons and hierarchy of information is
really important and trying to distill some of that information in a way that
salient can definitely be a challenge.
Graham Machacek: Sara, what are some opportunities listeners can gleam from using experience
maps?
4
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
Sara Fortier: They allow you to highlight those opportunities of improvement along the
journey. If you are thinking about—I will use the insurance inquiry. A pain point
is really, you know, when they are searching for this information and it is taking
a really long time for the program to actually pop up. Well, on the map you can
call out very clearly that as a pain point along the journey and it is really easy to
find and read that. They can kind of drive your design decisions moving forward.
I think it is also a catalyst for idea sharing and generation between teams and
between clients. You can really come to the table with this document that is
showing, you know, the whole barrage of activities, tasks and experiences. I
think it sort of sparks and acts as a springboard kind of moving forward.
Graham Machacek: Just to sort of think if I was running a software company and I was working on
new products, you know, I would be thinking that I want to make sure these
products are successful and I want to make sure I am satisfying my customers
who will use this product, but I also want to make sure we make money and
drive our business. Anneliis, where does this fall in the mix exactly? How could I
use this internally with my staff or perhaps even with clients? You know, why is
it so powerful?
Anneliis Tosine: Right, I think it can spark really good discussions around if there is a gap in
knowledge. Perhaps you can reference back to this map and fill in and provide
you with some information that you might be missing along that whole process.
When we brought up those questions of, you know, are there artifacts that they
are using, perhaps, we did not know that there are some other supplementary
tools or are there work-arounds that you just do not know about and these can
5
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
be called out on that experience map and they can help inform some really
valuable design decisions that need to be made.
Graham Machacek: Okay, Sara, what do you think?
Sara Fortier: Yes, I think another great thing about these experience maps is that they are
really something extremely visual and very tangible and something that your
clients can get really excited about. When you share this with them they will
want to share it with their upper management and with other people in their
organization. So, it kind of creates visibility for where the pain points and
opportunities are because a lot of our deliverables are very forward looking. We
are not only looking at the one thing that we are engaged to work on, so the
one software application, but where our research actually touches on a lot of
other areas along the customers’ experience that could be improved. I think
that at a higher level it can sort of help their organization become aware of that.
Graham Machacek: I think that is giving some pretty great insights. Thanks everyone for listening.
We have had a great time talking to Anneliis and Sara here about experience
maps and we hope you have a great experience creating some experience maps
for yourself, but if you would like to ask us some more questions about them,
feel free to call us on our toll free line. We are here at 1-877-779-6336. Thanks
everyone, have a great week.
[Closing music]
You have been listening to Macadamian’s audio Podcast—unsalted. Get more tasty insights on our blog.
Visit macadamian.com.
6
The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
+++End of audio+++ 00:09:55
7