Applying Usability to Improve Value and Reduce Risk

Applying Usability to
Improve Value and Reduce Risk
Close the gap between User,
Tech writer, and Developer
worlds
Nathalie Cotté
@NathErgo38
nathalie.cotte@bonitasoft.com

Agenda
• A bit of context
• Usability in an R&D team
• Reduce risk / improve value
– Train
– Wake up the craftmen / heroes
– Be creative
• Non-Negotiable Usability
• To take away
3

• Usability in an R&D Team
• Reduce risk / Improve value
• To take away
4

A bit of context
• Usability person
• Role: Usability advisor to R&D
1998 2001 2003 20162013
Usability
specialist
Usability consultant
Usability
engineer
Cognitive
scientist
5

A bit of context
Process and
Business data
Modeling
3 solutions:
• Business Process Management
• Enterprise Application Development
• Digital Business Transformation
6

A bit of context
3 solutions:
UI
Modeling
7

A bit of context
Personalized User
Interfaces
3 solutions:
8

A bit of context
Documentation
web site
3 solutions:
9

A bit of context
• Bonitasoft is a 7-year old company,
founded by 3 technical experts in Java:
– Everything started with R&D
– They once were in charge of:
• Product requirements
• Design, Implementation
• Quality
• Pre-Sales
• Usability, Documentation
– New actors and teams only took tasks (and
control) away from them
10

A bit of context
• As Bonitasofters, we:
– Are passionate human with substantial egos
-> involvement
– Think we are quite clever
-> self-confidence
– Like to enjoy ourselves
-> motivation
– Are a little shy or…
-> Space for improvement
… have behavior preferences
– All pursue the same goal: create a product that rocks!
11

A bit of context
• Common says about usability:
“Everyone has common sense.”
“UX is an optional polish on top of the
technical base.”
“It is an additional constraint when
time is short.”
12

A bit of context
• With common sense: no UX person, no users involved
Formal specs
Technical POC
(feasibility)
Working Alpha
Bug-free Beta
End-to-end tested
Release
13

A bit of context
• With common sense: No UX person, no users involved
Bad user
feedback.
⇒ Lots of rework after it’s delivered. Sad. Hurts egos.
⇒ If developers code for someone else than themselves, they need UX
14

A bit of context
“We can all be part of UX, with a Usab
and a Tech writer.”
“UX is an optional polish on top of the
technical base.”
time is short.”
15

A bit of context
• Polish: UX people as a disastrous post-disaster relief
– After the feature / product is developed
– External consultant
– An audit/validation, as the last testing suite.
Formal specs
Technical POC
(feasibility)
Working Alpha
Bug-free Beta
End-to-end tested
Release
Usability /
« Wording »
validation
16

A bit of context
17

A bit of context
– Eventually, nothing may be improved, at all 18

Usability in an R&D Team
“We can all be part of UX, with a Usab
and a Tech writer.”
“It’s a needed integrated layer of our
piece of software.”
time is short. ”
19

• To take away
20

Usability in an R&D team
• UX person as an internal influencer
– Why “influencer”?
• The difference between a shirt and a piece of software
Nice shirt
Taylor
Useful and usable product
Developer
Raw material Finished product
Nice fabric
Textile worker
Clean, smart, bug-free code
Developer
Piece of
software
21

• When influence is not enough:
– UX design comes last in a thick roadmap:
• A new feature always start with technical feasibility
⇒Feasibility of what? For what value?
– UX improvement comes last in a sprint planning:
• New features and maintenance go first
⇒Some bugs are less critical than users getting stuck
(Usability improvements have severity levels too)
⇒Usability debt
22

• UX person as a Silly Crusader vs Team Manager
– “Release date is fixed”
– “Other features are in the queue for this release”
– “The time spent on the feature is enough”
– “You cannot argue till you get to the perfect UX”
– “You have to let go”
Just - Based – On – Time
Regardless – Of – The – Value – Delivered
LET GO ?!
23

– Fight for UX.
– UX can become a person-to-person struggle
24

- Train
• To take away
25

Train
• UCDDD Corners (User-Centered Design, Development, and
Documentation) 30 min sessions
- Pick a hot theme chosen by the team or the tech writer or
the usab
- Give guidance and tips
- Create quick tips and tricks & theoretical rationale
26

Train
• Simplified documentation guide
27

Train
• Usability guidelines per topic
28

Train
• Now in Google drive, migrating to Confluence
29

Train
• Usability Principles
• ISO 9241-11: Guidance on Usability. Interface and interaction
– User guidance, information structure, incitation
– Help
– Minimal workload, concision, low density
– Consistency & standards
– Visibility on the system status, feedback, waiting time
– User control and freedom
– Flexibility, variability intra-individual
– Avoid errors and help error recovery, manage delete
⇒ Hard to translate into clear UI items
⇒ Implementation depends on the context and the purpose 30

• Cognitive schema
Decision
making
ActionFeedback
Decoding
Attentional
focus
MemoriesBeliefsSenses
Train
31

Train
COMPANY GOAL
TEAM SUB-GOALS
TASK
Pick a ticket
from a sorted
list
Answer tickets
relevantly and
on time
Expand
Please
customers
• Principle that drives cognitive activity
– E.g.: Customer support team member
32

Train
• Users and developers share the cognitive schema and the
principle that drive human activity
• But they are many elements of the system software use that
the developers are not aware of
Decision
making
ActionFeedback
Decoding
Attentional
focus
MemoriesBeliefsSenses
COMPANY GOAL
TEAM SUB-GOALS
TASK
Pick a ticket
from a
sorted list
Answer tickets
relevantly and
on time
Expand
Please
customers
33

Train
Physical state
Mental state
Gender
Skills
Seniority
Prescription
Materials
Machines
Social relationships
Organization
Work time
Work space
Activity
Parameters
Parameters
• A definition of activity
– Each situation is unique
– The piece of software is just a part of the picture
– Relationship to the piece of software: Bonitasoft has designed and
built the system – users haven’t 34

Train
What Bonita BPM needs to do to let Dave use it
User-centered design
Techno-centered design
What Dave needs to do to use Bonita BPM Studio
• Bonitasoft needs to bridge the gap, not the users
35

Train
• User eXperience = make your
– Users, whoever they are
– Succeed on all use-cases
– Avoid and recover from error
– Be efficient
– Learn
– Enjoy
⇒ Make R&D work worth it
⇒ Make the value real: create perceived quality
⇒ Let Usab handle usability principles, work with her
⇒ Let Tech Writer write the right articles and wording
⇒ Developers learn/train as they go 36

Train
May include:
1. The fact that there is an issue
2. Its cause
3. Its severity
4. Its consequences
5. What the user can do to recover
6. Shortcuts on buttons
… in words the persona can understand
• Error messages
37

- Wake up the craftmen / heroes
• To take away
38

Wake up the craftmen / heroes
• Facts:
– 68% of users give up because they think you don’t care
about them
– 50% development time is about fixing avoidable issues
– 97% of users cite “ease of use” as the main factor in
selecting enterprise applications
– By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and
product as the important brand differentiator
⇒ There is no other way than spend time on UX
⇒ No code artist can manage
⇒ Need to turn into code craftmen
39

Wake up the craftmen / heroes
- Heroes’ qualities
• Solid logic
• Sense of responsibility
• Empathy
• Courage
• Humility
• …. But no super-hero: not reading users’ minds
- Bonitasoft Marketing launched an external campaign
40

Craftmen / heroes… is not enough
“We can all be part of UX, with a Usab.
It’s a needed integrated layer of our
piece of software.
It is a team purpose when time is
short. ”
But time is still very short. So what?
41

- Be creative
• To take away
• Introducing Bonita BPM, Bonitasoft, R&D Bonitasofters
• Usability principles
42

Be creative
• Solid logic, that’s what it is!
⇒The team needs:
• Data from the field
• Thresholds
⇒ Turn usability into a Boolean system:
• Good to release / Not good to release
• Feedback on non-negotiable items are bugs
• No perfect UI. Good enough UI. Checked.
⇒That is Non-Negotiable Usability
43

• To take away
44

Non-Negotiable Usability
• A goal:
– The user needs to be successful to find value in
what we produce
• A team:
– We want to build pride on what we release
– We all play a part in this goal
– We work with data from the field and thresholds
to avoid endless discussions and tension
45

Non-Negotiable Usability
• A process, methods, tools:
46

Process, Methods, and Tools
• A simplified checklist
UX = make your
– Users, from the VIP personas
– Succeed, on the basic use-cases
– Be efficient whatever their “profile”
– Learn
– Enjoy
47

• Translates into:
– Users, from the VIP personas
• Create and know your personas, work with them, for them
• Get use-cases from them, and User Acceptance Criteria
– Learn
• Easy to notice
• Easy to guess the value
• Easy to understand words, controls, flow
• Guidance
• Clear, complete messages
48

• Users, from the VIP personas
- Create and know your personas, work with them, for them
49

• Personas
50

– Get Use-Cases from them, and User Acceptance Criteria
• From ISO 13407: Human Centered Design Process
for Interactive Systems
TESTIMPLEMENTDESIGNCOLLECT
Communicate with users
Real drawInquiries Personas Real test Personas
FINALIZE
51

• COLLECT
Identify
customers and
their projects
Gather a panel
A stakeholder User Acc Criteria
Power users
Personas
Use-cases
52

• Write requirements: Confluence
53

• DESIGN
TESTIMPLEMENTDESIGNCOLLECT FINALIZE
54

• DESIGN
Design Studio
(UI and navigation)
Mockups /
Quick specs
Technical design /
Quick POC
Agreement on the
feasible must
have
Split /
Backlog
Story telling
(= pre-Doc)
55

• Design Studio (2h)
– Users, R&D, Marketing, Usab, Tech Writer
– Mockuping and sharing
– Creating a common mockup for use cases
56

• Mockup with Balsamiq
57

• Split in small implementation pieces: Jira
58

• Tell a story: MindMup
59

• IMPLEMENT
60

- Create and know your personas, work with them, for
them
• Succeed, on the basic use-cases
- Get use-cases from them, and User Acceptance
Criteria
• Learn
- Easy to notice
- Easy to guess the value
- Easy to understand words, controls, flow
61

• IMPLEMENT
• Share your screens with the usability person to get
him/her guide you to implement usability principles
Write tests
Code
Personas
Write target
value for a
sprint
Checklist
Mockups
UAC
Story told
62

• Examples
– Learn/Easy to notice: use hierarchy
63

• Examples
– Learn/Easy to notice: catch attention (tours)
64

• Examples
– Learn/Easy to notice: use tips
65

• Examples
– Learn/Easy to understand: contextual help
66

• Examples
– Learn/Easy to understand: Generic help
embedded
67

• Examples
– Learn/Easy to understand: Give examples
68

• Examples
– Learn/Easy to understand: Tutorials
69

• Succeed, on the basic use-cases
- Get use-cases from them, and User Acceptance Criteria
• Learn
- Easy to notice
- Easy to guess the value
- Easy to understand words, controls, flow
• Guidance
• Clear, complete messages
70

• Examples
– Avoid errors/Guidance: Warnings
71

• Examples
– Avoid errors/Guidance: validation
72

• Examples
– Avoid errors/Guidance: Give feedback (+/-)
73

• Examples
– Avoid errors/Guidance: Default values
74

• Examples
– Avoid errors/Guidance: Refactoring wizards
75

• Examples
– Avoid errors/Guidance: Expected formats
76

• TEST
77

• TEST
• 3 to 5 users are enough
• Record the test sessions: this is data to share
Test at my
Desk
Panel
Early fixes
Assisted
testing
sessions
Customers and
partnersSummarize
known risks
Feature level
Β version level
Summarize
known risks
Usab
78

• Share current development: Slack
79

• Share current development: Slack
80

• Share testing feedback: Confluence
81

• FINALIZE
82

FINALIZE
Write the
documentation
Known
limitations
• FINALIZE
83

• Git for documentation (markdown)
84

• To take away
85

To take away
• Work as a multi-skilled team including users
• Aim at providing success / value to the users
• Never put UX work last
• Base decisions on data and thresholds to
avoid discussions
86

By the way
• What is negotiable, in the end?
– Efficiency, to be dealt with later on
– More advanced use-cases, write tutorials until then
– Graphical waows, yet another, fundamental job
88

Visit us online
bonitasoft.com
Join our community
Bonitasoft.org
Download
Bonitasoft.com/downloads
Follow us on twitter
@bonitasoft
Time for Questions
@NathErgo38
89

Visit us online
bonitasoft.com
Join our community
Bonitasoft.org
Download
Bonitasoft.com/downloads
Follow us on twitter
@bonitasoft
Good UX – No tension
@NathErgo38
90

Usability principles - Details
• Sources:
– Bastien, J. M. C., & Scapin, D. L. (1993). Ergonomic criteria for the
evaluation of human-computer interfaces (Report No. 156). Rocquencourt,
France: Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique.
=> http://www.ergoweb.ca/criteres.html
– Nielsen, J., and Molich, R. (1990). Heuristic evaluation of user
interfaces, Proc. ACM CHI'90 Conf. (Seattle, WA, 1-5 April), 249-256.
=> http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
– ISO 9241-110
=> http://www.userfocus.co.uk/resources/iso9241/part110.html
91

Applying Usability to Improve Value and Reduce Risk

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