the strategic value of user experience

Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, March 2010; Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 16-25ISSN 1745-3054 Print/ISSN 1745-3062 onlineDOI: 10.3109/17453050903557367 16125

The Strategic Value of User ExperienceDAVID POTEETPresident, New City VA, USA

Taylor and FrancisCJAU_A_456212.sgm10.3109/17453050903557367Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine1745-3054 (print)/1745-3062 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & [email protected]

This article is a recap of the keynote address given by David Poteet at HeSCA’s annual conference in St.Louis, Missouri in June 2009.

INTRODUCTION I am a user experience architect (we call it “UX” for short). For over 17 years I’ve been researching,designing and building interactive experiences to engage people and help them succeed. I get excitedabout things like mental models, wireframes, storyboards and user testing. But most of our everydayexperiences are designed and delivered by people who don’t think of themselves as user experiencearchitects. When companies and institutions apply UX they usually do so within a narrow focus toimprove a particular feature or process. When we consider UX only in this narrow context we miss thelarger story, the vision of the experience as a whole. And only by seeing the larger story can we recognizeand empower all the people who play critical roles in creating the experience.

User experience has strategic value when everyone who influences the design can make smarterdesign decisions.

In this article I will give an example of a broader story, explain the concept of an “experience vision,”and share some techniques we have used to involve all of the people responsible for the experience inthe process of designing it.

What is User Experience?

“User” or “customer” experience is the sum total of a person’s perceptions resulting from their interac-tions with a product, service, organization or brand, either online or in-person. Good user experiencemight be judged by the following criteria:

● Does it anticipate my needs and goals? My goals can be anything – work-related tasks, buying healthyfood for my family, having a delightful holiday – anything that I spend my time to pursue.

● Does it help me easily succeed in pursuing my goals?● Is the knowledge required to use it appropriate to my frequency of use and existing domain

knowledge?● Is it memorable (memorably good that is)?● Does it help me pursue my goals in a way that I perceive to be better than alternative experi-

ences? “Better” is based on an individual’s perception of value, and can be based on anythingfrom time/cost savings to personal prestige to overall enjoyment.

● Do I want to repeat the experience, or recommend it to others?

Who makes user experience?

UX geeks call the people who knowingly or unknowingly create experiences “design agents.” They’reoften not the first people you think of when you look at an end product.

To better understand the impact of design agents, we’ll look at the following use case from medicalresearch.

A “use case” is a story about someone’s experience with a product or service. It should describe theuser’s goals, the desired outcome, and the steps they follow to pursue those goals.

Correspondence: David Poteet, E-mail: [email protected]

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Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, March 2010; Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 16-25 17

Use Case: Dr. Melanie Gillingham pursues research funding for fattyacid oxidation disorders.Dr. Melanie Gillingham, an assistant professor at Oregon Health and ScienceUniversity, related this experience to me as I was trying to understand what a nutri-tion researcher might go through in the process of finding funds for a project.Dr. Gillingham specializes in fatty acid oxidation disorders, a rare condition with inwhich the body is unable to oxidize fatty acids to make energy, because an enzymeis missing or not working properly. Her research explores various treatment optionsincluding high protein diets and using supplements like medium chain triglycerides.

She describes a typical scenario like this:

1. Search existing literature using Ovid’s interface to the National Libary of Medicine’s MEDLINE database,to see who else is doing related research.

a. Scan the paper quickly to see if it is relevant or not.

Goals: 1. Identify funding opportunities that have a high probability of success for funding research at OHSU.

2. Apply for funding opportunities.3. Identify and contact possible research collaborators.4. Understand the perspective and needs of people affected by these disorders.5. Identify and contact possible research subjects.

Desired Outcome: 1. Acquire funding for research interests.2. Develop relationships with collaborators who can further her research and career.3. Develop relationships with funding agencies that may lead to future funding.

Motivation level: HIGH – Her position is soft-funded, which means that she has to bring in the funds to support her research or she’s out of a job.

Figure 1. A street clown in Siena, Italy creates memorable experiences for unsuspecting tourists.

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18 Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, March 2010; Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 16-25

b. Evaluate the paper to determine if the study is well designed, consistent with other reports, andif the interpretations make sense.

c. Capture the paper into her reference management program.

Figure 3. After reviewing this article, she searches for A. W. Strauss at Vanderbilt.

Figure 2. The OvidSP search interface for MEDLINE. She describes it as “pretty slick.”

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d. Follow up the references at the end of the paper.e. See what university or hospital the authors are associated with.f. Go to that university or hospital site and look up their faculty page, to see what else the authors

are doing.g. Contact them.

2. Search for grants that are already funded by NIH to make sure her grant proposal is sufficiently unique.

Figure 4. Searching the People Finder for “Strauss” on vanderbilt.edu returns an Alvin Strauss in Engineering - obviously not the right person.

A broader search across the site reveals that Dr. Strauss is actually at Vanderbilt Univer-sity Medical Center which maintains a separate database.

Digging farther, she discov-ers that he transferred to Cincinnati Children’s Hospi-tal Medical Center in 2007. A Google search finally locates his profile.

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a. Go to the CRISP database on the NIH website and enter search terms like “lipid metabolism.” “Ihave to spend a lot of time with a lot of different keyword combinations to come up with some-thing that fits.”

b. Dig through the search results to determine which grant awards are truly relevant.c. Determine who has the grant and how far along it is in the funding period (5 years is a typical

period).d. Determine whether they are still accepting funding proposals.

3. After identifying a possible call for proposal, determine how to apply for it.

Figure 5. Searching the CRISP database at NIH. http://crisp.cit.nih.gov/crisp/crisp.query. generate_screen

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a. Find the rules for application (sometimes these are in a different part of the site).b. Read through 50 or so pages of rules to see whether and how she can apply.

4. Keep up with what’s going on in the families that have these disorders on community sites likehttp://www.fodsupport.org

a. Read the parents’ perspectives.b. Post recruiting calls for research.c. See what other research studies are going on and make sure we’re not trying to recruit the same

kids.

OK, now step back and ask the question – Who designed Dr. Gillingham’s experience?

Who were the design agents? Not just the web developers, but the people who set policy and write papersand grant rules. And what were their goals?

Below is a list of some of the key design agents:

Design Agent Goals

National Library of Medicine (MEDLINE/PubMed) managers and developers

● Provide public access to a wide variety of health-related research publications.

● Enable easy sharing and archiving of researchpublications.

Ovid Technologies managers and developers ● Provide a superior experience when accessingMEDLINE and other databases and journals, so thatinstitutions will continue to license OvidSP insteadof using alternatives.

● Help people find and use relevant research papers.● Make a profit!

Authors of research papers ● Publish!● Share research / learnings with the rest of the

academic community.● Increase opportunities for future research funding,

collaboration.

Vanderbilt database administrators Maintain an accurate and current database of staff at Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt managers and web developers ● Make it easy for website users to find people atVanderbilt and contact them.

● Make it easy to search the Vanderbilt website andfind relevant information.

NIH Office of Extramural Research ● Make information accessible to the public aboutbiomedical research projects funded by the U.S.government.

● Publish information about funding opportunities.● Provide instructions on how to apply for funding.

Family members of people with Fatty Oxidation Disorder.

● Provide a place where other families and peopleaffected by this disorder can learn about the disor-der and treatments.

● Share stories and advice.● Connect people.● Advocate for research funding.

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In this particular example, Dr. Gillingham doesn’t have much choice but to go through this process, frus-trating and inefficient as it is. If there were competitive alternatives available she would certainly ditch thisprocess in favor of a better one. The design and delivery of this experience is spread across multiple orga-nizations ranging from government to commercial to academia to grass-roots. Many of the design agentsdon’t realize the role they are playing. What motivation does the NIH Office of Extramural Research have toimprove the CRISP system? It’s not affecting anyone’s paycheck if it hasn’t been updated since 1997.

These kind of experiences are everywhere. Is there any realistic way to make them better?Yes, there is. But we need to look at user experience as something more than just site maps, usability

testing and making interfaces prettier.

A Better Way - Vision, Feedback and Culture

If UX is going to be any good to the world it has to offer a better way for diverse design agents to createsuccessful experiences that unfold over a series of complex and sometimes disconnected interactions, in-person and online.

Over the past several years the user experience research firm User Interface Engineering has studied theteams behind great designs and product experiences. They found that the best teams had three things incommon:

1. A clear VISION for the customer’s experience - everyone on the team can describe the experience ofusing the design several years from now.

2. A regular way of getting FEEDBACK on the experience - the team regularly watches people using theirdesign or a competitor’s design.

3. A CULTURE that encourages failure in the pursuit of success – the organization rewards teammembers for creating a major design failure because they are able to learn from it and build on it.Failure is seen by the team as an important part of the process, not something to be avoided.

Notice that a consistent user-centered-design methodology wasn’t one of the three common factors. Itturns out that the best teams didn’t worry about following a rigid methodology with the belief that it wouldresult in a successful design. Rather they focused on increasing the UX techniques and tricks for each teammember, and were constantly exploring new tricks and techniques for their toolbox.

The struggling teams, by contrast, had limited tricks and techniques.In my company we have found this approach to be much more successful. We hold regular “lunch and

learn” workshops to share techniques and concepts across disciplines. Our programmers have a weeklybook club to learn and improve their techniques. We believe in and practice user-centered design, but ourmethodology never looks quite the same way twice because the design challenge is never the same.

What about the vision thing?

UIE’s research though has opened our eyes to the value of an experience vision as guiding principle foreveryone in the organization. It’s one thing for the UX people to have a clear idea of the end-result. But ashared experience vision helps all of the design agents keep the big story in mind and make both long-range and day-to-day decisions to move towards the experience described in the vision.

According to Jared Spool, principal at UIE, a good experience vision includes both the aspirational expe-rience and the current experience (if the entire team isn’t intimately aware of it). Insights and innovationcome from studying the differences between the current and aspirational experience.

What’s in an experience vision?

An experience vision is expressed in an “envisionment.” The envisionment can take the form of a simplenarrative, a video, a storyboard or cartoon - any storytelling technique.

In 1987, while Steve Jobs was NOT at Apple, the company created a video depicting a professor’s expe-rience with technology in 2010, 23 years into the future. In this short story he prepares for an afternoon

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lecture, updating deforestation data and consulting with a colleague at another university. This envisionmentpredicts all sorts of things that had not yet come into being, such as:

● The web● Touch screen tablets● Social media● Google (well, ubiquitous search engines anyway)● Desktop video conferencing● Artificial intelligence (OK we don’t have that one yet)

Even with all these gadgets, the story stays focused on what he, the customer, experiences - not on tech-nology.

An experience envisionment can be a simple narrative, as long as people can remember it. Here’s avision for an insurance company:

“An insured home and car owner, having just had a tree fall on their garage, will log into the site,explain the damage, upload pictures, and get initial claim approval to start temporary repairs andget a rental car – all within a few minutes.

Within the next 24 hours, inspection appointments and a detailed damage assessment are sched-uled and reviewed, and the repairs are underway within 48 hours.

All the payments are handled electronically from the insurance company, with a single NET-60bill sent to the policy holder for the deductibles.”

Creating an Experience Vision

Spool recommends these steps for creating an experience vision:

1. Identify the design agents. This means everyone who’s decisions affect the design, all the way up thechain.

2. Conduct the research.3. Craft the personas and scenarios.4. Script the envisionment.

Figure 6. Apple’s Knowl-edge Navigator video: htto://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WdS4TscWH8&fmt=18

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5. Produce the envisionment.6. Inculcate the team with the vision.

Read more from UIE about creating an experience vision: http://www.uie.com/articles/experience_vision

The power of involving all the design agents in research and synthesis

According to UIE, teams are more likely to succeed when they have research to back up the experiences.

“…most teams find their inspiration from in-depth research of latent user needs and desires.Latent needs are things users can’t elaborate on their own, because they don’t know what’s possi-ble. For example, few people would’ve told researchers they wanted home-delivered DVDs.However, through careful research, the team at Netflix saw how miserable many people were withthe video store experience and created a solution that would catapult their business to the headof video rental industry.”1

As an experience design firm we are often hired to help an organization conduct user research. Typicallywhen organizations bring in a vendor to help them gain insights, the vendor conducts the research andcomes back with a report. But we have found that the real value lies in involving as many of the designagents as possible in conducting, analyzing and synthesizing the user data. Hiring someone else to do theresearch for you and draw all the conclusions is like having someone else chew your food.

Your team members will never be as convinced by bullets in a slide presentation as they will by a first-hand encounter with customers – reading through interview transcripts, watching usability tests, goinghome with customers to watch products in use.

You don’t have to change everything about how you work to do this. There are a variety of collaborativetechniques you can adopt to involve all of your design agents in the research and synthesis process. Hereare some of the tools in our bag of tricks:

● KJ Sessions – gather 6–7 people representing your audience and have them fill sticky notes withanswers to the question “What would someone come to this website to find or do?” Group the answersand you have a good start on your site map. Conduct multiple sessions for multiple audiences. http://bit.ly/2DGJ8X

● Carewords Surveys – collect about 100 words and phrases related to your application or website.Have 75–100 people pick their top 10 and rank them, giving 10 points to their top choice, 9 to theirsecond and so on. Add up the scores and you have the top audience goals and best words to use tohelp people find what they need. http://www.customercarewords.com/what-it-is.html

● Mental Models – interview several people from each audience (anywhere between 6–16) abouttheir recent behavior related to the experience you offer. Get your whole team together to read thetranscripts and capture tasks on sticky notes. Put them on the wall, organize them into groups andmake a chart showing the whole customer experience. It’s a great way to see how your particularproduct or service fits into the broader story, and spot the opportunities for innovation. http://rosen-feldmedia.com/books/mental-models/

● Wireframe Poster Sessions – put posters on the wall around a room representing your majorscreens. Put the research data on another wall. Have the whole team take content, features and navi-gation ideas from the data, write them on sticky notes and place them on the posters where appro-priate (you’ll probably still want a UX person to facilitate and make some sense out of the posters).

● Games, like “Design Consequences” – Everyone takes 7 minutes to sketch a screen from theinterface. Then they pass their sketch to the person on their right. From their neighbor’s sketch theychoose something to click and take 7 minutes to sketch the next screen. Repeat as necessary. In ashort amount of time you have several ideas for your architects and designers to explore. http://bit.ly/2by3LL

1Spool, Jared, “The 3 Steps for Creating an Experience Vision.” UIE Brain Sparks Blog (May 14, 2007) http://www.uie.com/articles/experience_vision/

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● Mood boards – Give groups of 4–5 people a set of magazines, paint color chips, newspapers and aposterboard. Have them cut out images, words and colors that represent some aspect of the brandexperience that they envision. This usually helps to capture some of the less tangible aspects of theexperience - the feelings you hope to evoke, or major themes you want to include. Then go aroundand have each group talk about their mood board. http://bit.ly/jixhY

● Informal usability testing – Everyone should spend time watching people try to use what they’vemade. We often rely on low-tech prototypes to run informal usability tests. A facilitator sits next tosomeone you have invited in for the test. The facilitator describes an objective to the user and he orshe tries to accomplish it with the prototype. The user works with a prototype made from paper andoffice supplies (or a slideshow made from wireframes), while someone else pretends to be thecomputer and changes the screens in response to user inputs. Members of the team observe andtake notes. It has to be quick, inexpensive and fun or you won’t do it often enough. http://bit.ly/2dbHbh

You can start with any one of these techniques, although it’s always helpful to conduct some sort of audi-ence research before you begin designing. You don’t need a degree or a license or years of experience todo them.

The point is to start adding to your team’s bag of tricks and techniques. Figure out who all of your designagents are. Involve as many of them as you can. Don’t leave user experience to the experts.

Then start shaping that experience vision.

You too can do UX.

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the strategic value of user experience

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