8/14/2019 User Experience Activities for Software Design

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Ask questions. People you should interviewinclude executives, product managers, productmarketing, salespeople who will sell this product,sales engineers with experience installing similar

products, technical writers, customer support staff and qual-ity testers. You will need to develop good relationships withmarketing and distribution staff to bring them into your areaof influence. Work with sales or product marketing people toget access to users and customers. Teamwork is essential tocreating a great software experience.

Take a brand inventory. Does a strong corporate brandexist? Are there product line brand standards already inplace? If so, the product being designed needs to comple-ment and extend the existing brand. If there arent brandstandards already defined for products, create them.Collaborate with the marketing communications departmentto keep everyone on the same page.

Study the competition. Aggressively analyze the top 3-5strongest competitors and document their brand, strategies,strengths and weaknesses in a Competitive Analysis. Usetheir products if you can, and pin their screenshots to yourwall... this is who you will design to outshine.

Communicate your intentions. Document the various activitiesthat will happen throughout the software process in a UserExperience Plan and include it with the design deliverables(along with requirements and functional specs) to help makeuser experience part of the process and developmenttimeline.

Explain who users are. You may have a varieduser audience, or customers who arent users(enterprise software is often purchased by the

highest level of executives, but used by peoplewho did not choose the software.) Personas offictional users and customers can help people across thecompany understand the vision and design decisions.

Write your own requirements. Writing your own userexperience-related and product branding Requirements willelevate them to a l evel of importance and help ensure t heyare done before software can be released, and remindmarketing and developers of the additional work that mustbe accounted for in the delivery schedule.

Use scenarios to depict different vantage points. Consider theproduct from the viewpoint of a first-time user, a frequentuser, an inexperienced computer user, an advanced user,one who will use many features, one who uses only a fewfeatures, etc. UseScenarios to define the ideal experienceyou want each of these users to have and then design thesoftware to accommodate the needs of varied users.

Work to make user experience part of the process. Unless youare part of an established UE department, chances are userexperience is a nice-to-have aspect of the software develop-ment process. The user experience specialist has to work to getUE Processes designed and gain sign-off approval along withothers required to pass from phase to phase. Propose optionaland non-optional activities, so that you can add more influenceover time, as people see how much value the user experienceactivities can add.

Create a Product Design Guide for developers.Guides should include all visual standards, such asprimary colors, secondary colors, fonts, styles, chartcolors, and interface elements such as buttons anddropdowns. Our PDG also includes layout proto-

types for all screen types, product taxonomy & definitions,navigation design, the icon library, documentation styles andstandards, and packaging design samples, so developers seethe big product vision beyond the scope of their ownscreens. PDGs can be distributed as PDF documents, butsetting them up as an intranet site in HTML allows for links tosimulations and resources, easy changes to standards andnotices from the user experience group, serving as a constantinstructional tool.

Detail interaction and interface design. Use Wireframes,Visual Prototypes,Sketches & HTML Product Simulationsto communicate your intended design to developers.

Define the product taxonomy. Consistent word usage is key toa great user experience. Define labels, terms and phrases in aProduct Taxonomydocument and train salespeople, market-ing and customer support staff to use them when writing aboutor interacting with people to avoid user confusion.

An awesome user experience includes visualdesign and usability. No aspect of the interfaceshould be overlooked to take advantage of build-ing brand equity: login screens, about screens, t heinstallation experience, reports, charts, help

systems and desktop icons used to access the software are allopportunities to build the brand, polish t he overall impressionand delight the user.

Usability testing validates visual theories. User Testingin the planning & design phases can be conducted usingsketches, wireframes, visual prototypes or a rough working siteto identify issues and find problems with t he design.

Task analysis aids product acceptance. A product has tomeet users needs in order to sell in a competitive market. UsingContextual Observation, Field Research and conductingInterviews will take the guesswork out of the design and savetime and money in development.

planning & designlanning & design

planning & design

coding & testingoding & testing

coding & testing

USER EXPERIENCE ACTIVITIES | SOFTWARE

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Packaging is more than a box athink about and design a plan of the box experience.) This migtiation, because marcom genersibility for creating packaging,

where the user experience specialist has tobenefit the user. Visual design of packagextension of the product brand (not just theand inserts such as getting started and heltion posters and various errata need towritten and designed.

Someone has to write helpful documentatseem like it is the user experience specialistit is critical to the overall experience, and mof influence. If the company does not emplodevelopers are writing the documentationshould edit and improve the instructions.

The software experience involvusing it. Users have to learn toin that regard, we must also specialists. In addition to a tradsystem or printed help manual, u

started help (a manual or on-screen dialogsensitive help and on-screen guiding text.standards should be developed for all arcoordinate with the product brand.

Get involved with beta testing. Your markwill be important if you want influence on boften (unintentionally) marketing-focused afocused. Help product marketing plan the btest questions, and follow up with users afthat you get valuable user feedback that w

improvements to the experience. Ideally, ction on-site during beta testing can yield aminsights to improve either the immediate or

Review packaging and marketing collaterahelp catch errors. In the ultimate user experis aligned from the beginning (pre-sale) tosupport, maintenance, upgrades, additionnot happen unless people constantly keepmind, and then work through the details acrments to make it happen.

Plan for brand alteration. If a deal is struckchannel, your beautifully designed user ealtered. Work with business development tof acceptance (in your brands favor) upfronrealize the cost to your own brand by changabout how the design could be modified fcustomer personalization and plan for it in

marketing & distrarketing & distr

marketing & distr

Brainstorm complex functions with developers. Time andagain, I have seen product marketing and user experiencefolks try to dictate how a feature should work, rather thancollaborate with the developers who will code the feature.Save time and eliminate guesswork by working as a team withyour developers, especially when designing difficult orintegrated features and functionality.

Its software, but create a si temap.Developers use data flows to show each otherhow to code the experience. We start with aSitemap, just like we would with any complexsite, ecommerce site, or web-based application.

A sitemap is easy to review with managers and developers todiscuss flow, navigation and key features.

Icons will take a lot of time, thought and management. Regardless of who designs your icons, you will spend far moretime thinking of concepts, approving icons, getting them intoan easy-to-reference icon library, naming them and communi-cating with developers to get them used correctly than youanticipated. Train QA testers to look for icon issues to makesure nothing falls through the cracks.

Usability testing eliminates surprises. UserTesting should be conducted using sketches,wireframes, visual prototypes or partiallycompleted software to identify usability and learn-ing issues. Be sure to prioritize your findings.

Review software development often. Make frequent checksa part of your own internal process, whether you get regularbuilds or have to look over developers shoulders, to preventexperience design factors from being overlooked or ignored.This will also help keep you in the loop so that you arent

surprised by inevitable feature changes or additions thatwerent part of the original design.

Be aware of the bugs. Get access to the bug-tracking system,or request regular reports, for several reasons. You can seeareas of difficulty, track UE-specific issues, and add your ownbugs to the system when you see something not designed tostandard, or an incorrect icon used, etc. Keep cosmetic, brandstandards and usability issues important factors for release, orthey may only get resolved if there is extra time.

Conduct a formal design review. A formalUE Design Review should be led by the userexperience manager and include stakeholdersfrom management, marketing, user experience,development and others. It must be done when

the software is complete enough to get an accurate depictionof the user experience. Issues discovered should be prioritizedfor correction before launching.