[Sigia-l] Integrating a UCD approach into an existing process

[Tom Donehower]

Hi Ron,

See comments inline below.

Good luck!

-Tom

On Feb 7, 2008 3:38 PM, Ron <stbasil777 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My question is how would you attempt to integrate
> UCD/users into an existing process that traditionally has not had user
> input
> into UI design?


I had to do this a couple years ago for a company in NY. The difference is
that they brought me in to do it because they knew the value of UCD. If your
group does not understand the value then you have to begin there. You have
to become the UCD evangelist.

I ended up having to meet with each dept and sharing UCD principles making
it very clear that I wasn't there to infringe on anyone's territory, but was
there to create new territoty to bridge strategy and design. If you're in an
agency setting then you also need to meet with the head of Project Mgmt. and
ensure they have a firm understanding of how you fit into a project and your
key deliverables.

>
>
> We will be making site visits to where the users work. My thought here is
> that while we can evaluate them in their normal work context that
> designers
> will also be able to obtain valuable user feedback during this time. We
> may
> be able to take a prototype with us to do some on-site usability testing.
>
> Basically I am curious: how does your process work? When do you interact
> with users in your lifecycle? When do you do usability testing?


If you can, integrate user interaction throughout the lifecycle:

1. Discovery - Primarily talk to users to get a handle on task analysis and
to create your personas
2. Design - Obtain user feedback on organization, labels etc. Most likely
via survey or card sort. If you have wireframes or a prototype you could
obtain feedbck frm users here as well
3. Implementation. Usability testing. Test for practical use cases. You
don't have to boil the ocean here. Check out Krug's book "Don't Make Me
Think" for guidelines on practical usability testing.
4. Release. Just keep testing. Look for the big barriers and areas of
confusion, change and test again. At some point you'll feel confident enough
to call it done.
5. Don't over think this whole thing either. What's most important is you
get users in front of the application, identify the big barriers and
incorporate their feedback into the design.

>
>
> Also - what do you think is the most valuable source of user
> input/validation in your practice? If anything I'd want to try to get in
> what is most necessary and am trying to ascertain what absolutely has to
> be
> done...


Depends on the project, but if I had to make a choice I would vote for
up-front interviews with users during discovery and task analysis and then
prototype usability testing. The problem with usability testing once code is
written is that it's much more difficult to convince stakeholders to
make changes.

Best.

-Tom

Thomas Donehower
UXConcepts
Ph: 310-463-6800
Fax: 310-338-9057