Entries Tagged 'Corporate' ↓

When Institutionalizing usability, it’s critical that 5 user-centered design principles be developed and adhered to.

I was recently reading HFI’s white paper on Digital User Experience Strategies, and I came across an interesting sidebar that captured my attention. In this sidebar the Author, Jarome Nadel, discusses the 5 critical user-centered design principles an Enterprise must have in order to facilitate a digital user experience strategy.

I found the side note interesting, because I believe it accurately and simply explains what it takes to have an Enterprise-wide user-centered design methodology. Take away any of these 5 principles, and institutionalizing usability will not happen.

Here then are the 5 user-centered design principles mentioned in the sidebar, and my comments about each:

1. Executive Support for Usability:

Simply put, an executive champion is critical to institutionalizing user-centered design. Anyone who’s worked in a large company can tell you horror stories about “silos.” Each silo (aka business unit) owner must make decisions that either improves the unit’s revenue, or decreases expenses.

For example, many years ago (pre-Twitter or WordPress if you can believe that!) when I worked at a very large health care company here in the U.S., the Senior Vice President of Individual insurance had vastly different goals than the SVP of Large Group, or of Senior. Their ultimate goals were the same, 15% increase in profit, but their methods for achieving their goals were vastly different.

Because of this, institutionalizing a single overarching set of resources and standards, to promote a unified strategy for user-centered design, could not happen. A project that was mission-critical to Individual, say for example an easy to use online health insurance quote form, was not at all needed or necessary for Large Group, which for example might have needed an easy to use group administrator dashboard.

Without executive support to bring resources and standards to help each unit, based on a set of overarching user-centered design standards and a unified design strategy, the units were left to themselves and could make design decisions in a vacuum, sans Enterprise design strategy and standards.

For that company, this silo strategy was the preferred method of operation and worked well, as witnessed by years of steady business growth. However not all companies can use such a philosophy, and it should be noted that in this new Customer-empowered web 2.0 world chinks will show in the armor. Say for example customers transition from one supporting business unit to another, or wish to use the same applications no matter how they contact the company (phone, web, cell-phone, etc).

With more and more empowered digital customers connecting to an enterprise using multiple channels, and expecting a single and unified customer experience, the Enterprise strategy for user-centered design and standards becomes ever more important, as does the need for a executive champion.

2. User-Centered Design Process

The process the Enterprise sets in place to achieve a comprehensive user-centered design methodology is critical.

This user-centered process includes;

• Creation and maintenance of all digital assets
• Development and adjustment of an overall user-centered design strategy
• Conducting on-going primary and secondary research into customer Personas and needs
• Mandating usability testing throughout the development process, at key points along the way
• Validating designs post launch, with a master set of customer experience and usability metrics that track performance over time.
• Feedback loops to provide key learnings back into the business and technology units (I added this one. Remember that old feedback arrow from that ancient Dinosaur “Continuous Quality Improvement?” It still works!).

3. Standardization

As is so well put by the white paper:

“When business units run their digital operations in the same way, usability variances are essentially eliminated and efficiencies are optimized.”

I’m reminded of a funny story. Again, at that large health insurance company a long time ago, we invited Dr. Eric Schaffer (of Human Factors International, Inc. fame) to provide an executive consultation to senior executives regarding the best way to develop a corporate eCommerce design strategy. Eric was discussing standards, when one of the executives raised their hand and asked,

“So, how many standards should there be? Should we have one standard for internal-facing applications and a separate set of standards for external-facing applications?”

Eric stopped, gathered his thoughts for a few seconds and then said in a quiet voice,

“Well, if you have multiple standards, then you really don’t have a Standard, do you?”

The room was dead quiet for several heartbeats as the pure and simple logic of this statement drilled into everyone around the big table. The meeting continued, but the point was brilliantly driven home. A single set of design standards is one of the easiest ways for an enterprise to ensure a good and consistent user experience, while reducing the expense of design and development teams “re-creating the wheel.”

4. Usability Maturity

Usability can actually be a competitive advantage for a company. All else being equal, an enterprise that has a fully mature usability set of standards and design principles will be producing applications more efficiently, and more effectively.

The improved customer satisfaction received over time by these more usable applications will begin to help move that enterprise above competitors who approach design and development with ad-hoc, or worse, cross-purpose user-centered designs.

Usability becomes the lever that moves the usability-mature enterprise above all competition, and keeps it there. The rest have to play catch-up.

5. Usability Metrics and Modeling

One of the top 12 useful usability books I recommended was “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day.” Why? Because it’s the smart usability practitioner that constantly analyzes metrics coming from web sites or applications. This provides three benefits:

First – Analyzing metrics helps determine the usability “health” of the web site or application. Sudden changes in metrics will call out a potential problem that has occurred. Knowing the best and worst performing pages or tasks will also help prioritize where usability resources should be applied.

Second – The rest of the enterprise speaks metrics. By speaking the language of the rest of the enterprise, the smart usability practitioner is actively involved in business discussions, and can proactively contribute to discussions of how to improve results, by applying usability.

Third – The usability and related user experience metrics will over time provide enough data with which to conduct modeling. Keeping a storehouse of knowledge, learnings and best practices will also prove useful as potential new designs are applied in models. The point is to leverage the massive amounts of usability and related metrics to help build smarter design processes and create efficiencies over time.

The 5 enterprise user-centered design principles

I believe that there’s a lot of information in that one little side bar in the HFI white paper! I think the enterprise that incorporates all 5 user-centered design principles has much better chance of being the enterprise that rises above the competition.

As more and more people move into the web 2.0 world, and use their individual voices to communicate with an enterprise in multiple channels, it becomes more and more critical for an enterprise to offer a consistent and satisfying user experience across all touch-points.

You can download and read the free HFI white-paper: “Digital User Experience Strategy: A roadmap for the post-web 2.0 world“

Dr. Eric Schaffer’s book about institutionalizing usability: “Institutionalization of Usability: A Step-by-Step Guide“

Cross Channel Usability Can Make or Break an Organization

Most of the time when people in corporations think of usability, they think of web sites. The reality is usability can (and should!) be applied across multiple channels of a corporation. This is because customers do not solely interact with just a web site, or just a phone call. Most customers will interact with a company using multiple channels at multiple times. The customer experience then can and should be improved across all the channels, not just a web site. The problem is this is difficult, because each channel within a corporation has it’s own goals, strategies and tactics. Thus just trying to provide a consistent communication and customer experience across channels can be difficult to do well.

In a recent article by Colleen Jones at UXMatters.com, titled “Conversing Well Across Channels,” a point is made that trying to coordinate and enhance the customer’s experience by communicating in a consistent manner across all channels is good for the customer, and therefore good for business. As is stated in the article:

“The ideal experience lets customers carry on their conversation with a company whenever and wherever the customer desires, by whatever means is most appropriate.”.

She continues…

“The resulting challenge for businesses is conversing effectively with customers no matter what channel they choose. Do not underestimate the difficulty of this challenge! I find the challenge of cross-channel conversation particularly daunting. Successfully conversing across channels requires most companies to overhaul their traditional approaches to doing business.”

I like this article because I believe it succinctly describes the issues facing a corporation, and several possible solutions for helping to improve usability and the customer experience.

7 Practical Steps for Conversing Well

Among the solutions identified in the article there are 7 practical steps for conversing well across channels, I urge you to read the whole article, because Colleen provides additional detail, but to quickly summarize they are:

1. Do a user experience or content project for a different channel.
2. Start analyzing customer inquiries across channels.
3. Aggregate any channel issues you discover through user or customer research or usability testing.
4. Start listing inconsistencies across channels.
5. Get permission to observe customer interactions in one of your company’s stores or call or chat centers.
6. Start cleaning up your content—even in training materials and scripts.
7. Promote any successes or insights you’ve gained through the other six steps throughout your organization.

Effecting Usability Improvements Across Channels

I believe beyond these good ideas, there are three additional points that must be considered if you are to actually improve the usability of the cross channel customer experience. They are:

1. Identify and track the metrics that are used by each channel to measure customer satisfaction, creating channel-specific and a compilation all-channels measurement.
Frankly, tracking a single set of metrics across channels may or may not be possible. Goals and metrics for success in a customer service unit as an example, may be completely different than those in a small business acquisition unit. This is why holistic metrics such as NetPromoter and the like were created. Using a single easy-to-capture metric across business units means everyone is measured the same, but as some experts will tell you a single metric may not be enough information to act upon. Most likely, some combination of customer satisfaction, usability and business metrics can be used to track performance. These metrics are important, as they will be used to determine the success or failure of the usability or customer experience improvements that will be made.

2. Enlist channel manager buy-in for usability or customer experience improvements by attaching the improvement projects to the manager’s goals and compensation.
Want to get something done? Just attach a manager’s bonus to a project, it’s amazing how much attention and energy will be focused on that project! By focusing a goal or compensation or both on a usability or customer experience improvement project, you can be assured of much more focus and help from channel managers. This by and of itself is most often enough to ensure almost any project will get the resources and help needed to succeed. Without this, you can still get your cross channel usability or customer experience improvement project accomplished, but you may find it more difficult obtaining resources or buy-in and support from the all-important channel managers. Of course, it’s almost impossible to get goals and compensation attached to a manager without executive support, thus…

3. Gain support from executives by clearly defining the Return On Investment (ROI) for the usability or customer experience improvements.
This is critical if point 2 above is to be approved and executed. You absolutely can accomplish usability or customer experience improvements without executive support, but it’s very much like rowing a boat upstream in a fast moving river. It’s smarter, and easier, to obtain the necessary support across channels by having a clear and direct sponsorship of the enhancement project from the top. The problem is, executives must clearly understand and appreciate the ROI attached to these projects, and that can be difficult to define. The other problem is once you’ve indicated a potential ROI, you will be expected to accomplish it, so set expectations accordingly. But don’t be surprised if a minor ROI obtains no or low support. The trick is to identify enough enhancements to make the cross channel projects worth doing, but to not promise improvements that are almost impossible to accomplish, or unobtainable.

Cross Channel Usability

So, there you have it. Three additional considerations for you if you decide to get your cross channel usability or enhancement projects off the ground and started. It’s not easy, but then again things of value seldom are.

Do you have additional ideas on how to get cross channel usability or customer satisfaction projects started? Share them with your fellow readers!

The 7 Enterprise Usability Tips Everybody Knows (but don’t always act on)

There are way more than 7 enterprise usability tips, of course there are! But since I don’t have a really long time to write them all down, and you don’t have a really long time to read them all, then let’s you and I focus on the 7 that can make a difference to an Enterprise, and that way we can get back to the fun stuff, like doing usability! Sound good? Great, let’s get started!

The reality is most of these tips are common sense, and probably quite well-known. However, it’s sometimes easy to get caught up in the day to day activities of an enterprise, and forget the tips, and more importantly forget to apply them! So with no further ado, here they are!

Enterprise Usability Tip #1 – Your marketing or sales department can be your best friend.
Every marketing or sales department in the world needs more sales or inquiries from their website, always. If you clearly explain how usability efforts can and will make it easier for sales or inquiries to happen, then you’ll have a best friend for life. Always check in with the VP of marketing or sales and ask how things are going, and what’s coming up in the near future. Changes mean an opportunity to conduct usability, and improve performance which means more sales or inquiries.

Enterprise Usability Tip #2 – Usability does NOT have to be expensive.
Guess what? Usability testing and analysis does not need to be expensive. Yes, there does need to be professionals at work, but no, it doesn’t require massive amounts of money. There are simple and effective ways to conduct low-cost usability testing. Probably the cheapest and most efficient way to gather critical usability feedback is through paper wire-frames. Penny-pinching can be done by recruiting participants via Craigslist. Card sorts can be done with 3×5 index cards. Basic prototype testing can be done with simple html mock-ups. With a mobile wifi card and internet access through your laptop, you can conduct usability testing almost anywhere, no need for an expensive lab. ‘Nuff said?

Enterprise Usability Tip #3 – Usability does NOT have to be labor-intensive.
You don’t need a team of 20 flunkies and your own personal Barista to conduct usability testing or analysis. A usability practitioner, a piece of paper, and a participant are enough. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Enterprise Usability Tip #4 – Usability has NO boundaries.
We live in the marvelous electronic age where all of us can be connected instantly. I can talk to you if you’re in Nome, Alaska, or Rome, Italy. Remote usability testing allows global access to anybody who’s connected to the internet. Unlike manufacturing, usability has no walls, no boundaries, and can be performed almost anywhere with almost anyone (that fits your Persona that is). How great is usability?!

Enterprise Usability Tip #5 – Usability can be FAST.
More than likely the phrase “We can’t afford the time to do usability testing, we’re on a tight schedule” has been used. Guess what? That’s just not true, darn-it! Usability done correctly does require some fore-thought and planning, but compared to creating a 100 page Business Requirements Document or detailed Use Cases, creating usability testing protocols is way, way faster. Recruiting and testing can be done very quickly too. There’s no reason why a complete test plan, recruitment, testing and analysis cannot happen in 2 weeks. Sound impossible? It’s not! I’ve done it many, many times. Usability testing and analysis can be conducted concurrently to development. Compare that to the time and energy it takes to “fix” post release mistakes, and usability pays for itself ten-fold. Let’s not hear any of that “takes too long” stuff, okay?

Enterprise Usability Tip #6 – Usability doesn’t always work.
Ummm, but that’s a negative, why is that in here you may be asking? The truth is usability is only as good as the practitioner that conducts the test or analysis. If someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing is handling usability, then it most likely won’t work. Questionable practitioners are out there, and even with the pros sometimes the wrong test is used, or the wrong Persona is tested. There’s a well-known series of Comparative Usability Evaluations (I’m thinking specifically of CUE-4 conducted by Molich, Jeffries and Dumas) that demonstrated that no two usability practitioner groups use the exact same test methods to evaluate a website. Worse, the evaluations varied widely in terms of number of issues found, and recommendations for improvements. Usability testing is half art, half science. That means usability may not always work the way it’s intended to. Be careful when touting usability, methods vary, and there is no one clear and consistent way to always obtain the best results. Just remember that nobody’s perfect, and mistakes, sometimes bad ones, can happen. Set expectations carefully.

Enterprise Usability Secret #7 – There’s more than enough work to go around.
I don’t know of a single Enterprise that has exhausted all potential usability projects. The more an enterprise relies on employee and customer web applications, the more usability projects there are. You can probably find at least 10 usability projects in your intranet alone, and enough potential savings to pay for a host of studies. The implication here is there’s no reason to not get out there and promote and conduct usability to improve the experience.

Conclusion – There’s plenty of enterprise usability tips

I suppose there’s nothing earth-shaking or amazingly new about these seven secrets. But the reality is most enterprise usability practitioners need the occasional reminder that there are multiple ways to conduct usability, and by reminding yourself of these secrets you may be better positioned to take advantage of usability, and help your enterprise succeed.

Do you have other usability tips you would like to share? Send a comment now and add your thoughts!

So what are your enterprise usability tips?