a survival guide for complex ux
DESCRIPTION
Tutorial: As a UX practitioner working in complex environments you have to be flexible, since commonly-used user-centred design techniques may not work. In this tutorial, we provide insights into how you can approach UX problems in complex fields with confidence. With concrete examples from our experience of designing services for life scientists, we describe approaches you can use to characterise specialist users, and translate their requirements into successful designs. In the hands-on activity, you will experiment with our unique (and recently published) ‘canvas sort’ technique, for prioritising large numbers of data items and modelling their interactions. So if you work in UX in a complex environment - such as in scientific research, pharmaceuticals, engineering, technology, finance, or others - join us to learn how to survive when things get complicated!TRANSCRIPT
Flickr: N A I T Paula de Matos & Jenny Cham
A Survival Guide for Complex UX
My name is Paula de Matos I live in Cambridge I am an Independent
UX Analyst I tweet @Paula_deMatos I am South African & Portuguese I am an agile evangelist
Flickr: Doritweber
• Part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
• International, non-profit research institute
• 540 people work at EMBL-EBI, 48 nations represented
• Average age: 37 yrs
EMBL-EBI EuroHub for Bioinformatics in Hinxton
2012
2013
Our recent papers: UX and Bioinformatics (open access)
Characteristics of a complex environment…
Flickr: Gigi C
• highly inter-connected • has depth (big picture and high level of granularity important) • high volume, big scale • unfamiliar since it is a ‘niche’/’expert’ field (niche vocab.) • needing security/ privacy/ authentication • real time-critical
Complex environments have data that is/ may be…
• May have geographically separated team • People (always complex but added complications may be…)
• Not aware of UX (“fluffy stuff”)
• Do not know who users are/ not interested in the user
• Lack buy-in (“should we simplify stuff?”)
People in complex environments…
Rich client mapping e.g. Geographical software
Multi-screen terminals for stock brokers e.g. Thomson Reuters
Flickr: Travel Aficionado
Examples
Examples
Pharmaceutical Research and Development e.g. identifying and validating new drug targets
• 10 minutes • Identify a facilitator • Chat in your team • Other characteristics of a complex
environment we missed? • Facilitator present back summary
Are you working in a complex environment? What are the issues you face?
Bioinformatics research/services is a complex environment
• At the heart of modern biology research • Science of storing, retrieving and analysing
biological information • An interdisciplinary science involving biologists,
biochemists, computer scientists and mathematicians
What is bioinformatics?
L-O-A-D-S of data
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TB o
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‘Dry’ and ‘wet’ scientists use the same software
Sweet spot?
Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering 1993
We don’t sell stuff…
Flickr: Kristian Niemi
Finding the people can be difficult
Our survival guide…
UCD lifecycle for a complex environment
Knife image from www.sxc.hu/photo/816000
Flickr: atkinson000
Survival tip #1: Understand the data and “big picture”
• Get interested • Learn the basics yourself • Make a new friend/s
Survival tip #2: Love thy stakeholders
• Understand • UCD stakeholder champions • UX buy-in strategy • Incentives?
e.g. • Literature research • Competitor analysis • Due diligence
Survival tip #3: Understanding the context
Survival tip #4: teach your development team the basics
≠
Folks at UX London 2011
Survival tip #5: mitigate ‘self-as-user’ outlook (use refs)
Debra the in vivo pharma R&D scientist
Fact: we are not the users
Example: persona
• Ask your buddy • Find out a little about the expertise of the target user so you can get the
conversation flowing • Ask when they don’t make any sense • Record the interview
Survival tip #6: interview experts (pref. in their own lab)
Example: empathy mapping
Survival tip #7: Try gamestorming with geeks (aka experts)
Gray et al. (2010) Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers
UX Cam 2011 talk: Coming Out of Your Shell: Using UX Workshops to Your Advantage in a Techie/Scientific Setting www.infoq.com/presentations/Coming-Out-of-Your-Shell
Example: speedboat game
Survival tip #8: Establish your Information Architecture
What happens if you ask...
What is important to you?
What do you want?
Engaging IA ‘head scratcher’ for target users (experts)
Stimulates discussion esp. dot vote to get consensus
Scenario • You have been offered a great job (at an agency) in Cape Town, South Africa • You are not sure whether to accept the position
Your task (in teams) • Find out if Cape Town is suitable for you/your family
Starting point • You arrive at an information portal for Cape Town, what is the first thing you
need to see?
Tutorial: learn how to canvas sort
Flickr: Xevi V
Start activity"
The activity will end in -1:0
Synthesis and consolidation of artefacts
Canvas Sort Result #1: Relative priorities of data items and actions
Result #2: Model of the information architecture for the portal
Result #3: Ideas to take into sketching
Result #4: Visual specs & can start thinking about relevant technologies/ constraints
Created using Balsamiq Mockups (http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups)
Survival tip #9: quick & easy prototyping keeps ideas flowing & dev costs low
Survival tip #10: Things are more likely to go wrong in a complex environment
• Data that does not exist • Things going wrong on release day • Stakeholder posturing
Our 10 UX tips for surviving in complex environments
Survival tip #1: Understand the data and “big picture” Survival tip #2: Love thy stakeholders Survival tip #3: Understanding the context Survival tip #4: Teach your development (or agile) team the basics Survival tip #5: Mitigate ‘self-as-user’ outlook (use refs) Survival tip #6: Interview experts (pref. in their own lab) Survival tip #7: Try gamestorming with geeks (aka experts) Survival tip #8: Establish your Information Architecture Survival tip #9: Quick prototyping keeps ideas flowing & dev costs low Survival tip #10: Things are more likely to go wrong
Mapping survival tips to our case study
Knife image from www.sxc.hu/photo/816000
#1-4 #5
#6
#7-8
#9
#10
Jenny Cham Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: jennifer-cham Twitter: @JenniferCham
Contact us
Paula de Matos Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: pauladematos Twitter: @Paula_deMatos
Useful references
Complex UX • Chilana, P.K. et al (2010) Understanding usability practices in complex
domains. CHI 2010 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2337-2346
Personae • Baron-Cohen, S. et al (2003) The systemizing quotient: an investigation of
adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London 358: 361-74
• William Hudson (2009) Reduced Empathizing Skills Increase Challenges for User-Centered Design CHI 2009 April 3–9, Boston, MA, USA
Gamestorming • Gray D, Brown S, Macanufo J (2010) Game storming: A Playbook for
Innovators, Rulebreakers and Changemakers. California: O’Reilly Media.
Coordinated by Francis Rowland http://ebiinterfaces.wordpress.com/
UX interest group: EMBL- EBI interfaces
www.ebi.ac.uk/enzymeportal #
Questions?