This module has provided a really useful framework to support my research. This hasn’t just helped me better understand the UCD Process, but also how the other modules on the course join up. At the same it’s given me a chance to discover a whole number of interesting areas for further research. I’ve covered much of this in some detail in previous posts, so I’m simply going to round up some of the highlights as part of this conclusion.

UX DESIGN SKILLS
Perhaps the best place to start is the ‘A good UX designer’s T-shaped skill set‘ diagram below from the What makes a good UX designer? article on UX for the masses. I wasn’t sure at the outset how I would contribute to this project, as there were others in our group with better design capabilities and technical know how. So as mentioned previously the diagram really helped me clarify my role in the team, particularly given my interests and skills.

UX Design Skill Set

Perhaps the only area it doesn’t cover is project management, which is something I think would have been interesting to look at on this project along with kind of ‘Facilitating Collaborative Design‘ that Jason Furnell covers in his workshop guide. I think even a little bit of guidance at the outset of this project would have helped us to work more effectively as a group, given that we were either new to the UCD process and/or working on a creative collaborations.

BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS
Jason Furnell‘s workshop guide was also useful as far as seeing how the UCD process could be more streamlined to ensure that the business and user goals are aligned. Discovering the Business Model Canvas strategic planning tool via his blog has also been a great help as it’s provide me with a framework to explore crowdfunding as part of the Business Context module on this course.

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND USABILITY TESTING
Apart from the background research, this project introduced four main research approaches: ethnographic, competitor analysis, usability testing and qualitative survey.  I really enjoyed the opportunity to try out some very low level ethnographic research. It was just enough to give me a glimpse of the kind of insights that can be gained from this approach, which could prove to be invaluable particularly as far as my major project is concerned. I could also see how useful these insights would be as far as ensuring that a website is going to, as Furnell argues, “simply and clearly embody the business model that it’s supporting”.

The project also gave me a great opportunity to try out more open and exploratory qualitative survey research, which again is going to be an essential part of what I will be doing subsequently. However, using the Silverback usability testing software to look at how users interacted with our Wireframe prototype was one of the major highlights. It was fascinating to see users explore our site while giving us feedback about what works and didn’t, and I could see how this approach could be just as useful for the kind of applications I develop as it would be for more hierarchical content rich sites.

CROSS CUTTING THEMES
The chance to carry out even a modest critical analysis of the UCD Philosophy and UXD Process has not only helped my understanding of the territory, but also highlighted some possible themes to explore further. It was particularly useful for seeing not only where and how the creative thinking and problem solving techniques we have been exploring in the Creative Design Lab module might be practically applied, but why there might be a need for doing so. It has actually caused me to re-think much of what I’ve concluded about more user-led approaches through my work and research outside this course, which I now hope to revisit as part of this degree. For example, it has lead me to question to what extent user led approaches can create actual breakthroughs rather than incremental improvements.

Modified Experience Map

Apart from having the opportunity to look more closely at how the challenges of social media might be met, I also got the chance to examine how the likes of Captology and more psychologically informed design approaches are being used; and with luck I’ll even get to experiment with Stephen Anderson’s Mental Notes cards as part of this degree.

LEAN AND AGILE
What  has been really inspirational was looking at the presentation by Ryan Singer of 37 Signals at Leancamp in London explaining their design process. It helped me understand more about how design patterns are used as part of rapid application development. By comparing our UCD process with their Leaner and more Agile Web app development process, it has helped me understand that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach and that there are a range of tools that can be used for different applications as appropriate.

WHAT I’D HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY
One of the points of these reflections is to identify what we could have done differently. I have identified a range of things that in hindsight could have been improved.  Firstly, we would have benefited by greater demarcation of roles and responsibilities in the group work based on skills and experience. I’d have also allocated a project manager role, ideally for the whole project, but possibly for each project stage. This would have given members of the team an opportunity to develop those skills, and also made the assessment of the participation in the group fairer. We also needed to have explored a means of facilitating the collaborative design process so that everyone had a chance to participate but to ensure that all all aspects were covered within the time frame. I would have liked to have tried to incorporate, for example, an Ideation session as part of the process which might have brought up ideas that the users and client might not have considered.

This also leads on to involving the client more. To have an understanding of the problems we were trying to address, ideally we would have involved them in the process. There was an opportunity to do this given that it was a real world example with fellow students who would have been sympathetic to the learning objective of the project. This would have also meant that we would not be making second guessed assumptions about their problems, and therefore solutions.

I didn’t find that the competitive analysis as useful as it could have been. If we had understood the problems that we were trying to address better, including those of their existing site, we could have used this process to find solutions.  For example we have identified Able and Cole as market leader, but better graphics and an online ordering system might not necessarily be the answers to the problems faced by a student society.

I would have encouraged other members of the team to conduct ethnographic research even just as a mystery shopper, as this was key for my understanding of the project, and a useful skill/learning process.

When doing the survey of site users, our process would have been more joined up if we’d thought about the persona parameters (goals, needs etc) first and then developed our interview questions around them. It would have also provided us with a more structured way of analyzing the user responses.

Finally, what I observed with the six up process is that it probably works better when there are experts involved. Without this involvement people can become too attached to an idea that hasn’t been considered in a context of solving the problem rather than just its visual appearance. Although I understand the collaborative benefits of having everyone sketching ideas, given our limited expertise, I would have encouraged the other students to have created their own inspiration libraries as part of this process.  Their examples could have been brought to our collaborative design session as well as their sketches, so that solutions might have been better researched.

CONCLUSION
Despite some of trials and tribulations it was great to be working again on a project where I was actually part of a team that was building something, rather than simply providing strategic input that’s far removed from any implementation. Having a framework with a practical context has also resulted in lots of new ideas to explore as well as tools and techniques to experiment with. On the whole I’ve enjoyed the experience, even if I have identified areas where I think we could have improved it. The module has been a great launch pad for this degree and I now have a whole host of bookmarks on my new delicious account to categorise as well as growing inspiration library that I hope to utilise on future projects, as well as a better understanding of how to use them.

MAIS 4 (GROUP 2)

USER RESEARCH CONSIDERATIONS
The first step in our user research was to define what we might need to ask and why.

Understanding The Value Of User Research And Usability Testing

“Market research is primarily about opinions: about a brand, about personal beliefs, or about a specific marketing approach. User research is about behavior: what drives people, how they do things, how and why they’re likely to use your site”

Undercover User Experience Design by Cennydd Bowles and James Box

Looking at the difference between market and user research really helped me clarify what we were trying to achieve at this stage. It also made me step back and think about what else we might need to consider, including:

• The difficulty in defining the Co-op’s service from the limited information on their website
• Whether asking users about the service and site would give us an insight in how the Co-op‘s various activities could be better supported
• How the responses would help us develop our user ‘personas’ and ‘scenarios’

Our interview questions ,shown below were developed during a brainstorming session. I then modified theses slightly after having been recommended Research for development: a practical guide (2003) by a research professional. We wanted to use a more ‘open and explorative’ qualitative research approach, so that the users could come up with answers we hadn’t thought of. But we still needed some structure so that we’d get some meaningful responses that we could compare:

About the Service:

1.) How did you find out about the scheme?

2.) Why did you join?

3.) What do you think of the service?

About the site:

1.) Have you visited the web site?

2.) Why did you visit?

3.) What five features would you like to see on the website?

4.) Did you have any problems?

5.) If you were recommending the service to a friend, would you refer them to the website?

6.) Do you think there is enough information on the website for a new user of the service?

7.) Would you like updates from the service?

Demographics: Age | Occupation | Gender | Size of Household | Dietary requirements

The interviews were conducted face to face and limited to only 5 people who, we hoped would ideally represent a mix of the Co-op members, e.g. various ages, male/female, part-time/full-time students and student/university employees.

The responses have been submitted as part of the group deliverables, together with the survey rationale I helped refine, and the analysis of the responses I conducted on behalf of the group.

ADDITIONAL FINDINGS
I found the research stage the most engaging part of this module. It was the first time the group as a whole actually connected with users, rather than think about their needs conceptually.

Food Co-Op Volunteers

The exercise certainly helped me understand more clearly how the responses would help shape the personas, their scenarios and user journeys. It was also interesting to see how the process of actually engaging users resulted in the group gaining additional insights that went well beyond the responses to our survey questions (e.g. their growing pains; their overall numbers; how few members have actually visited the site;  how less than half their members use the service each week, etc). These insights may prove useful at the Wireframe stage, which I’ll discuss in a future post.

Research Methods

One of the most helpful resources about User Research was Steve Baty‘s ‘User Research for Personas and Other Audience Models‘ article on uxmatters. Before this stage I’d been using Leah Buley UX Team of One as a framework for my reflections on this project. But Baty‘s article was clearer about the different research methods used by UX practitioners, and how they ideally draw upon as many different data sources as possible when looking at personas. It was also interesting to look at other techniques for representing the insights gained from research activities, such as mental models and experience lifecycles.

PERSONA & SCENARIOS DEVELOPMENT
There were a number of key stages in our persona development process. Firstly, we reviewed our ‘quick and dirty’ user research to try and find some key themes that might help inform the development of our personas and their characteristics:

Persona Development Brainstorming Work in Progress

We then brainstormed these themes along with anything else we’d thought relevant from our existing site/competitor analyses and individual research:

This process helped us rapidly reach some consensus about our personas. The subsequent scenario development also helped us think about and prioritise the content requirements. What we didn’t explore in our brainstorming session was any innovative solutions to the food co-op‘s problems. So it would have also been interesting to have looked into the creative possibilities more here, perhaps using the kind of Deep Dive brainstorming Dave Armano highlights in his experience map process:

The Experience Map: Ideation Stage

I also think it would have been fun to have tried out the kind of role playing mentioned in the ux for masses ‘Getting the most out of personas‘ article. One other technique I would have liked to have experimented with at this stage is ‘affinity diagramming’. I found the article on MindTools a really helpful way of explaining how it’s used for organising ideas into common themes.

Putting a human face to our personas was left to Emma, Nora and Stefan because we couldn’t work out a way of writing-up their ‘stories’ collaboratively. We did review our personas as a group once they’d been written up,  and then we double checked the ‘stories’ against our proposed user task scenarios and the key content areas we’d prioritised.

I found the ‘An introduction to personas for technical authors‘ presentation and article by Neil Turner a really useful tool for reflecting on what we did at this stage and why. It made me realise how this part of the process was key to actually supporting and encouraging UX design:

“The  creation process forces people to think about and find out about users”

I also thought the parameters he suggests below were a very simple and straightforward way to go about creating personas:

About:

• Who are they?
• What is their background?
• What is their context?
• What’s important to them?
• What are their pain points and frustrations?

Key goals & needs:

• Goals
• Motivations
• Drivers
• Needs

Looking back on how we developed our personas from the user research, I think we had only loosely thought about these kind of parameters at the outset. Our process would have been more joined up if we’d thought about these parameters first and then developed our interview questions around them. It would have also provided us with a more structured way of analyzing the user responses. We did, however, eventually arrive at a similar destination despite our less structured journey.

FROM USER TASK SCENARIOS TO USER JOURNEYS
Much of what I read about User Journeys was aimed at UX Practitioners working at a much higher level than anything we’re doing on our project. One article that I did find helpful was ‘An introduction to user journeys’ article on boxes and arrows, as it helped clarify the difference between user journeys and “the interaction between a user and a system’s logic and processes”:

“Pioneering web designer and artist Auriea Harvey (zentropy8) describes web design as “thought patterns, processes, paths.” User journeys tap directly into this model, reflecting the thoughts, considerations, and experiences that people go through in their daily lives, beyond the web.

Creating a user journey places a strong emphasis on personas and also merges the creation of scenarios and user flows. However, unlike user flows, hierarchies, or functional specs (which explain the interaction between a user and a system’s logic and processes), user journeys explore a user’s mental and lived “patterns, processes, and paths” and translate these into web-based experiences.”

Everything started to click with regard to linking scenarios and user journeys to their goals and needs after having read Leanne Byrom‘s ‘What is a User Journey‘ blog post:

“Joe may well get diverted and do other things on the website, but here the user journey encapsulates all that Joe needed to achieve. This is why you need a scenario for your user journeys as well, as this is where you establish the goal/motivation for that user.”

She doesn’t go into the use of primary, secondary and complementary personas, nor any detail about archetypes/typical users, but she does go almost step by step through the process we’d taken (see example below):

Primary Persona: Jack is from London but moved to Brighton to study last year… He is considering volunteering in the future for further work experience.

Primary Persona Scenario: Volunteer for the Food Coop

User Journey: Home → Volunteer → Form → End

We sketched out 20 scenarios that we felt covered our key user journeys, having crossed-referenced these against our persona ‘stories’ and the content requirement we’d developed as part of our site objectives brainstorming session. Some of the complementary persona journeys looked at back-office type administration which would be important considerations if we developed the site beyond the prototype. .

I then converted our user journeys into a series of flow-type diagrams, which I then used to create the hierarchy of our initial site map below:

User Journeys and Initial Site Map

REFLECTIONS
As mentioned above, I found this stage of the project the most engaging. I particularly found the research aspects interesting because as discussed in my Initial Discovery Phase post, I’d already identified these as being one of the two UX Design Skills that are most relevant to my experience and expertise:

UX Design Skill Set

What this stage of our project really helped me understand was where the creative thinking and problem solving techniques could be mostly usefully applied in the UX Design Process, i.e. IDEO’s ‘Deep Dive’ brainstorming process mentioned above. As Dave Armano’s Experience Map (see above) shows the best way of solving problems is to first carry out research (Uncover Stage) and define the problem that needs solving (Define Stage). Perhaps using these Ideation techniques here might be one way of avoiding the problem of ‘sameness’ that I’d discussed in my ‘Thinking out of the Boxes and Arrrows‘ post, but it would need to go beyond simply finding innovative ways of representing User Journeys (see user journey category on Wireframe Magazine):

One thing I did notice during my research is that there seemed to be an almost infinite number of ways of representing personas, scenarios and user journeys. I particularly liked the graphic story-telling approach featured by Neil Turner below. It’s one of the best examples I’ve seen so far of how the story-telling approaches I mentioned in my Introduction and Group Project Proposal might be applied as part of the UX Design Process:

NEXT STEPS
In my next post, I’ll be look at how our Wire Frames were developed from the initial site map above, and how we went from these to our prototype after our initial usability testing.

Wordle Page Analysis

REFERENCES

Soucy, K. (2009). Understanding The Value Of User Research And Usability Testing [online] Available at: <http://www.slideshare.net/usableinterface/understanding-the-value-of-user-research-and-usability-testing> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Rosenfeld, R. (2011). Beyond User Research [online] (Updated 11 November 2011) Available at: <http://www.slideshare.net/lrosenfeld/beyond-user-research> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Bowles, C., Box, J. (2011).  Undercover User Experience Design, Chapter 2 Exploring the Problem

Laws, S., Harper, C., Marcus, R. (2003) Research for development: a practical guide

Buley, L. (2008). How to Be a UX Team of One [online] Available at: <http://www.slideshare.net/ugleah/how-to-be-a-ux-team-of-one> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Baty, S. (2009). User Research for Personas and Other Audience Models [online] (UX Matters: Updated 27 April 209) Available at: <http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/04/user-research-for-personas-and-other-audience-models.php> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Young, I. (2008). Mental Models: Aligning design strategy with human behavior

Temkin, B. (2009) LEGO’s Building Block For Good Experiences [online] (Updated 3 March 2009) Available at: <http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/legos-building-block-for-good-experiences/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Armano, D., (2006). The Experience Map [online] (Updated 20 April 2006) Available at: <http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/04/experience_map.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Turner, N. (2010). Getting the most out of personas [online] (UX for the masses: Updated 4 June 2010) Available at: <http://www.uxforthemasses.com/personas/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Mind Tools. Affinity Diagrams: Organizing ideas into common themes [online] (Updated 4 June 2010) Available at: <http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_86.htm> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Hobbs, J. (2005). An introduction to user journeys [online] (Boxes and Arrows: Updated 9 June 2005) Available at: <http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/an_introduction_to_user_journeys> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Byrom, L. (2010). What is a User Journey? [online] (Updated 24 July 2010) Available at: <http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/an_introduction_to_user_journeys> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

UX for the masses (2011). What makes a good UX designer? [online] (Updated on 11 Jan 2011) Available at: <http://www.uxforthemasses.com/what-makes-good-ux-designer/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

One article that seemed to cause some controversy in UX circles was “Companies should lead their users, not the other way around“ by Fast Co Design:

“The user is king. It’s a phrase that’s repeated over and over again as a mantra: Companies must become user-centric. But there’s a problem: It doesn’t work. Here’s the truth: Great brands lead users, not the other way around.”

Hansen, R. B., Skibsted, J.M. (2010)., User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea

Perhaps more surprising was the essay by the author, usability engineer and former advocate of user-centered design philosphy, Don Norman, where he argues that the related Human-Centered Design principles can be harmful:

“Human-Centered Design has become such a dominant theme in design that it is now accepted by interface and application designers automatically, without thought, let alone criticism. That’s a dangerous state — when things are treated as accepted wisdom. … These [Human-Centered Design] principles, I suggest, can be helpful, misleading, or wrong. At times, they might even be harmful.”

Norman, D. (2005). Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful

CROSS CUTTING THEMES
Looking at dissenting voices has helped me define some of the cross-cutting themes which I will explore as part of this project:

1. Aligning business and user goals or how UX Design does not exist in isolation of the business context:
   

   “a website should simply and clearly embody the business model
   that its supporting”
   Furnell, J. (2011). So whats the business model? – The Business Model Canvas

2. How to avoid User-Centred Design leading to sameness:

   “a user-centric design focus creates sameness and
   stifles creativity and innovation”
   Hansen, R. B., Skibsted, J.M, 2010., User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea

3. The rise of Social iA: a more social and fragmented web poses new and interesting IA/UX challenges:
   

   “Social Information Architecture, also known as Social iA has become more relevant because of the rise of social media and Web 2.0 in recent times” Wikipedia

ALIGNING BUSINESS AND USER GOALS
In the Reflections section of my Initial Discovery Phase post I mentioned that it had taken me some time to understand how Peter Morville‘s User Experience Honeycomb diagram was a means of thinking about how the user experience could be improved to help the client achieve their objectives. I’d also found the A good UX designer’s T-shaped skill set diagram on UX for the masses useful, particularly when I mapped it unto the UCD Process we’re following on this project.

UCD Process Skill Set

I concluded that both the business and user focus would need to be taken into account at every stage of the process, and that the customer experience would also need to be looked at more holistically, i.e. beyond the problems that can be solved by UCD and UXD alone. Apple are a good example of this more holistic thinking, and perhaps because Steve Jobs was not only CEO, but head of product development, customer experience, etc:

“Steve did his market research by looking into the mirror every morning”
Apple’s head of marketing, Mike Murray

AVOIDING SAMENESS
Thinking about how to align client and user goals doesn’t really address the issue raised by Jens Skibsted and Rasmus Hansenon on Fast Co Design about how a user-centric design focus is creating sameness and and stifling creativity and innovation. The counter-argument by Lawrence Kitson on UX Magazine is that “User-Centered Does Not Equal What the User Wants”:

“But UX professionals already know the risks associated with improper research methods and the dubious value of such information. This approach of taking raw findings and applying them directly to designs or products is called user-led design, and its weakness is in failing to use the skills of experts to verify and extract user needs.”

Kitson, L. (2011). User-Led Does Not Equal User-Centered

Interestingly, adaptive path‘s founder Peter Merholz acknowledges UCD’s shortcomings but still finds it useful:

“… user-centered design practice is often guilty of what people claim it is often guilty of, but which UCD practitioners typically deny: it’s fine for improving existing products, but poor at generating interesting new products and services that can satisfy unmet needs. (As a consultant and supposed thought leader, I am now obliged to mention faster horses.) Now, I think that user-centered design can be successfully used to chart future paths, but it requires a more open, expansive, and playful mindset than is usually employed.”

Merholz, P. (2011). How Do You Know When the Market is Ready? Skype, Video Calls, and UCD’s Shortcomings

There hasn’t really been a chance  to employ a more “open, expansive, and playful mindset” on this project.  We do get a chance to think more freely and creatively on the DM19 Creative Design Module, but it’s carried out as part of idea generation on ‘fantasy’ projects. So it was interesting to see David Armano‘s Experience Map, which attempts to “illustrate what an “ideal” scenario might look like when planning, architecting and designing an interactive experience”:

Modified Experience Map

Armano, D., 2006. Experience Map?

I’ve modified the diagram to highlight both the Uncover and Ideate stages. The uncover stage is where problems and solutions are identified, so that ‘business and user goals can be aligned’. But it’s the creative problem solving during the Ideate stage where sameness can be avoided in User-Centric Design. I’ve linked these stages as I think they are two sides of the same coin, i.e. the Ideate stage should be where the creative thinking occurs in order to try and develop solutions to problems identified in the Uncover stage.

Mind Mapping Experiment
With the above in mind I thought it would be interesting to see if I could try and think differently about our project. The mind map below was just a little dot-joining experiment that provided me with a framework for reflecting on the themes above. I was also trying to both define the problem and think more creatively about the solution:

“Whoever is best able to describe the problem
is the person most likely to solve it.” Dan Roam

Going Under Cover: Undercover User Experience Design

The Bigger Picture?

I’m not actually trying to solve the Food Co-op‘s real problems here, but thinking as if I am helps me get a better understand of the practical application of UCD and its limitations.

Although a detailed answer to this question is not within the scope of this project, it did point me to an interesting space called Captology (Computers as Persuasive Technologies) where social science overlaps with interactive design. UX Magazine recently looked at how B.J. Fogg’s Behavioural Model and Caldini‘s ‘Persuasion Principles’ fit into a simplified history of user experience:

• Human-computer interaction is about paying attention to people and their relationship with computing.
• Information architecture is about making things findable.
• Interaction design is about making things usable.
• Content strategy is about making things meaningful.
• Experience design is about making things seamless.
• Persuasive design is about making things influential.

The theory being that the “trend goes towards deeper meanings and bigger impacts”:

Baxter, L. (2011) Why Persuasive Design Should Be Your Next Skill Set

One simple way we might have been able to experiment with this kind of psychologically informed design approach would have been to have used something like Stephen Anderson’s Mental Notes cards. The idea being to use the cards as a brainstorming tool to explore how insights into human behavior can be practically applied as part of the web design and application development process.

THE RISE OF SOCIAL iA
Another aspect of the Food Co-op project that fascinated me, and that was how the majority of the communication between organisers and members happened face-to-face or via Twitter and Facebook rather than their blog. The rise of social media poses challenges for Information Architecture and UCD, often described as issues of Social Information Architecture or Social IA. In this context I found Gene Smith’s social software honeycomb diagram useful. It was also interesting to compare Smith‘s honeycomb diagram with Peter Morville‘s ‘user experience‘ one. Morville‘s diagram is a way of illustrating “the facets of user experience”, whereas Smith‘s is a framework for “thinking about how social software works”. So the two are not directly comparable, but I felt that looking at both, as well as the earlier Information Architecture diagram, helped me make sense of what we’re doing as a group and why, as well as where things might be heading.

At times it did seem like diagrams were talking to diagrams, similar to the way that Umberto Eco writes about book talking to books in Foucault’s Pendulum (see The Guardian review). I was hoping that using these diagrams as a means of thinking differently about the project might lead to the kind of Innovation by Boundary Shifting that John Christopher Jones discusses in his Design Methods book. The mind mapping process mentioned above was actually more helpful in this respect.

REFLECTIONS
As mentioned above, my mind map was really a do- joining exercise, which was in part inspired by Harry Beck‘s London Underground map. The process helped me see that the answer to to the Co-op‘s problems might be the use of social influencers rather than just incorporating Persuasive Design as part of the UX Design Process (see Cool Teenagers Use Peer Pressure to Prevent Smoking, Fast Company 2010).

Using creative thinking and problem solving techniques in the mind mapping process also helped me look at the problem of ‘sameness’ in a different way. It helped me look at the cross-cutting themes and our project outside the confines of structures, hierarchies, user mental models, and tasks, etc.

A Line of Enquiry?

Lastly, the exercise made me realise that there is an interesting space to investigate where where Business or Social Context, Captology and Social iA overlap (see diagram below). I could see how David Armano‘s ‘Experience Map’, mentioned above, might map onto it, which helped me understand how Captology could be incorporated as part of an Interdisciplinary team during the Ideation process. My diagrams now seemed to be not only talking to those that I’ve seen, but also each other. Perhaps I will be able to pursue this line of enquiry in another module, or in independent research.

Wordle Page Analysis

REFERENCES
Hansen, R. B., Skibsted, J.M. (2010)., User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea  [online] (Updated 15 Feb 2011) Available at: <http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663220/user-led-innovation-cant-create-breakthroughs-just-ask-apple-and-ikea> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Norman, D. (2005). Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful [online] Available at: <http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered_design_considered_harmful.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Furnell, J. (2010). So whats the business model ? – The Business Model Canvas [online] (Updated on 14 October 2010) Available at: <http://jasonfurnell.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/so-whats-the-business-model-the-business-model-canvas/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Social information architecture [online] (Updated on 2 Dec 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_information_architecture> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Morville, P., (2004). User Experience Design [online] (Update 21 June 2004) Available at: <http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

UX for the masses (2011). What makes a good UX designer? [online] (Updated on 11 Jan 2011) Available at: <http://www.uxforthemasses.com/what-makes-good-ux-designer/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Kitson, L. (2011). User-Led Does Not Equal User-Centered [online] (UX Magazine: Updated on 17 March 2011) Available at: <http://uxmag.com/articles/user-led-does-not-equal-user-centered> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Merholz, P. (2011). How Do You Know When the Market is Ready? Skype, Video Calls, and UCD’s Shortcomings  [online] (Updated on 26 May 2011) Available at: <http://adaptivepath.com/ideas/how-do-you-know-when-the-market-is-ready-skype-video-calls-and-ucds-shortco> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Armano, D., (2006). The Experience Map [online] (Updated 20 April 2006) Available at: <http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/04/experience_map.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Bowles, C., Box, J. (2011).  Undercover User Experience Design, Chapter 2 Exploring the Problem

Wikipedia (2011). Captology [online] (Updated on 9 Nov 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captology> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Fogg, B.J. (2010). BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model [online] Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captology> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Robert Caldini [online] (Updated on 17 Oct 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Baxter, R. (2011). Why Persuasive Design Should Be Your Next Skill Set [online] (UX Magazine: Updated on 7 June 2011) Available at: <http://uxmag.com/articles/why-persuasive-design-should-be-your-next-skill-set> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Smith, G., (2007). Social Software Building Blocks [online] (Updated 4 April 2007) Available at: <http://nform.com/publications/social-software-building-block> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Coe, J. (1989). The heights of lowdown ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ by Umberto Eco translated by William Weaver. The Guardian [online] (Updated on 12 October 2011) Available at: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1989/oct/12/fiction.jonathancoe1> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Jone, J.C. (1992) Design Methods. p. 101

Wikipedia (2011). Robert Caldini [online] (Updated on 7 December 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Nerenberg, J. (2010). Cool Teenagers Use Peer Pressure to Prevent Smoking [online] (Fast Company: Updated on 11 October 2010) Available at: <http://www.fastcompany.com/1694127/cool-teenagers-use-peer-pressure-to-prevent-smoking> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

• Identify Competitors
• Identify Comparators
• Do an audit
• Evaluate structure, segments, ease of use, quality of content, unique features …

UX Design Process: Competitive Analysis

EXISTING SITE ANALYSIS
I’ve included our Analysis of the existing site as part of my reflection because I’d originally thought it was going to inform our competitive review together with other findings from the initial Discovery stage:

In the end things weren’t quite as integrated at this stage as I’d originally imagined because the list of items we chose to analyse on our competitive review wasn’t based on the findings from the existing site analysis. This was partly to do with the limited nature of the UoB Food Co-op‘s blog. The findings from both were, however, compared later in the project when we were developing our personas and their task scenarios.

There were a number of different frameworks for site analysis to choose from. I chose a top-down hierarchical approach because as Rosenfeld & Morville explain in their Information Architecture for the World Wide Web book, hierarchies are “usually a good place to start the information architecture process” as they “provide a simple and familiar way to organize information”:

“The top-down approach allows you to quickly get a handle on the scope of the web site without going through an extensive content inventory process. You can begin identifying the major content areas and exploring possible organization schemes that will provide access to that content.” (First Edition, February 1998; p. 33)

I also looked at other ways of mapping the pages and content of the U0B Food Coop Site, including:

• Boxes and Arrows: The Lazy IA’s Guide to Making Sitemaps
• Boxes and Arrows: Site Diagrams: Mapping an Information Space
• Jesse James Garrett: A visual vocabulary for describing information architecture and interaction design

There seemed to be different conventions for numbering levels and displaying pages, such as using rectangles with rounded edges for dynamic pages, brackets for outbound links, etc. I  opted for a map that was as simple as possible in order to reflect the limited nature of the site and show how the Food Co-op‘s web presence is fragmented across a number of social media touchpoints.

Uob Food Co-op Site Map

I also experimented with a site map made up of screen shots in order to analyse key screens and processes, and as part of creating a content inventory.

UoB Food Co-op Alternative Site Map

The simple content inventory I produced from these two maps, has been submitted as part of the group deliverables. At the same time, I also analysed the Food Co-op‘s other online (social media) touch points as part of a broader look at their content, communication activities and other interactions with users. This additional research has also been added to the group deliverables.

It was interesting to see how much they relied on free social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Gmail for their communication and interaction with members. This pointed to some of the challenges posed by the rise of social media, particularly when it comes to designing personalised user experiences. I’ll explore this theme in another post, but it was interesting to note that it was an information architect who coined the term Web 2.0. Darcy DiNucci’s may not have used the term as it is currently understood, but her “Fragmented Future” article from 1999 did hint at the design challenges posed by the evolving web and emerging technologies.

COMPETITORS AND COMPARATORS
I spent quite a bit of time researching competitive review approaches. I found Rosenfeld & Morville’s distinction between Competitive and Comparable Analysis a really useful way of evaluating our competitive review choices (Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition, p. 374-375).

Abel & Cole, Infinity Foods, Milk & More and Barcombe Nurseries may all provide comparable fruit and veg boxes, healthy food or delivery services, but none are actually competitors. In hindsight I think we should have probably only chosen one of these sites, perhaps the market leader Abel & Cole. It’s just that there are possibly better comparator sites to have chosen, such as another student food co-op facing similar challenges, e.g. SOAS Food Co-op.

As far as competitors are concerned, then Asda was chosen because it’s another supplier of cheap fruit and veg. Dominos Pizza was chosen because it seemed to fit the “Good to have a very different to you” example from Cath Jones’ competitor review exercise. I’d suggested Dominos after seeing a banner ad on the Student Union website. In addition, I’d seen research which suggested that the UoB Food Co-op is really competing against the fast food food industry, not other suppliers of more expensive organic fruit and veg boxes (see ‘Male students eschew balanced diet in favour of supplements‘, The Guardian, 9/11/2010).

AUDIT METHODOLOGY AND EVALUATION ANALYSIS
The problem I found with the Competitive Analysis stage is that there’s an infinite amount of ways by which to compare sites:

“They can be as broad as the main navigation categories, or as narrow as the label on a button in a particular area of the site. You’ve made conscious decisions to include certain criteria—maybe they are a standard set used by your client or your company, maybe they were defined ahead of time by the stakeholders, or maybe you devised a special list just for this project.”
Brown, D. (2006). Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning

The challenge was trying to find a way that suited our project. We initially evaluated Competitors and Comparators visually on a computer screen:

Visual Comparison

These site were then compared and contrasted, in order to produce a list of audit criteria based on the following categories/themes:

Home page | Navigation | Platforms | Online Ordering | Product Info | Contact Us/Feedback | Recipes | Search |Site Map | Accessibility | Social Media | About | Blog/News/Editorial | Help/FAQ | Promotions | Links | Community | Health | Eco Info | Registration/Customer Journey | Multimedia | Terms and conditions | Jobs/volunteer/get involved | Organisation | Readability/aesthetics | Performance | Content

There were a number of problems with this more qualitative research approach, not least because we hadn’t agreed on a common evaluation approach. As a result, some evaluations were considerably more detailed than others. So we ended up with a large spreadsheet of data, which wasn’t easy to use for comparing and contrasting sites at a glance:

Competitor Analysis

I looked at a number of alternative options we could have used instead (see sources below), including:

• condensed or split categories, e.g. content and functionality.
• opt for more general criteria
• use simple Yes/No comparison criteria
• use more quantitative ranking and ratings
• create specific criteria set

1. IBM: How to conduct a Web site competitive analysis
2. Boxes and Arrows: ‘Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context
3. Dan Brown: Comparing Pet Web Sites with More Specific Criteria

In hindsight I think the most simple and useful way to have carried out our analysis would have been to compare our existing site with Comparators and Competitors using the kind of Problem Statements and Responses approach shown below :

Table 5.7: Problem Statements and Responses

Good Problem Statement	Good Answer
Our site has a feature for allowing customers to add tags to our products. What interface elements do other sites use to support this feature?	Sites with tagging features overwhelmingly use a simple text field and ask users to separate tags with spaces. Since tagging is relatively new, nearly every competitor includes a “what is this?” link adjacent to the text field. Upon pressing Return (or Enter), the user gets immediate feedback from the interface that their tags have been added.

(Table 5.7: Competitive Analysis, Part 2, Dan Brown 2006)

SITE OBJECTIVES
Having compiled our separate reviews of competitor and comparator sites, we then had a brainstorming session where we discussed what we liked and disliked about what we had seen. This session was based on IBM’s ‘How to conduct a Web site competitive analysis ‘ article I’d seen, which lists a number of items including: navigation, site organization, links and labels, readability and content. We also looked at other issues, such as aesthetics, multimedia inclusion, online ordering processes, social media and community integration. We then compiled our findings as a set of site requirements.

Site Requirements

These site requirements were then used as part of a role playing exercise I’d suggested, where we acted as potential ‘end client’ using Clearleft‘s ‘Client Ideas Sheet‘ to help define our site objectives. Lastly, I found a ‘Project Overview’ and ‘Project Definition and Scope’ template document on the tools page of  The Institute of Information Architecture site, which I proposed we modify for our final Site Objectives submission.

Site Objectives

CONCLUSION/REFLECTIONS
The Uob Food Co-Op‘s site just isn’t developed enough to carry the kind of heuristic evaluation recommended by the likes of Cennydd Bowles and James Box in their ‘Undercover User Experience Design‘ book (2011), e.g. evaluate structure, segments, ease of use, quality of content, unique features. A simple Problem Statements and Responses approach might have worked better. This would have helped ensure that our exiting site analysis was more integrated with the subsequent comparison and contrasting of the competitors and comparators.

Despite some of the problems mentioned above, conducting this existing site analysis and competitive review process has been a useful learning experience. It’s helped me understand that there’s a toolbox of evaluation tools that could be used depending on the project scope:

•  The Information Architecture Institute’s Tools project
• ‘Competitive Analysis‘, Dan Brown (2006)

It’s also reinforced the importance of understanding the business context that I discussed in the Initial Discovery Stage post, particularly with regard to identifying competitors and comparators:

“While user-centered design focuses on user needs/tasks, and information architecture focuses on content, these two aspects alone offer an incomplete picture. What is missing is the context: the environment in which the website or web application is used as well as the market in which it exists”

Withrow, J. (2006) .Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context

I found the competitive analysis process we used too constraining. It did not allow us to “expand the dialogue and the possibilities”:

“The final benefit comes from expanded dialogue within the development team, and with other units in your company, about what competitive data means to your strategic direction. Such dialogue can open up new options that would not otherwise have been considered.”

Withrow, J., 2006.Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context

I felt boxed in by the UX Design Process, and could see why critics might argue that “a user-centric design focus creates sameness and stifles creativity and innovation” (Kitson, L., 2011. User-Led Does Not Equal User-Centered). In conclusion I would say that how to avoid User-Centred Design leading to sameness might be an interesting theme to explore in future posts.

Wordle Page Analysis

REFERENCES
Buley, L. (2008). How to Be a UX Team of One [online] Available at: <http://www.slideshare.net/ugleah/how-to-be-a-ux-team-of-one> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Rosenfeld, L., Morville, P. (1998). Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, First Edition, p. 33

Boxes and Arrows (2006). The Lazy IA’s Guide to Making Sitemaps [online] (Updated: 30 Jan 2011) Available at: <http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the_lazy_ia_s_guide_to_making_sitemaps> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Boxes and Arrows (2004): Site Diagrams: Mapping an Information Space [online] (Updated: 30 August 2004) Available at: <http://boxesandarrows.com/view/site_diagrams_mapping_an_information_space> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Jesse James Garrett (2002): A visual vocabulary for describing information architecture and interaction design [online] (Updated: 6 March 2002) Available at: <http://www.jjg.net/ia/visvocab/> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Web 2.0 [online] (Updated on 13 December 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

DiNucci, Darcy (1999). Fragmented Future [online] Available at: <http://darcyd.com/fragmented_future.pdf> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

The Guardian (2010). Male students eschew balanced diet in favour of supplements’ [online] (Updated on 9 November 2010) Available at: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/09/male-students-eating-habits> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Brown, D. (2006). Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning [online] (Updated on 21 August 2006) Available at: <http://www.digital-web.com/articles/competitive_analysis/> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

IBM (2002). How to conduct a Web site competitive analysis [online] (Updated on 1 Oct 2002) Available at: <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/us-analysis.html> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Boxes and Arrows (2006): Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context [online] (Updated on 2 February 2006) Available at: <http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/competitive_analysis_understanding_the_market_context> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Brown, D. (2006). Comparing Pet Web Sites with More Specific Criteria [online] (Updated on 21 August 2006) Available at: <http://www.digital-web.com/articles/competitive_analysis/> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Brown, D. (2006). Competitive Analysis, Part 2 [online] (Updated on 2 October 2006) Available at: <http://www.digital-web.com/articles/competitive_analysis_part_2/> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Clearleft (2011) Client Ideas Sheet [online] Available at: <http://clearleft.s3.amazonaws.com/client-worksheet.rtf> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

The Information Architecture Institute (2011). Tools project [online] Available at: <http://iainstitute.org/tools/> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Brown, D. (2006). Competitive Analysis [online] (Updated on 2 October 2006) Available at: <http://www.digital-web.com/articles/competitive_analysis> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Withrow, J. (2006). Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context [online] (Updated on 27 February 2006) Available at: <http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/competitive_analysis_understanding_the_market_context> [Accessed 13 December 2011]

Bowles, C., Box, J. (2011). Undercover User Experience Design, Chapter 2 Exploring the Problem

Kitson, L. (2011). User-Led Does Not Equal User-Centered [online] (UX Magazine: Updated on 17 March 2011) Available at: <http://uxmag.com/articles/user-led-does-not-equal-user-centered> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

UX Discovery Stage

She breaks up the initial UX Discovery stage, as follows:

• SWOT Reviews
• Stakeholder Interviews
• Literature Review
• Heuristic Review
• Secondary Research

SWOT REVIEWS AND STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS
As this is not a commissioned redesign of the Food Co-op‘s website, there wasn’t an opportunity to conduct a fully fledged stakeholder analysis or indepth contextual interviews with the site owners. What I did do instead is suggest that our group use role play as potential ‘end client’ using Clearleft‘s ‘Client Ideas Sheet‘ to help define our site objectives. I also contacted the UoB Food Co-Op organisers and carried out some informal interviews about their strategic planning considerations:

This thin-slice was about as close to a SWOT analysis as we got in terms of their ‘business’ objectives and goals, but I was actually more interested in seeing how our group’s second guessed assumptions compared to the real challenges being faced by the Co-op:

Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance
between deliberate and instinctive thinking.”
Gladwell, M., (2005). Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

I did carry out some follow-up research on ‘SWOT Analysis for Designers‘, as well as look at the wider ‘Defining The Problem’ that Cennydd Bowles and James Box discuss in their Undercover User Experience Design book. It was also interesting to read interviews with Industry experts on Smashing Magazine about the challenge of translating client business goals into a set of design objectives:

“Chris Coyier: Defining goals is the ideal way to start. It’s so tempting to jump right in and start designing stuff and laying stuff out. You can build a beautiful website jumping right in, but beautiful doesn’t necessarily sell products or inform visitors or build community or accomplish whatever goals the client really wants to achieve.

The challenge is that clients may not be able to articulate what those goals are very well. As designers, as people with experience in building websites, we need to help them along in figuring out those goals. If you do this and then accomplish and exceed those goals, you will have some seriously happy clients.”

PRIMARY RESEARCH: FIELD AND ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect at this stage of the project was having the chance to conduct some field and ethnographic research.  As mentioned in a previous post, I’d read the Ethnography in UX article on UX  matters, which explained that ethnographic research was an important technique for getting insights about the “social interactions rather than observation of a human-computer interface”. So I conducted some very low-level experiments just to see what might actually be involved, including:

• Observing members, joining Co-op, ordering and collecting boxes, as well as their interaction with the Co-op’s organisers through the Co-op’s social media channels.
• Observing Co-op organisers and volunteers through the delivery, packing and distribution/collection processes, as well as their interaction with existing and prospective members at promotional events (i.e. Fresher’s Fair, etc)
• Joining, ordering, collection and service enquiry processes as mystery shopper.

This purposes of the exercise was to simply experiment with the kind of undercover research that’s mentioned in Cennydd Bowles and James Box‘s Undercover User Experience Design book. The insights gained from going ‘undercover’ did play a small part during the analysis of our user research and the brainstorming of our user personas and their task scenarios. The undercover research also helped inform the analysis of the existing site. I will submit details of how it contributed in later posts.

HEURISTIC REVIEW
As the Food Co-op only have a blog at present, which isn’t updated very much, there isn’t enough content and functionality to enable a full-blown heuristic review. However, I did look into the following as I thought it would be useful background information for any usability testing later in the project:

• Jakob Nielsen: Ten Usability Heuristics
  
• ux for the masses: A guide to carrying out usability reviews
• STC: Heuristic Evaluation Questions
• Smashing Magazine: Comprehensive Review Of Usability And User Experience Testing Tools

LITERATURE REVIEW: SECONDARY RESEARCH AND LITERATURE REVIEW
For my secondary research I looked at a case study by Melissa Ann Martin. She was responsible for the “mental models, information architecture and collaboratively outlining of the UX strategy and system framework design” for the redesign of Sony.com. It was interesting to read about how she went about primary and secondary research in the real world, as well as see a sample report.

Sony UX Research & Strategy Development

Whilst I didn’t have all the information required for a similar analysis of the Food Co-op site, it did provide me with a useful framework to assess the broader Food Co-op arena, and find out where the UoB Food Co-op fits in. This proved useful when thinking about the difference between competitive and comparable analysis, of which more in later posts.

REFLECTIONS
During the discovery stage I had a brief glimpse of how the UX Design Process as a whole was greater than the sum of the parts. Leah Buley’s framework was a great place to start, as it provides a really useful way of examining the initial Discovery stage. In addition, I found the Undercover User Experience Design book a good way of looking at the detail as well as thinking about what could be realistically achieved on a relatively small project like ours.

Clearleft‘s ‘Client Ideas Sheet‘ also helped me think about the project from a client perspective. However, what it doesn’t do is provide a more 360 view of the business context. For this you need a strategic planning tool like Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder, Pigneur & al. 2010), which as UX Designer Jason Furnell explains is a means of “rapidly exposing all the moving parts of the business”. Understanding the bigger picture strikes me as being essential if, as Furnell, argues a website is going to “simply and clearly embody the business model that it’s supporting”. Thus, UX design needs to be thought about in terms of if, and how, it can help align both the user and client goals.

From IA to UX?

It was interesting to see how Peter Morville had evolved this client ‘context’ in the diagrams above. In the earlier  3 circles of Information Architecture Venn Diagram he developed with Louis Rosenfeld, the business or client ‘Context’ appears to play a much bigger role. His later User Experience Honeycomb didn’t seem to express this as clearly. But everything started to click once I saw the following business objectives in the Defining the Problem section in Undercover User Experience Design book:

• Reduce shopping-cart abandonment by 15 percent within a month
• Increase customer repeat business by 10 percent by Christmas
• Reduce log-in errors to 10 per day throughout February

I suddenly understood how Morville’s honeycomb was a means of thinking about how the user experience could be improved to help the client achieve their objectives.

The business objectives above, however, seemed to be lot more focused than anything we were planning to do on our project. So it was good to have read the What makes a good UX designer? article on UX for the masses, as this helped me get a better perspective from a more generic business point of view:

“It’s also important to remember that behind every design there’s a set of business goals and objectives, such as selling more products, or converting more customers. UX designers need to be able to understand and interpret what the ultimate goal of a design is and be able to communicate this back to the bean counters in the business.”

Fortunately we’ve no bean counters to report back to on this project. We do have to build a site together as a group for our assignment, so I found the diagram below from the UX for the masses article particularly informative:

UX Design Skill Set

This diagram shows that there are six sets of skills required in a UX Design team. I’d already realised there wasn’t going to be the opportunity to look at the business analysis side of things on this project, regardless of how much I wanted to experiment with Furnell‘s Business Model Canvas Facilitator Cards.

Where the diagram really helped though was to clarify my role in the team, particularly given my interests and skills. I wish I’d found it earlier because I think it might have helped us avoid some of the tensions that emerged. We’re quite a diverse bunch with some forceful personalities, including myself. That said we’ve got a good mix of analytical, creative, design and technical skills. The only thing missing was a little bit of guidance at the onset about working together as a team. We seemed to have come together after a few fits and starts, so maybe there’s something in the old adage “no pain, no gain”.

Wordle Page Analysis

REFERENCES
Buley, L. (2008). How to Be a UX Team of One [online] Available at: <http://www.slideshare.net/ugleah/how-to-be-a-ux-team-of-one> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Clearleft (2011) Client Ideas Sheet [online] Available at: <http://clearleft.s3.amazonaws.com/client-worksheet.rtf

Gladwell, M., (2005). Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Wikipedia (2011). Thin Slicing [online] (Updated on 24 July 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-slicing> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Liquori, E. (2011). Use SWOT Analysis for Your Next Design Project [online] (Onextrapixel: Updated: 7 Feb 2011 Available at: <http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/02/07/use-swot-analysis-for-your-next-design-project/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Bowles, C., Box, J. (2011).  Undercover User Experience Design, Chapter 2 Exploring the Problem

Smashing Magazine (2011) The Smashing Book – Learning from Experts: Interviews and Insights (part 2 of 4) [online] (Updated on 5 October 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-slicing> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Boehm, N. (2010). Ethnography in UX [online] (UX Matters: Updated on 21 June 2010 Available at: <http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/06/ethnography-in-ux.php> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Morville, P., (2004). User Experience Design [online] (Update 21 June 2004) Available at: <http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Jakob Nielsen (2005). Ten Usability Heuristics [online] Available at: <http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

The Society for Technical Communication. Heuristic Evaluation – A System Checklist [online] Available at: <http://www.stcsig.org/usability/topics/articles/he-checklist.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

UX for the masses (2011). A guide to carrying out usability reviews [online] (Updated on 11 Feb 2011 Available at: <http://www.uxforthemasses.com/usability-reviews/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Chapman, C. (2011). Comprehensive Review Of Usability And User Experience Testing Tools [online] (Smashing Mgazine: Updated on 11 20 Oct 2011) Available at: <http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/20/comprehensive-review-usability-user-experience-testing-tools/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Martin, M. (2010). Sony [online] Available at: <http://www.melissaannmartin.com/home/sony/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

UX for the masses (2011). What makes a good UX designer? [online] (Updated on 11 Jan 2011) Available at: <http://www.uxforthemasses.com/what-makes-good-ux-designer/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Business Model Canvas [online] (Updated on 25 October 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Furnell, J. (2010). So whats the business model ? – The Business Model Canvas [online] (Updated on 14 October 2010) Available at: <http://jasonfurnell.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/so-whats-the-business-model-the-business-model-canvas/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Furnell, J. (2010). Business Model Canvas – Facilitator Cards [online] (Updated on 2 Decemeber 2010) Available at: <http://jasonfurnell.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/business-model-canvas-facilitator-cards/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Original Image Source: Blueprint Design Studio – Anatomy of a Page

READABILITY RESEARCH
I realised that I would have to consider how my blog would be evaluated on readability, contents, style, tone, and page design. So I decided to carry out some background usability research on readability. I found an article by Jakob Nielsen on ‘How Users Read on the Web‘ (Alertbox 1997). He explains that research on how people read websites shows that users “rarely read Web pages word by word, instead they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences”

“we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word”

He makes a number of recommendations about creating web pages with scannable text, so I tried experimenting with a few of these, including his suggestion of highlighting keywords. But having sought feedback from Cath and my group, the general consensus was that it didn’t work well in the context of this journal.

OPTIMUM WIDTH FOR WEB PAGE/BLOG POST
I also looked into the optimum width for blog/web page post content, but couldn’t find any definitive answers. Opinions seem to range from somewhere between 480 and 600 pixels. As Word Press doesn’t provide access to the Custom Design (CSS) area, I decided to use a methodology based on Cath Jones’ competitor review exercise. This involved looking at pixel widths on a number of blogs and sites mostly in the UX/Information Architecture space (see sites and widths below).

Pixel widths ranged widths from 460 to 830 with Usability Guru Jakon Nielsen‘s useit.com and the popular iaslash Information Architecture sites being wider than the 752 pixels on the Morning After Theme I’d originally chosen. Another approach would be to use the methodology mentioned in Nielsen’s ‘Measuring the Usability of Reading on the Web’. Given the restrictions of Word Press I opted for the Simpla theme which was, as it says, clean and simple, and only 478 pixels wide.

The free Simpla theme doesn’t allow font size and colour to be specified. Instead, I have tried to make my blog more readable by having clear headlines, short and concise paragraphs of text with links to relevant background material. I’ve also included images and diagrams to make my posts more visually interesting as well as emphasise the points I’m trying to make.

REFLECTION
The exercise not only provided me with an opportunity to research online readability, but also experiment with how any findings could be applied to this blog and our project.  In addition, the site/blog review process allowed me to find out more about current Industry thinking, as well as familiarise myself with relevant UCD/UXD concepts and the terminology being used.

BLOG/SITE MAIN CONTENT COLUMN WIDTH REVIEW:

1. Google Blog Search: “Information Architecture“:
   • iaslash (912 pixels)
   • andrea resmini :: information architect (556)
   • Eleganthack (257)
   • UXmatters (499)
2. Usability/UX (User Experience) Design Blogs:
   • Andy Budd (692)
   • Disambiguity (570)
   • Jakob Nielsen (useit.com) (797)
3. News Blogs with large reach:
   • BBC: Robert Peston Blog (462)
   • Guardian News Blog (460)

Page Analysis: Wordle

REFERENCES
Nielsen, J. (1997). How Users Read on the Web [online] (Update 1 Oct 1997) Available at: <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Nielsen, J. (1997). How to write for the Web ( [online] Available at: <http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Remick, J. (2008). Anatomy of a Web Page [online] (Update 30 Dec 2008) Available at: <http://blueprintds.com/2008/12/30/anatomy-of-a-web-page/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Usability [online] (Updated on 11 December 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Readability [online] (Updated on 25 Novemeber 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

In it they suggest that organisations should start by asking “three deceptively simple questions”:

• Who are we?
• What do we do?
• Why does it matter?

Their questions made me think that it might be a good idea to give you some background about why I chose this programme and what I hope to get out it.

In summary, I’m a digital consultant who specialises in more connected and user-led approaches to business and marketing. Despite being published I don’t have any academic qualifications and so wanted to take some time out to improve my credentials. At the same time, I thought it would be an opportunity to critically explore more User-Led and User-Centric design approaches, so that I could better understand where and how they might be practically applied.

Hopefully, this gives you some context about what I’ve reflected on as part of this project and why. What I hope to do next is explain how our group (MAIS 4) approached this project, the framework I plan to reflect on it, and our actual project proposal.

DESIGN PROCESS
My first step was to research the prescribed User-Centred Design (UCD) process on this module. I wanted to try and understand more about what we were going to be doing and why. I also wanted to understand the difference between UCD and User Experience Design (UXD), as well as what part the likes of Information Architecture and Usability have to play and where.

I found a whole host of articles and diagrams that discussed both UCD and UXD processes, as well as Information Architecture, Usability etc. What I couldn’t really find was anything that actually compared and contrasted UCD and UXD. After my trawl through various online resources I was left with the impression that UCD was as much a design philosophy as it is a process, or a way of thinking at each stage of the design process. UXD, on the other hand, seemed more like a design discipline, or a way of actually going about the design process:

“I’m still not convinced UCD exists outside the realm of theory,
but I practice user experience design every day.”

Morville, P. (2004). User Experience Design

Thinking about UXD as a way of going about the design process made me wonder whether we’d be able to adopt the kind of more Lean and Agile UX approach I’d read about during my research:

Lean UX

“Lean UX is the practice of bringing the true nature of our work to light faster, with less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on the actual experience being designed.”

Smashing magazine, (2011): Lean UX: Getting Out Of The Deliverables Business

From what I’d read, this meant adopting a more iterative design process, where we’d be carrying out the ongoing testing and refining of our designs with users in order to improve usability:

“Redesigning user interfaces on the basis of user testing
can substantially improve usability.”

Nielsen, J. (1993). Iterative User Interface Design

Iterative UX Design Process

Cummings, M., (2010). UX Design Defined

The nature of this student project actually dictates a waterfall-type development process. However, there seem to be a couple of opportunities to carry out usability testing. Firstly, we could test our Wireframe designs (if we could find a way of making these interactive), and we could also test our prototype site.

Define → Design → Test → Develop → Test → Deploy

REFLECTION FRAMEWORK
The part I struggled with most on this project was finding a framework for my reflections. I decided to use a very simple one inspired by Leah Buley‘s ‘How to Be a UX Team of One‘ presentation:

UX Design Process

I used the  headings from the picture above to provide me with a simple structure for analysing the various phases of our project and highlighting areas for further research.

GROUP PROJECT PROPOSAL AND PROCESSES
I proposed that our group look at the University of Brighton Food Co-Op Society site for our project. As I’d found out when trying to join their fruit and veg box initiative, their current site isn’t very informative. I thought it would be interesting to see whether we could use the UX Design process to improve it.

At the same time, the oganisers were also on campus, so it looked like the project provided an opportunity for some ethnographic research. This was something I was interested in exploring as part of the User Research stage having read the UX matters‘ article on ‘Ethnography in UX’. 

Fortunately my colleagues agreed with my suggestion. This offered an opportunity for some limited, informal research in the field which I will describe in subsequent posts.

NEXT STEPS
In my next post I’ll be looking at the initial discovery phase of project. I’ll also be posting about other related activities, research and experiments that I’ve carried out along the way.

Page Analysis: Wordle

REFERENCES

C2LLC. The story book: How to succeed at competing [online] Available at: <http://www.c2llc.com/C2story> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Kirby, J., Marsden, P. (2006). Connected Marketing: the viral, buzz and word of mouth revolution.

Wikipedia (2011). User-centered design [online] (Updated on 23 November 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-centered_design> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). User experience design [online] (Updated on 23 November 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Information architecture [online] (Updated on 23 November 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_architecture> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Usability [online] (Updated on 6 December 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Morville, P., (2004). User Experience Design [online] (Updated 21 June 2004) Available at: <http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

McCauley, M., (2010). Eskimos Penguins And The User Centred Design [online] (Updated 15 June 2010) Available at: <http://digitaleskimo.tumblr.com/post/702724443/eskimos-penguins-and-the-user-centred-design> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Smith, G., (2007). Social Software Building Blocks [online] (Updated 4 April 2007) Available at: <http://nform.com/publications/social-software-building-block> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Armano, D., (2006). The Experience Map [online] (Updated 20 April 2006) Available at: <http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/04/experience_map.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Beaird, J. (2011). Information Architecture as Part of the Web Design Process [online] (Updated 20 Jan 2011) Available at: <http://designfestival.com/information-architecture-as-part-of-the-web-design-process/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Cummings, M. (2010). UX Design Defined [online] (Updated 16 August 201o) Available at: <http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Kimmy Paluch, K. (2006). What Is User Experience Design [online] (Updated 10 October 2006) Available at: <http://www.montparnas.com/articles/what-is-user-experience-design> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Saffer, D. (2008). The Disciplines of User Experience (Updated 2009) Available at: <http://www.kickerstudio.com/blog/2008/12/the-disciplines-of-user-experience/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Boniface, M. (2010). Definition of a great user experience? No one notices it… [online] (Updated 5 July 2010) Available at: <http://www.bonimedia.com/definition-of-a-great-user-experience-no-one-notices-it/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Garrett, J. (2000). The Elements of User Experience

Garrett, J. (2000). The Elements of User Experience Diagram [online] Available at: <http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Armano, D. (2007). Social Media + The Customer Experience [online] (Updated 5 July 2010) Available at: <http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2007/06/social_media_th.html> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Pemberton, L. (2011). IDM22 Interaction & Information Design: Information Design (Slide3: How do the design disciplines work together?)

Gothelf, J. (2011) Lean UX: Getting Out Of The Deliverables Business [online] (Smashing Magazine: Updated 7 March 2011) Available at: <http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/07/lean-ux-getting-out-of-the-deliverables-business/> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Iterative design [online] (Updated on 31 May 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iterative_design> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Nielsen, J. (1993). Iterative User Interface Design. IEEE Computer Vol. 26, No. 11, pp. 32-41 Available at: <http://www.useit.com/papers/iterative_design> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Wikipedia (2011). Waterfall Development [online] (Updated on 21 November 2011) Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_development> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Buley, L. (2008). How to Be a UX Team of One [online] Available at: <http://www.slideshare.net/ugleah/how-to-be-a-ux-team-of-one> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

Boehm, N. (2010). Ethnography in UX [online] (UX Matters: Updated on 21 June2010 Available at: <http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/06/ethnography-in-ux.php> [Accessed 11 December 2011]

I’m also experimenting with delicious to support my own learning, but also see whether social bookmarking could support collaborative learning.

Instead we decided to conduct some initial exploratory research with users. This is first time we actively involve users in our project, which is an important part of the User-Centred Design Process as explained in the definition I found below for Human centred design processes for interactive systems ISO 13407 (see Slideshare: Understanding The Value Of User Research And Usability Testing):

User Centered Design (UCD) Definition

USER RESEARCH CONSIDERATIONS:

The existing site analysis and competitor reviews have informed our research questions. For example, the analysis of the UoB Food Coop site and their business context, has shown that it’s difficult to separate out the service from the site, not least because their site is limited as it currently stands and their online presence is fragmented. At the same time, the site should be ideally be supporting the service/business model, (see Lesson 3: Importance of Understanding Market Context in Week 3 (Part A): Competitor Reviews) so we need some idea of what the members/users think about the service as well as the existing site as this may inform our thinking about how we might redevelop the site.

We also have to consider how these initial user interviews are a means to an end in this contextual user research, seeing that we will be using the responses to help us develop our user personas and scenarios before moving on to define the user journeys.

Our research covered 3 main areas: the service, the site and user demographics. Our interviews were conducted face to face and limited to only 5 people who we hoped would ideally represent a mix of the coop members of various ages, e.g. male/female, part-time/full-time and student/university employee. We used an open, explorative qualitative research methodology having sought advice from a research professional about how to conduct this kind of quick and dirty research and still get meaningful responses we could analyse. We also considered how responses from this initial research could be used to create a more structured survey if we planned to interview a wider group of members and non-members in future.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS, RATIONALE AND ANALYSIS

The following looks at the questions we asked, the research rationale and the analysis of the responses (A PDF which includes the responses as well as the following can be downloaded here):

About the Service:

1.) How did you find out about scheme?

 Rationale: We used an open ended question and suggested using prompting to find out how users might find out about the service, not least to see what part the web site played. Suggestions included: at Freshers Fair, via Word of Mouth, saw stall in reception, found via website etc.

Analysis: Students had mainly found out about service through word of mouth or through seeing stall set up in the student union. Staff had mainly found out about the service through University Email Announcement.

2.) Why did you join?

Rationale: Open question with promoting in order to identify the value propositions,  e.g. price, eco, organic, local, convenience, etc.

Analysis: Price/Value for money was key value proposition, but also quality, variety, local, challenge/convenience of choice being made for you, because it had been recommended, and collection location was convenient.

3.) What do you think of the service?

Rationale: This open question replaces the suggested Net Promoter Score one as analysis of recommendation rates would not be valid with sample of 5 customers (see ‘Customer advocacy metrics: the NPS theory in practice’ , Kirby, J., Samson, A., Admap 2008). Promoting was suggested to find out whether candidates thought service was good/bad and could be improved.

Analysis: Prices, quality, selection and convenience of being able to collect from university were considered good. Lack of choice and stables, and collection/delivery options were considered bad and also reason for switching to another service. Key improvement was delivery service.

About the site:

1.) Have you visited web site?

Rationale: Open question with probing suggested to see what pages site visitors had looked at. It was also suggested that prompting might be required with regard to whether candidates had followed social media links, read blog posts, etc

In addition, it was suggested that those candidates that hadn’t visited the site where probed to find out why, e.g. didn’t know it existed, didn’t need further info, don’t like using internet, don’t have access etc.

Lastly, probing was suggested to see how often candidates had visited site to get an idea if just to get initial information, or regularly to read about different features etc:

Analysis: Of 15-20 potential interview candidates only a handful had visited the site, and of these it was often referred to as a blog. Key reasons for visiting site/blog was to volunteer and to get recipes.

2.) Why did you visit?

Rationale: Question 2 was really follow-up question to find out more info about what information users were looking for, what kind of recipes they were looking for and why, e.g. To Join up, Get Information, Look For Recipes, Other.

Analysis: Question was a bit redundant as answers had already been made as part of question 1 although the further probing did reveal that joining coop was another key reason for visiting site.

3.) What five features in would you like to see on the web site?

Rationale: Open question with probing was also suggested for features and info wanted, e.g. what’s in this weeks veg box, what do with veg (recipes), background info, where stuff comes from, how to get more involved, contact info if you can’t pick box up, etc

Analysis: Answers to this question were perhaps the most useful with regard to benchmarking our own assumptions about what users might want on a redeveloped site with what the users actually want. Suggestions, included: More Product Info, Seasonal Info, More Recipes, More Choice/Select Likes and Dislikes/Product Suggestions, Online Ordering/Payment, Volunteer Online

4.) Did you have any problems?

Rationale: Open question looking for user problems that we hadn’t considered and ones that we might be able to solve (see Problem Statements and Responses comparison criteria from Lesson 5: Visual Comparison are essential part of competitive review Week 3 (Part A): Competitor Reviews):

Analysis: Problems related to choice and difficulty in finding site through Google, which when found wasn’t very informative.

5.) If you were recommending the service to a friend, would you refer them to the website?

Rationale: This open question question replaced Net Promoter Score question because as mentioned about any analysis of recommendation rates based on a sample of 5 users would not be statistically valid. Probing was recommended for to find out why candidates did or did not recommend site.

Analysis: Majority wouldn’t recommend site, although no feedback on why. However, the service is more likely to be recommended.

6.) Do you think there is enough information on the website for a new user of the service?

Rationale: If Candidates answered No, probing was recommended to find out what more is needed.

Analysis: answers were mostly no or not sure due to so few of the candidates having actually visited the site. Feedback from candidate that had visited site thought there was a requirement for a site rather than blog, which needed proper home page with more information about the service and joining.

 7.) Would you like updates from the service?

Rationale: We wanted to see not only whether Candidates wanted updates but through what channel. e.g., twitter, mobile, facebook, blog, other

Analysis: Interestingly, the majority of candidates didn’t want updates with one preferring face to face contact. Facebook, Twitter, Email and Blog Posts were preferred formats.

Demographics:
Rationale: Having sought professional research advice we were informed that it was customary to ask the most important and interesting questions at the beginning and to save demographic questions at the end which are less important, and can be off putting. It was also recommended that research should be anonymous unless we wanted to follow up findings with the candidates. This allows the respondent to feel free to give negative feedback.

• Age: It was suggested to ask about age ranges, rather than actual age.
• Occupation: We wanted to separate out the following PT Student, FT Student, PT Staff, FT Staff, Other and well as ask how many days are they on this part of campus
• Gender: to see if there were any significant differences between male and female users.
• Size of Household: We also suggested about whether they use box individually or share with other members of household. This might give useful feedback about tailoring service for individual in week, e.g. one cabbage could be a lot for an individual
• Dietary requirements: Probed with regard to vegetarian/vegan/allergic/etc. Could be important for recipes, and box choices.

Analysis: We had quite a good mix of male/female, FT/PT Staff/Students with different dietary requirements at this exploratory stage. Sample would need to be increased to be more valid, but is useful litmus test that can be used for the purposes of developing personas and scenarios.

RESEARCH SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

As with the existing site analysis and competitive review process, lessons were learnt and insight gained not just from the research findings, but also as a result of speaking to Food Coop and potential interview candidates about the research. For example, the Food Coop has grown to 170+ members, with the majority joining in last 10 months due to word of mouth. The biggest issue facing the Food Coop is the recruitment of more volunteers as they expand.

We also found out that just over 10 per cent of members we spoke to as part of recruiting interview candidates only about 15-20% of them had actually visited the site. Those that had often referred to it as a blog, and talked about the various online touchpoints (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, etc) that are not part of the blog/site. This reinforces our findings from the existing site analysis about the fragmented nature of their online presence (see Week 2 (Part B): Analysis of existing site/system).

Within the context of this project it’s not our job to look in any detail at the promotion of their site, but it is important finding from our ‘quick and dirty’ research and one that’s worth bearing in mind when thinking about what new features and content to included. Certainly, the fragmented aspects of the online touch points are something we can look to integrate more.

What we haven’t really looked at as part of this research is why people don’t use service, or any real analysis of why only less than 40 per cent of members are buying a box every week given the Food Coop had a record week of 69 boxes recently for around 176 members. It maybe actually be less as some buy more than one box, but it would be interesting to see how long a box lasts one person as this might require rethinking the actual product offering. At the same time, we haven’t looked in any great depth about why users might stop using service or switch to another supplier.

I’m not suggesting we need to ask these questions as part of this project, only that this kind of market research should be informing the UCD Process and that we might also want to think about how the Coop can connect and collaborate with their members to both spread the word, expand membership and improve the service.

Market Research versus User Research

In reality, it’s unlikely that the Food Coop will require any indepth Usability Testing. However, integrating some feedback mechanism as part of the site development might provide an opportunity to blur the lines between user-led and user-centred design (see below).  Perhaps some kind of forum can be set-up where user suggestions can be made, and perhaps be voted on, before being incorporated as part of an ongoing iterative design and development process. The volunteering nature of the Food Coop will provide a good reality check on what’s feasible and what’s not as far as any developments are concerned.

How we analysed the research will be looked at on the following post about how we developed the personas and scenarios. The actual research was conducted rapidly with their being little more than an hour between the finalising the questions and finishing the interviews. With more time it would have be useful to carry out a more systematic compiliation of some kind of meta analysis from the existing site analysis, competitor reviews and this initial user research. So wemay need to carry out a quick check of our user personas and scenarios to make sure we haven’t missed anything before moving on to define the user journeys.

USER-LED Vs USER-CENTRED APPROACHES:

There isn’t the scope in this project to fully discuss User-led versus User-Centred approaches or whether the “user-led approach is fundamentally flawed“, e.g.  “listening to users is harmful” or that a “user-centric design focus creates sameness and stifles creativity and innovation” (see UX Magazine: User-Led Does Not Equal User-Centered, Fast Co-Design: User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs – Just Ask Apple and Ikea,  Don Norman: Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful).

It is, however, important to bear any critical analysis in mind as we carry out the User-Centred Process we are using on this project, particularly with regard to avoiding the pitfalls of ‘sameness’ mentioned above. For example, it’s easy to see how the process of identifying good and best practice as part of the Competitor Reviews can easily lead to conformity and sameness along the lines of the proverbial snake eating its own tail.

Perhaps there’s an opportunity to discuss the above more as part of the project conclusion. For now, it’s simply worth pointing out that our approach is not user-led because we are acting as experts who are putting user-centred design theories into practice through a UCD process that attempts to “verify and extract user needs” (see UX Magazine: User-Led Does Not Equal User-Centered).

However, in order to avoid the problem mentioned above of the UCD process stifling creativity and innovation we need to think about how we develop new options that haven’t been highlighted by the competitive review process or as part of this research and further development stages (see Competitive Review Findings and Follow-up in Week 3 (Part A): Competitor Reviews).