The document discusses problems with how software is typically designed and calls for a more user-centered approach. It argues that most software focuses too much on features rather than the user experience. In contrast, the app iA Writer is highlighted as an example of software designed to be enjoyable to use for its target users. The document calls for involving users more directly in the design process through techniques like personas and scenarios to help ensure software meets user needs and motivations.
1. Stop the Madness
A modest proposal for sane software design.
Andrew Hinton & Patrick Quattlebaum
IIBA Denver / April 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 1
2. MS Word
Jack of all trades,
master of none
iA Writer
Nearly perfect
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for a particular context
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Word has so many features, they often get in the way of one another. When the fact is, the
vast majority of users need only the most basic capabilities it offers.
It’s an example of how a list of requirements can be literally translated into a UI, without real
Design happening. Word is not a “beloved” application. People use it because they have to.
iA Writer, however, is a different application with a very specific audience: people with iPads
who want to be able to write on them without the distraction of unnecessary functions & user
interface widgets. It’s enormously successful -- selling at a fraction of the price of MS Word,
but making tons of money for its creators (a small team) with a rabid fan-base.
It was designed to be something you *want* to use -- that makes you happy about sitting
down to write.
Why can’t we make software like this all the time? There are many reasons that we can’t get
into today but one to focus on has to do with the relationship between technical & business
analysis and design.
3. WHY CAN’T WE
MAKE STUFF
PEOPLE LOVE TO
USE?
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4. A Meeting
Between People
Who are Part of an Organization
This is
This is Hawkeye
Sal - Chief Surgeon
- Recently given
the cook for
charge of mess hall
M*A*S*H unit 4077
- Has a favorite family
recipe for french toast
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6. The “Outsourced Design” Model
Production
Edge use cases
often outnumber
SMEs & Business the most common
Stakeholders Analysts use cases.
Develop,
Review, Test
Task, Process Design isn't
Requirements Detailed
& Point-of-pain actually finished
& Process Models Specification
descriptions but process pretends
Design, in a bubble, it is.
misses out
on the inputs it
needs most.
Task & Process
often miss deeper
context (cognition)
& interaction (behavior)
issues.
Deliverables
UI Description missing tacit
(wireframes + visual design) knowledge
Design behind the
Team design
Content
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A typical process. (Explain each part - then click through the risk points)
What is missing?
7. Long tail of edge-case
requirements
Everything flattened into one
Most important use cases for long list of equally-weighted
highest percentage of users requirements.
(Also, loses context)
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8. CONTEXT
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This is a big deal. We may think we’re getting the full story when we interview SMEs and stake
holders (and even end-users), but often we aren’t.
9. Task
Task Need
Task
Situation
Task
Need
Need
Task Task Task
Task
“Scenario”
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In addition to the inherent behavioral characteristics of the person,
>> there is the Situation the person is in, which is often the main reason why they are using
what we make to begin with. The situation could be International Travel, Getting Married,
Going to School. And, frankly, it could be all three of those at once!
>> A situation gives rise to needs -- problems the person needs to solve. These are practical,
concrete outcomes of the general situation. I’m traveling: I need to book plane fare and hotel,
and decide what to pack; Wedding: I need to plan the ceremony, get a ring, send
announcements, plan a honeymoon.
>> So those needs then give rise to tasks that must be completed in order to solve the
problems. The tasks require tools, knowledge, and some kind of interactive activity.
Increasingly, the tools we use to solve these problems are *digital* ... fifteen years ago,
Travel, Marriage and Going to School had very little to do with *software*!
>> This nest of contextual facets is what we try to describe with a Scenario. And like the
persona, the goal is *understanding* -- no matter what format, documentation style or
method you choose.
10. THINKING
cognitive assumptions, education,
learning ability
Cognitive
DOING Physical
physical activity & ability,
habits, preferences, sensory
Emotional
FEELING
psychological state, anxiety,
confidence, stress, desire
“Persona”
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First, we have to consider the context of the User -- who is, after all, not only a “user” of our
product, but a whole person with a whole life of behaviors, where many things are much more
important to them than our precious design! Here are several dimensions that exist for the
person, whether we acknowledge them or not:
>> Doing (physical activity and ability, habits, preferences, and their sensory experience)
>> Thinking (cognitive assumptions, education, learning ability)
>> Feeling (psychological state, anxiety, confidence, stress, even desire)
These facets change from one person to the next, and can even change from one day to the
next for the same person, depending on other factors we will look at next.
>> This is in essence what we are wanting to understand when we use a “persona” for user
experience design. How you document the persona doesn’t matter as long as it helps you
gain an *honest* understanding of the person.
11. Task
Task Need
Cognitive
Task
Situation
Physical
Task
Need
Need
Emotional
Task Task Task
Task
Time
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When you overlay these, diagrams, you have what I call the Situation/Behavior Complex. It’s
helped me to map out the human situations people are in, their likely behavioral patterns and
assumptions, and better understand how my design can help them complete their tasks. This
keeps me from thinking of the user as someone who is doing nothing but using my software
or website.
>> Another important factor to consider is that people change over time, sometimes in a
matter of days or hours.
>> So it’s important to know where your users are in a given narrative. Because even
something as simple as their interaction with your system can cause changes that require the
system to interact with them differently later on.
12. Scenario-based Design
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Designing with persona & scenario approach is different from use-cases.
13. !!!
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Org I worked with early in my career had a mess of a site.
14. A typical “site map” architecture
Organizes information,
but shapes nothing else.
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Tried doing basic IA content organization, but it wasn’t enough -- I organized their
information without considering the larger issues they were facing (because I wasn’t listening
for them). Once I showed a normal “sitemap” (this is just a stand-in, not the real one) they
started talking more about the soft-tissue issues in their org -- how while this might
organize things OK for content’s sake,there would be tensions with
15. A contextual blueprint
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This diagram describes something more like rooms or neighborhoods -- it’s a description of
context, not (necessarily) literal links & hierarchies. It helped establish the conceptual
structure of the shared information environment.
This was more successful, and ended up driving the vision for the site.
16. SKETCHING
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This is a big deal. We may think we’re getting the full story when we interview SMEs and stake
holders (and even end-users), but often we aren’t.
17. Bill Buxton
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Explain diagram ...
- moves from cheap, easy, low-risk sketching to higher-cost, more-complex, higher-risk
prototyping
- Ideation = exploring alternatives; prototypes are more for usability & feasibility.
- as our investment increases, so should the weight of the design criteria - you don’t manage
ideation the same way, or with the same rigor, as usability & feasibility.
- circular arrows remind us we include users throughout the process, not just for usability
testing
18. From Bill Buxton’s “Sketching User Experiences”
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19. Bill Buxton on the shape of design
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Bill Buxton talks about how we tend to think design iterates into a tighter and tighter perimeter, until we’ve winnowed and honed to an ultimate,
ideal answer.
>>But he says that’s not how design really works -- design is about exploring alternatives and requires constant consideration of alternative
possibilities, lateral ideation.
You come up with variety, then winnow down, then expand again, until you explore your way to a solution.
But that’s not a very efficient activity, in the eyes of what is still mainstream management thinking by which I mean the thinking style of most
people with management roles. So we have to create a permission space within the linear activity of a project.
20. Exploration of Alternatives
Inflection point: the broad outlines &
design rationale are mostly settled
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21. Business
Analysts
SMEs &
Stakeholders
Design
Team
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This is a collaborative, conversational process -- not an assembly line.
22. Project Process
Design Space
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There has to be room for that sort of playful, exploratory thinking to happen.
Now, that certainly makes a lot of managers nervous. But I would argue that giving this room for design is non-negotiable.
If giving designers this room doesn’t result in great work -- don’t take away the room. Get new designers.
It’s our responsibility to be sure that, given the room to do the work, we make the most of it.
That means the responsibility is on us to be ever-vigilant of our own biases & cognitive flaws.
23. An Integrated Model
Collaboration
throughout
lifecycle
Business
Analysts
SMEs &
Stakeholders
Design
Team
Informed
by Context
Exploration & divergence
before refinement & final
design.
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24. THANKS!
Patrick Quattlebaum
patrick.quattlebaum@macquarium.com
@ptquattlebaum
Andrew Hinton
andrew.hinton@macquarium.com
@inkblurt
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