Paul Rouke and PRWD on User Centered Design

Google’s famous motto ‘do no evil’ seems to be in conflict with the terms and conditions of their new browser Chrome – Google stated that they can use any of your copyrighted material posted to the web via Chrome. This has since been retracted but inevitably makes me question Google’s true agenda. The other thing which strikes me is the similarities between the Microsoft and Google chrome logos.

Impressive Look, Speed and Ease of Use

Ignoring my initial hesitance I downloaded the browser and I have to say I’m impressed with the look, speed and ease of use.
I’m also please to see Google have created a URL box which also works as a search function, called the omniBox. A great example of applying user centered design. The browser is a lot less cluttered also meaning that more appears above the fold and its faster to load. Another nice feature is that you can grab tabs to open them up as new windows.
Chrome, which is still in beta version, has had a few teething problems; its unable to use some plugins and is currently only available for Windows. Also if you type :% into the search bar it makes Chrome crash, but I’m sure these will all be ironed out in the near future.

Google, The Big Brother

My real shock was when I opened up my history. It had listed my history pre-Chrome, showing information such as who’s profiles I had viewed on Facebook, emails I had sent and documents I had opened on my desktop (with exact times) and the option to open them direct from the browser. Its a useful feature and there is the option of ‘incognito mode’ but it a little too scary to think what people could do with such information if they got a hold of my laptop, not to mention what Google can do. I’m all for intuitive search but for me however, it’s a little too far - I think it’s time to de-Google.

If you have already tried it, how are you finding this new web browser, and what are your views on the advanced history functionality that can track your daily activity to such depths?

We have recently produced a downloadable 1 page process overview for User Centered Design (UCD). I felt that it will be good to share this with our blog readers rather than this just been part of our consultancy process with our direct clients.

Below I have pulled out all the definitions of each phase in the UCD process, along with a summary of the services which are delivered during each phase.

Please note, some of the terminology used may not be too familiar to some readers, but rather than describing each service I wanted to keep this post more to the point. Feel free to call us for further information on a particular service or terminology used.

The 4 Phases of User Centered Design

• Analysis
• Design
• Implementation
• Deployment

You will notice that there isn’t an order assigned to the 4 phases, as UCD is a process of continual improvement. For the development of completely new business systems, applications and e-commerce platforms, the process would start with the analysis phase and work through the remaining 3 phases, but during the deployment phase on-going evaluation of the system and the users does mean that the process can then be continued, back in to the analysis phase (but to a lesser extent).

The Analysis Phase

Definition

This phase ensures all business and user requirements are taken into consideration, prior to the start of the design phase

PRWD Services

• stakeholder analysis
• competitor benchmarking
• persona development
• defining user scenarios
• conducting field studies
• defining usability goals

The Design Phase

Definition

This phase provides a comprehensive approach to the design of the system, ensuring the design meets all user and business requirements

PRWD Services

• navigation models
• screen flow samples
• information architecture
• card sorting
• paper prototyping
• wireframing
• interaction design
• user testing

The Implementation Phase

Definition

This phase takes the user tested system and interaction designs and implements them into working systems ready to go live

PRWD Services

• object orientated design
• user interface integration
• server implementation
• heuristic evaluations
• user testing
• documentation

The Deployment Phase

Definition

This phase involves continuous evaluation of the new system, monitoring the performance against usability objectives

PRWD Services

• user/customer surveys
• field studies
• performance analysis
• improvement scoping
• continuous analysis

And finally, a UCD definition as seen on our UCDcommerce site

In broad terms, user-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of an interface or document are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process.

Further Reading

Below are a range of links which will provide additional information on User Centered Design

• User Centered Design and Web Development Article
• What is User Centered Design - from the Usability Professionals Association
• Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User Centered Design
• The Role of User Centered Design and Usability in a Project

Variations in UCD methodology- what are yours?

There will always be slight variation’s in the process with other usability and software development agencies, and I’ll be interested to hear comments on these differences.

On saying this, one thing is for sure - when following User Centered Design principles, users need to be an integral part of the complete design and development process.

Following the recent launch of our UCDcommerce platform, we’re now beginning to brainstorm potential straplines for the platform, which will feature on the new logo (hold your horses, we’ve not got to that yet!) and website (when designed and developed).

Straplines Following My Blue Chip Retailing Background

To recap on my reasons why I decided to begin developing UCDcommerce 12 months ago, this came off the back of my 7 years commercial experience in User Centered Design for Shop Direct Group, the UK’s biggest shop at home group. PRWD certainly wasn’t going to settle for any off-the-shelf or mid level e-commerce platform, instead we were going to be in complete control of how our platform will evolve, based upon client, but most importantly users, requirements.

With a continual evolvement of UCDcommerce planned, my initial strapline ideas very much revolved around our aim to deliver enterprise level e-commerce solutions to blue chip clients (both existing and new), and I must admit I was very happy with these 1st ideas.

If you’d like to see my ideas 1st hand, download a pdf mindmap of my initial strapline ideas for UCDcommerce.

Alternatively I’ve listed them out below:

• blue chip e-commerce intelligence
• user centered enterprise e-commerce
• remarkable e-commerce solutions
• harnessing consumer intelligence
• user driven e-commerce
• where business goals meet user goals
• consumer driven e-commerce
• engage, convert and retain customers
• results driven e-commerce
• enterprise level intelligence

What do mean they are corporate and boring!?

Following my personal initial brainstorming the team got together, and although the consensus was that these straplines certainly encompassed the vision and strategy for UCDcommerce, they have a strong leaning towards being corporate and ultimately boring. In addition Katie felt that although users/consumers are key drivers for our platform, these straplines lacked more of a commercial focus. To quote Katie,

“Most of these straplines aren’t selling the benefits to the seller, only the user, and they could be more fun!”

Not one for ignoring constructive criticism, I embraced our teams views and we swiftly moved on to thinking of how to combine the user benefits and the commercial objectives for our User Centered Designed e-commerce platform.

Oh and adding some fun and personality into the strapline where high on the agenda!

Straplines Following Group Brainstorming

You can download a pdf mindmap of our group strapline ideas for UCDcommerce.

Alternatively, they are listed out below:

• converting shoppers to buyers
• driving shoppers to buy
• from shoppers to buyers
• from surfing to spending
• user experience drives sales
• more than a shopping solution
• selling, the right way
• consumer driven e-commerce
• engage and convert shoppers
• because happy users spend more
• because satisfied users increase sales
• because users want to enjoy shopping
• if they enjoy shopping they’ll buy

And the new strapline is…

We’ve not decided yet! Alongside the strapline we are developing the long term strategy for UCDcommerce, and therefore we’re making sure that we don’t rush in making the right decision.

We’d be interested in finding out your views on which straplines resonate best with you, knowing that UCDcommerce is all about delivering user centered shopping experiences which provide engaging shopping experiences, resulting in increased conversions, referrals, basket sizes and repeat visits for our clients.

We have recently begun a business streamlining and modernisation process with a client, and running alongside our standard User Centered Design (UCD) process we are adopting the DMAIC framework.

The DMAIC framework is an essential guide in conducting process improvement projects, and DMAIC is used by Six Sigma Black Belts. It is an acronym for Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control.

What soon become clear when we conducted the pre-analysis of our clients business is that the combination of the UCD process and the DMAIC framework will provide us with an exceptional process improvement model which will deliver ROI on a complete range of Key Performance Indicators that will be affected during this project, from both our clients internal processes to their customers relationship with our client and their account management.

Below I have visualised how the UCD process and DMAIC framework will be used simultaneously by PRWD for this and many more clients.

I’d be interested to hear of any other software development and usability companies who are using UCD and DMAIC together during projects to deliver lean manufacturing processes for your clients.

This article is Part 3 of 4 focussing on User Centered Navigation and Findability within PRWD’s E-commerce Platform.

Dynamic Categories and Shop by Situation

To reference the introductory article on user centered navigation and findability, “No two web users will exhibit exactly the same browsing behaviour when navigating an e-commerce site”.

Similarly, different visitors will have different reasons for visiting the site, and therefore their ’situations’ can be very different.

Dynamic categories centered around user driven situations and customer groups provide a unique way for our client to group products across their whole catalogue which suit the wants and needs of particular customers.

Using Persona’s to Target Groups of Customers

During the initial analysis phase of the User Centered Design process with Contact Packaging, it became clear that there were specific situations which their existing (and potential) customers are in. From here we were able to develop a series of persona’s to reflect the customers in these different groups, enhancing the effectiveness of the User Centered Design process that was underway.

With this customer analysis and persona’s we developed a method for Contact Packaging, using the PRWD tag engine, to create dynamic categories which specifically target groups of potential customers.

Objectives for Providing Dynamic Categories to Target Customer Groups

• There should be no limit to the number of customer groups that can be created
• Customer groups can be created and put live within 1 minute
• Customer groups should drive conversions from Search Engine Marketing campaigns
• Customer groups should be visible throughout the store, encouraging usage
• Customer groups should enhance the effectiveness of the tag engine, including the tag cloud available under the search facility
• Customers fitting any of the ’situations’ should be encouraged by how they are being recommended a range of products which may suit what they are looking for, which in turn provides a more personal and intelligent shopping experience

The key to the dynamic categories and shop by situation interactive tool is that it isn’t intend to suit all visitors, and even for visitors which fall into one of the situations, it isn’t expected that they will be interested in buying all of the product suggestions.

Instead, the shop by situation is intended to compliment the wide range of other navigation methods available, whilst providing a more intelligent and personalised way for visitors to browse products from a wide range of categories which may well match their buying wants and needs.

The 1st Step on the Ladder for Shop by Situation

The 1st iteration of our Shop by Situation functionality certainly meets all the objectives set out above, but from our business perspective this is simply the 1st step on the ladder for this type of functionality. As we strive to enhance user engagement and provide even more personalised product suggestions, the flexibility we intend providing our clients will provide even more intelligent ways to target customer groups and increase relevancy for these customers browsing the store.

Comments please…!

Have you seen this type of navigation method used? How effective do you feel this method of grouping products could be for different types of products? I’ll look forward to hearing any views and comments on this post!