Usability Body of Knowledge BoK Overview - Design for Context · 5/26/2010 · Slide 8 Duane...

www.usabilitybok.org1

UsabilityBody of Knowledge

May 26, 2010

upa

Presented by:

Duane Degler Lisa Battle

www.usabilitybok.org

Slide 2

Duane Degler & Lisa Battle, 5/26/2010

Agenda

What is a “Body of Knowledge” for the Usability Profession?

Who Will Use It?

Content Topic Areas

Content Organization

Editorial Perspectives and Processes

Categories as a Usability “Map”

Future Site Design & Architecture


Slide 3


What is a “Body of Knowledge”?

Every mature profession creates a framework to define itspractices, techniques, and standards

This framework may be used to

Define the scope of the profession

Establish educational curriculum

Certify practitioners in their knowledge and performance

Guide professional development within the discipline

Increase understanding and confidence among people outside thediscipline (public perception)


Slide 4


What is a “Body of Knowledge”?

What professions have this?

Law

Medicine

Nursing

Project management

Software engineering

Massage therapy

Health informationmanagement

Operations management

Geographic informationscience (GIS)

Quality auditors

Landscape architecture

Interior design

Business analysis

Event management

Procurement

Service management


Slide 5


A Usability BoK

In 2002, the UPA Board first discussed creatinga BoK to support the usability profession


Slide 6


A Usability BoK

In 2004, the project was initiated in a UPAworkshop


Slide 7


Discussion

Have you heard about the UsabilityBody of Knowledge project?

Do you think our profession wouldbenefit from a body of knowledge?


Slide 8


Who will use the Usability BoK?

Usability and UX practitioners

People new to the field

Experienced people faced with new challenges or new types ofprojects

Managers of UX teams

Educators and researchers

Hiring managers, project managers, clients and decision-makers

Collaborators and colleagues from other disciplines

Developers, analysts, artists, and other project team members

Policymakers

Standards bodies, other professional associations, government

Other interested people – journalists, students, etc.

PRIMARY AUDIENCES

SECONDARY AUDIENCES


Slide 9


Example Scenarios

The usability specialist starts a new job with a companythat has not paid much attention to usability before. Ashe gets familiar with the organization, he realizes thatintegrating usability & UCD will be a difficult task. Hecomes to the BoK looking for information about howother organizations have successfully and unsuccessfullyintroduced UCD, including best practices, articles, casestudies, etc. It helps to read about how other peoplehave approached this same problem before.

Story

Hired for a new job that will involve introducingusability/UCD into the organization

Trigger

USR-1 (an experienced usability/UX practitioner)User

Introducing usability/UCD into an organizationTitle


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Example Scenarios

The practitioner has been working in the UX field foralmost 10 years, but this is the first project of this typethat she has had the opportunity to work on. She wantsto know if there are any standards or guidelines fordesigning the user interface for this type of product. Itwould also help to know if there is anything different orunusual to keep in mind when conducting user researchor usability testing for this type of device.

Story

Assigned to work on a project involving a [kiosk/mobiledevice/iPad/mainframe application conversion]

Trigger

USR-1 (an experienced usability/UX practitioner)User

Designing for a new technical platformTitle


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Example Scenarios

The usability group is overloaded, but there is acorporate freeze on hiring full-time personnel. TheDirector is willing to hire a contractor or consultant toaugment the in-house team. The UX manager has nothired a contractor/consultant before and wants adviceon how to go about it, including finding the right personand writing a contract. She also wants to know whatlessons other organizations have learned from workingwith outside consultants, and any pitfalls to avoid.

Story

The manager is considering hiring a contractor/consultant

Trigger

USR-3 (a UX manager)User

Choosing a consultant for short- or long-termcollaboration

Title


Slide 12


Discussion

Can you think of scenarios in which youmight want to use a Body of Knowledge?

What questions do people ask you, forwhich it might be useful to refer them toa Body of Knowledge?


Slide 13


Content Topic Areas

Methods Design Managing UX

Affinity diagramming

Contextual inquiry

Focus group

Card sorting

Field study

Brainstorming

Parallel design

Rapid prototyping

Storyboarding

Heuristic evaluation

Usability testing

Pluralistic usabilitywalkthrough

Types of design

Design principles

Design patterns

Design for mobile devices

Design for web applications

Design for multiple platforms

Design for internationalaudiences

Design for children

Design for older adults

Design of specific UI elements(e.g. breadcrumbs, progressindicators, error messages)

ROI of usability

“Selling” usability to executives

Planning and sizing a UCD project

Growing a team

Centralized vs decentralized teams

Hiring a consultant

Usability maturity

Institutionalizing UCD

Integrating UCD and Agile

Starting a usability consultancy


Slide 14


Content Topic Areas

Each page is astand-alone topic

Topic links:Users go fromtopics they know totopics that may benew

Web links:Users go to relevantinformation on theWeb, through linksto online articlesand sites


Slide 15



BoK Home

What isUsability?

Topics ResourcesAbout the

Usability BoK

Methods Design Managing UX Emerging Ideas

Methods Design Managing UX Emerging IdeasMethods Design Managing UX Emerging IdeasTopics Topics Topics Topics

techniques and ideas that arenot yet part of mainstreampractice, but are beingresearched as ways to solvenew challenges


Slide 16



BoK Home

What isUsability?


Usability BoK

Design Managing UXEmerging

IdeasDesign Managing UXEmerging

IdeasProfessionalDevelopment

ExamplesTools &

Templates

EmergingIdeas

EmergingIdeas

ReadingLists


Slide 17



BoK Home

What isUsability?


Usability BoK


Slide 18



BoK Home

What isUsability?


Usability BoK

Intro toUsability

RelatedDisciplines

Glossary


Slide 19



BoK Home

What isUsability?


Usability BoK

History ContributorsPolicies &

NoticesTechnologyRoadmap


Slide 20



BoK Home

What isUsability?


Usability BoK

Volunteer FormSearch


Slide 21


Preview Site


Custom content management system built in 2005

Purpose: visibility for the Usability BoK, sharing earlyexamples of the topics with the community, getting feedback

Quite simple, so that people could browse through a fewexample topics

Not planned to continue beyond 2010

Some early work was done with Spanish translation tounderstand some of the issues that would arise with having amultilingual resource


Slide 22


Discussion

How can the BoK meet the needs of amulti-lingual, international audience?


Editorial Perspectivesand Processes


Slide 24


Editorial Perspectives

Consensus

Breadth

Depth

Authoritativeness

A living reference


Slide 25


Consensus

The BoK should represent a broad consensusregarding the profession itself and the range ofknowledge, skills, and methods that should bemastered by practitioners in the field

Where differing perspectives exist among experts,acknowledge and describe the issues


Slide 26


Breadth

The BoK should be broad and inclusive inscope, because our profession is inherentlymultidisciplinary and draws on a wide range ofother practices

It needs to have sufficient breadth of content tobe useful and realistically represent the scopeof the profession


Slide 27


Depth

The BoK should be derived from publishedliterature, conference proceedings, and theexperiences of practitioners accumulated overmany years

The outcome will be a guide that contains corematerial supplemented by pointers to existingresources, and continues to evolve as thepractice of usability evolves


Slide 28


How Much Detail is Needed?

Overview

Definition

Summary

Important References

More Detail

Description

How To

Special Considerations


Slide 29


An Authoritative Reference

A framework for answering the questions"what is the practice of usability?” and"how does it relate to me and my experience?”

Sufficient content to be useful andrealistically represent the scope of theprofession

Consensus on content, reviewed by multipleexperts, not just an individual person’sperspective

Citations of published works that are generallyagreed to be important


Slide 30


A Living Reference

Fresh, timely content

Keeps up with changes in the field


Slide 31


Discussion

What would make the Usability BoK anauthoritative reference?

What would make it a living reference?

Can “authoritative” and “contributed”content co-exist?


Slide 32


Can “Authoritative” and“Contributed” Content Co-exist?

A strong editorial process

A community collaborative process


Slide 33


Draft Wiki

draft.usabilitybok.org

A MediaWiki site was set up in 2006 for collaborationbetween Usability BoK content contributors

The site is password controlled to create a comfortableenvironment for drafting content, collaborative editing,and discussions

Drafts are not visible to the public, because exposingdraft, “in progress” material did not match the project’soverall goals and the authoritative nature of the UsabilityBoK

Anyone can contribute – all volunteers get a login

Over 500 people have requested logins over the past fewyears


Slide 34


Contribution and Editorial Process

Manage Volunteers

Identifycontent

priorities

Requestvolunteers

Draft

Collaborateon earlydrafts

Identifyreferences

for links

Completedraft topic

Review

Peerreviews

Editorreview

Section leadfinal review

Publish

Check alllinks and

references

PrepareHTML

Publishcontent topublic site


Future Usability BoK


Slide 36


Future BoK Site: Drupal Platform

Extensive capabilities to create and managestructured content

Extensive taxonomy capabilities

Web 2.0 social collaboration facilities, so eventuallyDraft Wiki can be incorporated into the same technicalenvironment as the public site

Also future platform for the UPA’s main web site

Widely supported by Open Source development community

Active development group focused on RDF and RDFa SemanticWeb implementation within the product

Can make the Usability BoK the authoritative database forusability references and categorization on the Web


Slide 37


Future BoK Site: Features

Page navigation and hierarchical browsing

along with site hierarchy navigation, related topics can be accessedlike paging through a book

Facet categorization

leveraging the taxonomy to allow users to filter content in order tofocus on information that matches their specific needs

Glossary integration

along with a site-wide glossary, enables pop-up definitions forterms, so people can get definitions without having to leave a pagethey are reading

Rich link information

links to external resources are stored with additional categorizationinformation to allow them to be managed more easily and becomemore useful over time


Slide 38


Granular “Chunks” of Content


Slide 39


Re-Assembling Content

For example, if a userindicates that they arean HR manager orjournalist, rather than ausability practitioner,they may have theoption to see only the“overview” (title,definition, and simpledescription) for eachTopic, as a way ofmatching the content totheir experience andneed for information


Slide 40



Or, a practitioner comparing several differentuser research methods might see just a fewfields relevant to the comparison.


Slide 41



Or, a reading list might be assembled based onreferences that are frequently cited in the BoK topics.

Reading List Title

Lastname, A. (2001). Title of book or article.

Lastname, B. (2007). Title of book or article.

Lastname, C. (2003). Title of book or article.

Description of this reference and why it is useful.




Slide 42


Topic Relationships: Tagging

During the initial workshop, the concept of the map wasexpressed this way:

“The body of knowledge should be in people’s comfortzone – they should come to it and see themselves easily.Each person has an entry point that can ripple across thefield. Maybe we’re thinking about a network?”


Slide 43



A "map" of the subject…

Makes content findable and navigable

Provides a framework for other efforts(such as certification) to derive theirdefinitions of the profession


Slide 44



UX Practice Areas

Topic Areas

Content Types

Contexts/Perspectives


Slide 45


UX Practice Areas

Content can be tagged as relevant to one ormore of the core disciplines of User Experience,including

Strategy

Research

Design

Evaluation

Management


Slide 46


Topic Areas

Content can be tagged as relevant to one ormore of the core topic areas of the BoK,including

Methods

Design

Managing UX

Emerging ideas


Slide 47


Content Types

Content and links can be tagged as a specifictype, such as

Glossary definition

How to (procedure)

Reference

Example

Case study

Template


Slide 48


Contexts

Content can be tagged as relevant to one ormore contexts, including

Project lifecycle

Technology platform

User type

Organization type

Subject domain

Culture

Language


Slide 49


Discussion

How would you use this new site?

What do you feel you need?


Slide 50


Topic Relationships

Brainstorming

Brain Drawing

Free Listing

Brain Writing

Relat

edto

Method

Usability Topic

Is a

Is a

Requirements

Lifecycle Stage

Is a

Used forMind Maps

PostIt notes

Apply

tool

s

<Reading List>

<External sites>

Has keyreferences

Visioning

Strategy

Applied in

Part of

Supports

UX Practice Areas

Focus Groups

User Research

Applied in

Part of


Slide 51


Usability Topics as Linked Data

http://linkeddata.org/

Usability


Summary



Slide 53


The BoK and UPA’s 2010 Goals

1. Become the authoritative source on the practice of usability,user-centered design (UCD), and user experience (UX).

2. Facilitate professional development and education within theUX field.

Provides a substantitive, independent resource onusability.

Answers the question “what is involved in practicingusability?” for professional development and curriculumplanning.


Slide 54


The BoK and UPA’s 2010 Goals

3. Promote the business value of user experience, research,design and evaluation to business and other entities.

4. Foster a community of user experience professionals throughknowledge sharing and networking.

Includes topics on ROI, describes benefits of specificusability and design techniques.

Provides a place for knowledge-sharing with the widercommunity.


Slide 55


Want to Get Involved?

Volunteer contributors are needed!


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