Presented at Intranets 2013, Sydney Australia Designing the User Experience improves the usefulness, usability and engagement of user interfaces in many systems and environments. But what about highly complex environments such as intranets where there may be many thousands of pages and hundreds of applications – Does User Experience have anything to offer in these situations? This presentation shows how User eXperience can add value to complex projects and outlines simple techniques to tackle high complexity. The areas that will be covered are: Analysis – understanding your audience and their tasks Design – low fidelity prototypes for stakeholders and the project team User Testing – short, sharp and frequent low fidelity user testing

1. 0414 505 837
john@design4use.com.au
Tackling high complexity with ‘low tech’
User Experience
Intranets 2013

2. Just one reason for thinking about User Experience…

3. In Florida, the margin of victory was 0.0092% (537 votes), in favor of Bush…

4. Pat Buchanan recorded an unexpectedly large 3,407 votes in Palm Beach
Buchanan said on
The Today Show,
November 9, 2000
“When I took one look
at that ballot on
Election Night ...
it's very easy for me
to see how someone
could have voted for
me in the belief they
voted for Al Gore”

5. Another example of a highly complex user interface

6. Why can’t we change it to this?
9:00
17:00
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Public Hols
Open*
Open
Closed
Closed *
Copy Monday settings through to CopyFriday

7. A bit of background

8. Usability is …
Learnability, Effectiveness, Attitude, Flexibility
(Shackel 1986) + Usefulness (Booth 1989)
“The key criteria of a system’s usability is the
extent to which it supports the potential for
people who work with it to understand it, to
learn, and to make changes.” (Adler &
Winograd 1992)
Usability is the “effectiveness, efficiency and
satisfaction with which a specified set of users
can achieve a specified set of tasks in a
particular environment.” (ISO)

9. User focus
B
‘User’BusinessTechnology
U
T

10. What and when?
navigation model
user profiles
site mapuser research
goals & scenarios
User Interface
Specification
usability testingcompetitive analysis
focus group testing
prototype
DevelopmentDesignAnalysis
Product
Launch
wireframes
usability testing
target audience
usability testing
User Needs
Analysis
User testing
Recommendations

11. Tackling complexity

12. Analysis – who is the audience?
Individual
Bus Unit
Group
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Group
Group
Group
Group
Individual
Group
Bus Unit
Individual
Individual
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit Bus UnitIndividualGroup
Individual Bus Unit

13. Analysis – who is the audience?
Bus Unit
Group
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Group
Group
Bus Unit
Individual
Individual
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Group
Group
Group
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit
Bus Unit IndividualGroup
Individual
Priority Group 3
Goal/Task A
Goal/Task B
etc
Priority Group 4
Goal/Task A
Goal/Task B
etc
Priority Group 1
Goal/Task A
Goal/Task B
etc
Priority Group 2
Goal/Task A
Goal/Task B
etc
Priority Group 5
Goal/Task A
Goal/Task B
etc

14. Analysis – who is the audience?
What makes him tick …
• family man enjoying life
• very busy balancing home & work
Mighty magpies …
• passionate supporter
• always listens to Collingwood
game & attends when he can
• 47 year old blue collar worker
• running a small scaffolding
business
• born and bred in Melbourne
• lives in Collingwood with
partner & three children
Joey
His smartphone…
• likes to have the latest to show off
• mainly used for voice & SMS
• funded through business
• upgraded recently
• new 12 month plan
Scenario …
• Saturday 1:45pm and Joey is at work on a job that came up
unexpectedly. The site is dusty and noisy with traffic drowning
out the radio.
• wants to keep up
with the score & highlights
• able to step away
for a few minutes and use
his phone to …
Keeping up with footy…
• mainly car radio during work
• sometimes watches sport/news tv
• Herald Sun at work (from the back)
• no internet access at work
• broadband for kids at home
Photo by mmarcotte51
Photo by State Library of Victoria Collections
Photo by Pixabay
Photo by Pixabay

15. Design – ideal information architecture
SGW Home
My Gardens
Layout Summary
Zone
Plants & Conditions
Edit
Conditions
Edit
Plants
Edit
Mulch
Edit
Watering Device
Rainwater Tank
Smart Gardens
Find a Garden
Summary
(view only)
Zone
Plants & Conditions
(view only)
Rainwater Tank
(view only)
My Gardens
Edit Profile

16. Design – realistic information architecture

17. Design – realistic information architecture
Affinity Diagramming
Physical site Mapping
Card Sorting

18. Design – page layouts
Grid
Home
Page type 1

19. User testing

20. User testing

21. User testing

22. Quality ‘up-front’ design pays off!
Development
Design
Scope
Testing/Rollout
Costofdesignchange
Time
The cost of making design changes
"You can use an eraser
on the drafting table or a
sledge hammer on the
construction site."
(Frank Lloyd Wright)
Low
Fidelity
Medium
Fidelity
High
Fidelity

23. 0414 505 837
john@design4use.com.au
Questions