How Users Can Influence Design & Development

Keli Amann, Stanford UniversityUser Experience Specialist, kamann at stanford.edu

Who we are

Keli AmannUX Specialist

User Experience

Christine DohertySupport

Jackie MaiUX Specialist

Lydia LiDeveloper

Karen TsaoDeveloper

Jing WeiDeveloper

Developers

Makoto TsuchitaniDirector

Jasmine ThapaQA

Julian MorleySys Admin

Why the title is misleading

“How Users Can Influence Design & Development”

How Do We Organize and Communicate Among Ourselves so that Users Can

Influence Design & Development”

Patterns of communication

?

• within campus

• during different types of development• between campuses

UX

Users

Dev

Users

UX?

Dev??

?

…during different types of development?

UX

Users

Dev

?

Users

UX?

Dev?

• Local Quarterly Updates

• Major Revisions• 2.x releases of Tests & Quizzes (SAMigo)

Why talk about how we communicate?

1. We have assumptions about how others work and what they know. Are these correct?

2. We have methods to communicate issues. Are these methods always the best?

A Basketball AnalogyEngaging the issues: Two styles

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Zone DefenseT&Q

Announcements

Resources

Pilot Tools

Local Tools

Man to Man Defense

Announcements

Pilot Tools

T&Q

Resources

Not 1:1

What style do you use?

Do you take care of • only local issues?• only community issues?• Both local and community issues?

We use both styles, and it depends on the type of development

Local Quarterly UpdatesPart 1

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What UX does locally

UX

1600 instructors18,000 students

Users in 7 schools

Schedule for Local Quarterly Updates

UXDev

QAOp

UXDev

QAOp

Su release Fall release

UXDev

QAOp

UXDev

QAOp

Win release Sp release

prioritization

prioritization

prioritization

prioritization

|September |October|November|December|January|February|March | April |May |June |July | August |

UX

Users

conversation

Workflow for Local Quarterly Updates

ticket

Local JIRA

Sakai JIRA

Dev

QA

survey

questionnaire

Local updates at your school

UX

Users

DevLocal JIRA

Sakai JIRA

Users

UX

Dev

Who interacts with users at your school?How do they solicit user input & prioritize?Who are users needs communicated to? How?

ticket

survey

questionnaireconversa

tion

2.x releasesProcess 2

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Schedule for 2.6 release (in production 2010)

2.6Dev codes, releases Alpha

Beta

QAOp

Release Cand

UX reviews locally

prioritization

Dev tweaks..

2.6 localization

|September |October|November|December|January|February|March | April |May |June |July | August |

Workflow for 2.6 Tests & Quizzes

Dev

Whatever was finished by Oct 2008• Code from previous local quarterly release• Code contributed by UPV, Rutgers, Capetown, reinforced by email, dev list• If feature request had no assignee, developers didn’t see

Dev

UX

New/Old workflow for 2.x

DevSakai JIRA

UX

DevLocal JIRA

What are we looking for• Context that explains wide impact• Votes/Watches• Personal relationship

2.x work at your school

Sakai JIRA

Users

UX/ID/Support

Dev

Do you solicit/review external feature requests?How are requests communicated to you?Who manages community requests? How prioritize work?

UX

Users

Dev

Major revision of a toolProcess 3

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What’s a major revision?

SAMigo designed in 2005• Many functional updates• No major interface change since

“SAMigo 3” (not necessarily 3akai)• Limited functional update • Redesign screens, interaction styles, & workflow

Holistic redesign: not collecting new JIRA features

Workflow for a major revision

plan

history

UX

Dev

UX

Dev

history

Plan = Motivation, Use cases, Timeline

An additional step

We’ll want to create• Vivid descriptions of users and their needs• Rich realistic scenarios

To be successful, design must hold up to a walkthrough of vetted scenarios

Ideal workflow for a major release

UsersUsers

plan

history

UX

Dev

Users

UX

Dev

history

Plan = Motivation, Use cases, Timeline + persona description, scenarios

Interview,Questionnaire

Use cases/ scenarios via Confluence

Making SAMigo 3 fit into this kind of schedule

Dev codes, releases AlphaBeta

QAOp

Release Cand

UX reviews locally

prioritization

Dev tweaks..

UXDev

QAOp

UXDev

QAOp

UXDev

QAOp

UXDev

QAOp

prioritization

prioritization

prioritization

prioritization

|September |October|November|December|January|February|March | April |May |June |July | August |

Questions about this approach

Sakai JIRA

Users

UX? ID? Support?

Dev

Do you have someone who can collect stories?Do want our stories about your tools, or just JIRA?What else do you recommend to insure success?

UX

Users

Dev

Final thoughts

We can succeed at our schools, but we have to succeed as a team.

• JIRA is necessary and valuable• Interpersonal communication enhances and

complements JIRA

Speaking of which…

Continuing the conversation• Questionnaire: will email results• Birds of a Feather• Confluence page• Contact me kamann at stanford.edu• Talk now…

Your thoughts

How are you facilitating communication• With your users?• Within your team?• Between schools?