Slides from the session "Why Usability Should Never Come First and the Importance of Front-End Design" by David Rondeau and Traci Lepore from InContext Enterprises.

1. Why Usability Should Never Come First And the importance of Front-End Design May, 2008 David Rondeau , Design Chair Traci Lepore, Principal Interaction Designer

7. The relationship between value and ease of use Acceptable Hard to use but highly valuable Desirable Easy to use and highly valuable Inconceivable Hard to use and little value Unsuccessful Easy to use but little value Hard to use Easy to use High value Low value

8. We try, but then discard the Unsuccessful Unsuccessful designs may be easy to use, but they don’t provide much value Easy to use Low value Since we can’t even imagine you’d produce the inconceivable we’ll start here… 3com Audrey Pets.com Candle warmer Left-handed mug Apple Cube

9. We live with Acceptable Even though Acceptable designs can be hard to use, people still use them because they have value Hard to use High value TV remote Goldmine Chocolate

10. We embrace the Desirable Easy to use Desirable designs are what everyone wants and uses High value Nintendo Wii iPod

13. We use data to generate a design Gathered Data Competitive/Trend Analysis Web logs & statistics Heuristics Journals or Diaries In-home Interviews Impacts Features, functionality and “under the hood” technology But it doesn’t tell you the value of features and functionality or “why” they are valuable Gather Data Creative Stimulation Brainstorming Personas User Scenarios Storyboards Impacts User characterization helps drive buy-in within the organization But it doesn’t move you from data to actual design And producing a design Design Impacts Business direction and focus But doesn’t tell you what to design, how people would use it, or the context of use By gathering requirements Plan Strategy Strategic Data Marketing segmentation Surveys Stakeholder input Card sorting Focus groups

14. We use data to refine the implemented design Design Testing Fixed state (med to high fidelity) prototype testing Impacts Actual user interaction and informal usability But it doesn’t let you validate structure and high level concept By iterating and improving But all this data doesn’t assure us the design has value Validate & Refine Rollout & Functional Specs Rollout plan (in phases) Use Cases 1 st release specs Bugs & Technical Info Feasibility Study QA testing Impacts Technical implementation But it doesn’t tell us if this technology supports the work practice Specify & Implement Usability Measurement Usability Testing Questionnaires Impacts Ease of use But it doesn’t affect the value Evaluate

16. Contextual customer data gathering methods Strategic Data Focus Setting Plan Strategy Impacts Clear and shared focus Understanding the business concerns and value proposition These methods allow us to do “generative front-end design” Customer Data Ethnographic Interviews Gather Data Impacts Understanding the work practice and user intents Finding out the “why” and “how” Creative Stimulation Data modeling – Affinity Diagrams, Sequences, Flows ( a consolidated picture) Impacts Create big picture of issues, needs, and wants of the users Produces design concepts and business directions to move towards to support the user population Design Concept Testing Participatory (low to med fidelity) paper prototype testing Fixed state (med to high fidelity) prototype testing Impacts Value, actual user interaction, informal usability, and conceptual visual or industrial design Concepts will get validated before implementation Validate & Refine

17. Working in a generative process Plan Strategy Gather Data Validate & Refine Specify & Implement To generate new concepts you have to start here If you start here you can only drive ease of use, and not generative, valuable design Without these 2 steps you can’t generate and validate new concepts Evaluate Concept Design Prioritization for rollout and usability testing are important to ensure a high quality UX for an implemented design Implement & Improve Generative design is dynamic & iterative – it produces, validates, and refines the concept to a design prior to implementation & ensures intended UX Producing a Concept Crucial for driving new concepts and business directions Gathering Requirements At any point you can always go back and gather more data if needed These 2 steps don’t gather the same kind of data These 2 steps don’t impact design in the same way This isn’t the right kind of data to drive new concepts

18. Working in a generative process Implement & Improve Producing a Concept Gathering Requirements Plan Strategy Gather Data Validate & Refine Specify & Implement Evaluate Concept Design Generative Front End Design gathers the data that produces concepts which drive value Following up with Usability ensures the best implementation of the concepts and UX

19. Analog.com Design Problem: Redesign the site to ensure engineers can easily find the products and information they need to make purchasing decisions