ux scotland 2014 19th june

TEACHING THE ELEPHANTIN THE ROOM TO DANCE19th June 2014UX Scotland

Lorraine Paterson & Mike Jefferson

HOW TO EMBED UXIN LARGE ORGANISATIONS19th June 2014

@lorraine_p @mikeyj_uk

May 3, 2023 3

INTRODUCTION

Who are we and where are we from?

• Two of a four-strong team of user experience designers

• Work for Royal London, 150 year mutual insurance company • Scottish Life was part of Royal London but recently rebranded

• Based in the department, Group Technology & Change (GTC)

• New UX function created, no distinct UX role previously

• Debate in the organisation about where UX should be…• Question: where does your team sit in your organisation?

IT? Marketing? Insight? Proposition? Other?

BACKGROUND

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INTRODUCTION

What do we want to talk about today?

• Explain how we’ve managed to embed UX bit by bit.

• Share our experience working on a long term project and how it influenced the strategic progress of the UX team.

• Talk about the ups and downs and how the UX role evolved.

• Impart some wisdom learned along the way!

BACKGROUND

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INTRODUCTION

What have we achieved ?

• We managed to design a commercially successful product for the business

• Demonstrated value using one long term project, Automatic Enrolment

• Paved the way for embedding UX more successfully in future projects

• Gained trust in other areas of the business where UX is now more widely recognised and accepted

BACKGROUND

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CHAPTER ONEQUICK WE NEED SCREENS!

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CHAPTER ONE

Parachuting into the project

• Allocated to Auto Enrolment (AE) when joined

• Huge amounts of documentation

• Project started in a waterfall and switched to agile

• Good: Opportunity to demonstrate value by designing better interfaces

• Good: Worked closely within the development team. Actions speak louder than words.

QUICK WE NEED SCREENS!

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CHAPTER ONEQUICK WE NEED SCREENS!

The challenges

• TIME!

• Feeding the development machine

• Low UX maturity = low UX credibility

• No visibility of UX outside of team – no stakeholder engagement

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CHAPTER TWO“THIS ISN’T WHAT WE ASKED FOR!”

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Stakeholder engagement

• Increased stakeholder engagement

• Stakeholder appreciation of design process improved

• Walkthroughs with the stakeholders and team enabled designs to influence requirements

• Moved away from basic wireframes to prototypes

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Typical prototype (medium fidelity)

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The challenges

• Stakeholder meetings were often the first time they saw designs – mismatching expectations

• TIME (still) – design not influencing development

• Inconsistency of prototype designs

• Prototypes re-used for variety of audiences which was not always appropriate

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LAUNCH!

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CHAPTER THREEBREATHING SPACE

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CHAPTER THREE

Highlights

• Post-launch evaluation• Usability testing• UX review

• Documented standards• UX design patterns• Styleguide• Axure component library

BREATHING SPACE

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Axure library


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Good stuff

• Usability testing!

• Market feedback on system UX

• Opportunity to sharpen tools

• Axure library provides multiple benefits• Greater consistency• Higher fidelity• Quicker production

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Challenges

• No access to customers

• UX enhancements going nowhere

• Frustration due to lack of opportunity to make a difference

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CHAPTER FOURCOLLABORATE!

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CHAPTER FOUR

1. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672887/how-to-conduct-your-own-google-design-sprint

COLLABORATE!

Highlights

• New feature development

• Collaborative design process (Google Ventures)1

• Understand the problem from a user/task perspective• Diverge to Explore possible design solutions• Decide upon a single solution and map it out• Prototype an interactive model of the agreed solution• Validate using stakeholder review / usability testing• Iterate prototype to evolve design based on feedback

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Good stuff

• Bringing stakeholders along the journey

• Safe, collaborative environment

• Good team cohesion

• Wide range of knowledge/ideas surfaced

• Buy-in for prototyped solution

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Challenges

• Key stakeholder delegated responsibility

• Initiative stalled due to questioned assumption

• No clear way of resolving disagreement

• Still no access to customers

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CHAPTER FIVEFIRST CONTACT

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Highlights

• First contact with customers!

• Prototypes increasingly useful for a range of purposes & audiences• Stakeholders – bring feature alive, surface

differences of opinion, identify questions & assumptions

• Customers – resolve questions, test assumptions, validate design direction, usability test designs

• Development team – communicate system changes, act as specification for the UI

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Good stuff

• Turning point in the perception of UX

• Opportunity to build relationships with customers

• Customer feedback having real impact on design decisions

• High level of UX credibility

• First forays into upfront research

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Challenges

• Feature definition precedes user input

• Prioritisation precedes user input

• No systematic gathering of user feedback post-launch

• Research bottleneck

• Difficulty prioritising UX enhancements

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CHAPTER SIXPUTTING THE USER CENTRE STAGE

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CHAPTER SIX

Identifying an opportunity

• Mature team, well organised and working on priority backlog items

• Victim of our own success!

• Large project team with several agile development teams working in parallel (82 full-time employees)

• UXDs under utilised on project and not as busy as other roles

PUTTING THE USER CENTRE STAGE

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CHAPTER SIX

What next

• Designed and agreed a research proposal • Aim to benchmark the user experience • Deep dive research on features with most unknowns• Allow the voice of the user to influence backlog prioritisation

• Analysed data from internal sources to make quick wins• Able to tie UX enhancements directly back to business benefit

• Use the research to provide designs earlier and reduce bottlenecks

PUTTING THE USER CENTRE STAGE

Internal survey

External survey

Customer

interviews

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EPILOGUEPUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

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CHAPTER SEVENPUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

May 3, 2023 Presentation info in footer 32

Build credibility by taking bite size chunks.


Be pragmatic. What does the project need at this time and how can you best add value?


Don’t understimate the power of the prototype.


Be clear about the purpose of the prototype. What are the needs of the recipient?


Look for opportunities and be proactive. Use downtime to get ahead.


Be inclusive. Invite others into your process.


Win over influential stakeholders. They will be able to help progress your UX strategy much quicker.


Tie UX improvements to business benefit wherever possible. Metrics can be powerful.


Track your progress to stay motivated.

THANKYOU

ux scotland 2014 19th june

Presentations & Public Speaking