Institute of Information Systems
@hevs.ch
Techno-Pôle 3 – CH-3960 Sierre
Putting the Customer Back in the Center of SOA
with Service Design and User-Centered Design
Arnita Saini, Benjamin Nanchen and Florian Evequoz
Benjamin Nanchen
benjamin.nanchen
Plan
• Context of work
• The project INFOPLACE
1. Data gathering through Ethnomethodology
2. Data Interpretation
3. Designing from Insights
4. Prototype Implementation and Usability Evaluation
• Discussion and conclusions
2
Context of work
An applied research project
• One company – One problem
– Krios: A ten-year old Swiss company active in the Cloud Computing
– The products portfolio and its organization
• Each particular product is organized as an independent silo
• A solution – INFOPLACE
– Adoption of a SOA framework to tackle the backend complexity
– Design of a web application (INFOPLACE) to reduce the frontend
complexity
• Our contribution
– Design of the INFOPLACE and its link to the SOA
• Development of a web customer service (ex. sales system)
4
• Team
– Prof. Florian Evéquoz: Project leader
– Arnita Saini: User-centered design
– François Morard: Software engineer
– Benjamin Nanchen: Service design
• Methodology
Compe torAnalysis
Customerinterviews
Immersionincompany
AffinityDiagrams
ServiceBlueprint
Wireframing
Informa onArchitecture
PrototypeUsabilityEvalua on
DATAGATHERING
DATAINTERPRETATION
DESIGNFROMINSIGHTS
PROTOTYPEANDEVALUATION
An applied research project
5
How to align user’s need with SOA?
• Initial goals
– Engineering an SOA and a web customer’s service
• Lack of the SOA
– Approaches for engineering an SOA do not typically include customers
• The concept of service
– Business service exposed to customers OR small software component
• An interdisciplinary methodology
– Originality of our work
• The mix of user-centered design and service design to explicitly
align the needs of customers with the SOA.
6
The project INFOPLACE
1. Data gathering through Ethnomethodology
Compe torAnalysis
Customerinterviews
Immersionincompany
AffinityDiagrams
ServiceBlueprint
Wireframing
Informa onArchitecture
PrototypeUsabilityEvalua on
DATAGATHERING
DATAINTERPRETATION
DESIGNFROMINSIGHTS
PROTOTYPEANDEVALUATION
Competitors Interface Analysis
• 4 competitors
– Amazon, Office 365, Swisscom, Infomaniak
• Protocol
– Visiting, purchasing and customizing
• Heuristic Evaluation
– Identify the usability strengths and weaknesses
• Results
– List of best practices in the domain
• Customer orientation (ex. sales)
• Usual places for standard actions (ex. logout)
8
Semi-Structured Interviews
• 8 participants
– 5 customers, 1 collaborators, 2 managers
• Topics
– General context of work
– Experience of Krios services
– Quality of services
– General questions
• Results
– Customer’s expectations
• Main requests (ex. purchase of a service)
• Quality of services (ex. helpdesk)
9
Immersion work at Krios
• Visit of Krios during working days
– 3 members of the project team
– Observation and film
• Topics
– Typical everyday work
• Results
– Back office’s constraints
• Support process (phone call or email)
• Lack of traceability
• Administrative work
10
The project INFOPLACE
2. Data Interpretation
Compe torAnalysis
Customerinterviews
Immersionincompany
AffinityDiagrams
ServiceBlueprint
Wireframing
Informa onArchitecture
PrototypeUsabilityEvalua on
DATAGATHERING
DATAINTERPRETATION
DESIGNFROMINSIGHTS
PROTOTYPEANDEVALUATION
Affinity Diagrams
• Goal
– Consolidation of raw data
• Technique
– Write each finding on a post-it
– Organize it in different categories during team session
Raw data Consolidation
12
Main outcomes
• Simplicity in design
– Implementation of wizards
• Assist customer in purchasing and consuming services
• Key functionalities for INFOPLACE
– Service purchase
– Account creation or removal
– Modify user data
– Permission change
• Clarification of Krios’s business
– Hosting
– Software as a Service
– Customer service (help desk)
13
The project INFOPLACE
3. Designing from Insights
Compe torAnalysis
Customerinterviews
Immersionincompany
AffinityDiagrams
ServiceBlueprint
Wireframing
Informa onArchitecture
PrototypeUsabilityEvalua on
DATAGATHERING
DATAINTERPRETATION
DESIGNFROMINSIGHTS
PROTOTYPEANDEVALUATION
Service Blueprint
• Goal (from the customer’s point of view)
– Capture the entire customer service experience
– Distinguish visible activities (onstage) from support activities (backstage)
• Five steps
– Customer actions
– Onstage/Visible Contact Employee Actions
– Backstage/Invisible Contact Employee Actions
– Support Processes
• Indicate the role of the underlying IT system
• A direct link between the needs of the customer and the SOA
– Physical Evidence
• The customer evaluates the quality of service
15
Service Blueprint
16
Wireframing
• Goal
– Drawing the application without programming
• Use of service blueprint’s results
– Physical evidences, Customer actions and On-stage features
• Creation of wizards
– Customer’s needs
17
Information Architecture
• Goal
– Organization of the content
• Use of service blueprint’s results
– Customer’s actions
• Task
– Support process
• Function
– Physical evidences
• Navigational path
• Navigational path for purchase
– Home screen > Purchase option > Wizard > Home screen
18
The project INFOPLACE 4. Prototype Implementation and Usability Evaluation
Compe torAnalysis
Customerinterviews
Immersionincompany
AffinityDiagrams
ServiceBlueprint
Wireframing
Informa onArchitecture
PrototypeUsabilityEvalua on
DATAGATHERING
DATAINTERPRETATION
DESIGNFROMINSIGHTS
PROTOTYPEANDEVALUATION
Prototype Implementation
• Visual design of INFOPLACE
– Based on wireframe
– Combination with the layout of Krios website in order to retain
consistency
20
Usability Evaluation
• Methodology
– Five usability experts
– Use of Nielsen’s heuristics
• Results
– Most severe problems
• Place of standards functionalities (ex. logout)
• Enlargement of the resolution
• Suppression of gridview
• Differentiation of services to buy and services to manage
• Conclusion
– Correction of the most severe problems prior to release of INFOPLACE
21
Next steps
• Krios
– Implementation of the solution
– Connected INFOPLACE with their SOA
• HES-SO Valais-Wallis
– Follow up study
• Iterative design process
22
Discussion and Conclusions
Taking the best of each methodology
• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
– Facilitation of scalability, availability and performance of service
• User Centered Design (UCD)
– Help to be aware of the desires and needs of users
• Ethnomethodology
– Organization of the content and prototype
• Wireframing, Information Architecture
• Service Design – Customer-oriented focus
• Ethnomethodology
– Understanding customer-oriented processes and links to the underlying systems
• Service blueprint
24
An interdisciplinary methodology
• Strengths
– Participation among team members
– Dynamic process of work
– Inputs from the different skills and expertise within the team
Effects on business level
• Clarification of the Krios’s business
– 3 categories of services (hosting, SaaS, help desk)
• Simplifying their products portfolio
– Reducing their products list
– Providing pre-configured packages with appropriate pricing
– Hiding details of parameterization of services 25
Thank you for your attention!
Top Related