Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice

“This book is a great how-to manual for people who want to bring the benefits of improved user experience to their companies. It’s thorough yet still accessible for the smart businessperson. I’ve been working with user-centered design for over twenty years, and I found myself circling tips and tricks.” –Harley Manning, vice president & research director, customer experience, Forrester Research   ”Some argue that the big advances in our impact on user experience will come from better methods or new technologies. Some argue that they will come from earlier involvement in the design and development process. The biggest impact, however, will come as more and more companies realize the benefits of user-centered design and build cultures that embrace it. Eric offers a practical roadmap to get there.” –Arnie Lund, connected experience labs technology leader and human—systems interaction lab manager, GE Global Research   “User experience issues are a key challenge for development of increasingly complex products and services. This book provides much-needed insights to help managers achieve their key objectives and to develop more successful solutions.” –Aaron Marcus, president, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.   “This handy book should be required reading for any executive champions of change in any development organization making products that demand a compelling user experience. It does an excellent job in laying the foundation for incorporating user experience engineering concepts and best practices into these corporations. In today’s competitive economy, business success will greatly depend on instituting the changes in design methods and thinking that are so clearly and simply put forth in this most practical and useful book.” –Ed Israelski, director, human factors, AbbVie   “If you’re tasked with building a user-experience practice in a large organization, this book is for you (and your boss). Informed by years of case studies and consulting experience, Eric Schaffer provides the long view, clearly describing what to expect, what to avoid, and how to succeed in establishing user-centered principles at your company.” –Pat Malecek, former user experience manager, AVP, CUA, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.   ”For those of us who have evangelized user experience for so many years, we finally have a book that offers meaningful insights that can only come from years of practical experience in the real world. Here is a wonderful guide for all who wish to make user experience a ‘way of life’ for their companies.” –Feliça Selenko, Ph.D., former principal technical staff member, AT&T   “Dr. Schaffer’s mantra is that the main differentiator for companies of the future will be the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying user experiences. This is a book that provides the road map necessary to allow your organization to achieve these goals.” –Colin Hynes, president, UX Inc.   Computer hardware no longer provides a competitive edge. Software has become a broadly shared commodity. A new differentiator has emerged in information technology: user experience (UX). Executives recognize that the customer satisfaction that applications and websites provide directly impacts a company’s stock price.   While UX practitioners know how to design usable, engaging applications that create good user experiences, establishing that process on an industrial scale poses critical IT challenges for an organization.   How do you build user-centered design into your culture? What infrastructure do you need in order to make UX design faster, cheaper, and better? How do you create the organizational structure and staffing solution that will support UX design over time? Institutionalization of UX shows how to develop a mature, user-centered design practice within an enterprise. Eric Schaffer guides readers step by step through a solid methodology for institutionalizing UX, providing practical advice on the organizational change, milestones, toolsets, infrastructure, staffing, governance, and long-term operations needed to achieve fully mature UX engineering.   First published in 2004 as Institutionalization of Usability, this new, expanded edition looks beyond the science of usability to the broader, deeper implications of UX: Once customers can use your applications and websites easily, how does your organization ensure that those engagements are satisfying, engaging, and relevant? Contextual innovation expert Apala Lahiri contributes a new chapter on managing cultural differences for international organizations.   Whether you are an executive leading the institutional-ization process, a manager supporting the transition of your organization’s UX practice, or an engineer working on UX issues, this guide will help you build a mature and sustainable practice in UX design.  

Table of Contents:
Preface  xiii Acknowledgments  xvii Read This First!  xix About the Authors  xxxix   Part I: Startup  1 Chapter 1: The Executive Champion  3 The Value of Usability  4 Beyond Classic Usability  11 CEO Wants a Great Customer Experience: Now Don’t Fall for UX Fads or Half-measures  16 Who Can Be a Champion?  22 The Role of the Executive Champion  22 Keep Moving on the Strategy, Keep Expanding and Innovating  24   Chapter 2: Selecting a Usability Consultant   29 Staffing  32 Completeness of Solution  33 Domain Expertise  34 Methodology  35 Tools and Templates  36 Object-Oriented Approach  37 User-Centered Size and Stability  38 Corporate Cultural Match  39 Specializations  40 Organizational Structure  41 Change Management Ability  42 Quality Control and Feedback  42 Ongoing Training for the Consultancy’s Staff  43 Summary  44   Part II: Setup 45 Chapter 3: Institutionalization Strategy  47 What to Consider When Developing the Strategic Plan  51 A Proactive Organization 52 Coordinating Internal Staff and Consultants  53 The Importance of Sequence  54 Targets of Opportunity  57 Slower Can Be Better  58 Phasing in Design Standards  58 Key Groups for Support or Resistance  60 Training  63 Methodology and Infrastructure  64 The Project Path  65 Levels of Investment  65 Summary  66   Chapter 4: Methodology  67 What to Look for in a User-Centered Methodology  68 An Outline of The HFI Framework  73 A Quick Check of Your Methodology  82 The Challenges of Retrofitting a Development Life Cycle  82 Templates  87 Summary  88   Chapter 5: Interface Design Standards 89 What Is an Interface Design Standard?  90 Types of Standards  91 Screen Design Templates  92 Patterns  94 Other Contents of a Design Standard  95 The Scope of Design Standards  96 The Value of Design Standards  98 The Process and Cost of Developing Standards  100 Disseminating, Supporting, and Enforcing Standards  102 Summary  105   Chapter 6: Standard User Profiles and Ecosystem Models   107 The Worst Practice  108 Thin Personas: “Jane Is 34 and Has a Cat”  110 Quality Personas  111 The Best Practice: Working with Full Ecosystems  112 Standard User Profiles and Ecosystems  113 Static versus Organic Models  115 Summary  116   Chapter 7: Tools, Templates, and Testing Facilities  117 Introduction to Your Toolkit  118 Testing Facilities  119 Recording of Testing Sessions  122 Modeling Tools and Software  124 Data Gathering and Testing Techniques  131 Advanced Methods  134 The Special Needs of International Testing  135 Recruiting Interview and Testing Participants  137 Summary  140   Chapter 8: Training and Certification    141 Types of Training  142 Certification  149 A Typical Training Plan  151 Conferences  151 Summary  153   Chapter 9: Knowledge Management 155 Why Conventional Knowledge Management Fails  157 The Cost of Failure  158 Object-Oriented UX  159 Professionals Don’t Start from Scratch  162 Linkages   162 Summary   164   Part III: Organization   165 Chapter 10: Governance   167 The Roots of the Governance Problem   168 Memes That Kill   169 Education Helps   172 Verify That a Methodology Is Applied   174 Closing the Loop on Standards   178 Checking If the Practice Is Alive   180 Summary   184   Chapter 11: Organizational Structure   185 Organizational Structures for User Experience Design Teams   188 Placement of a Central Team in the Overall Organization   192 Escalation of Problems   198 Graphic Artists, Writers, and Other Usability-Oriented Staff   199 Summary   200   Chapter 12: Staffing   201 The Chief User Experience Executive   203 The Central Usability Organization Manager   204 The Central Usability Organization Staff   206 What to Look for When Hiring  219 An Offshore Model  230 Summary  233   Chapter 13: Projects    235 Doing It Right  237 Managing by Project Importance  237 Who Will Do the User Experience Design?  239 Different Strategies for Practitioner Involvement  240 Working Smart  242 Efficient Project Planning  244 Estimating Experience Design Work  244 Summary  246   Part IV: Long-Term Operations 247 Chapter 14: Long-Term Activities of the Central Team    249 Maintaining Respect and Negotiating Effectively  251 Maintaining Momentum  252 Evangelizing  255 Training  258 Mentoring  259 Supporting Standards  260 Supporting the Community  262 Performing Usability Testing  263 Focusing on Metrics  264 Having Responsibility  266 Reporting to Executives  267 Summary  271   Chapter 15: The Future   273 Symptoms of Leaping the Chasm  274 Maturity   276 Your Organization’s Maturity   277 Process, Capabilities, and Staffing   277 Strategy, Innovation, and Persuasion   280 New Technologies   281   Chapter 16: Design for Worldwide Applications 283 Do International Markets Really Matter?   283 How Does Bad Cross-Cultural Design Happen to Good Organizations?   284 Internationalization, Localization, and the Challenges of Current Practice   285 Between the Idea and the Reality Falls the Shadow   287 The Criteria for Success   287 A New Global Delivery Model for Local User Experience   288 Critical Tools   290 Local Understanding, Global Success   291 Are There Populations We Cannot Reach?   294 Can We Look Forward to a Unified Globe?   296 Emergence of the “Third China”   298   References   301 Index    305

About the Author :
Dr. Eric Schaffer’s prediction that the most profound differentiator for corporate computing would be a positive online user experience has made him a visionary of the “Third Wave of the Information Age.” Dr. Schaffer saw that differentiation would come from getting the user experience design job done efficiently, easily, and without frustration. Founder and CEO of Human Factors International, Dr. Schaffer has been in the field since 1977 and has run consulting and training operations worldwide.   Apala Lahiri, global chief of technical staff at Human Factors International and CEO of Institute of Customer Experience, is one of the world’s top experts in cross-cultural design and contextual innovation. The Bollywood Method, Bizarre Bazaar, and Funky Facilitator are just a few of the creative techniques she has developed to help companies understand user experience in diverse cultural and economic environments.  

Review :
“This book is a great how-to manual for people who want to bring the benefits of improved user experience to their companies. It’s thorough yet still accessible for the smart businessperson. I’ve been working with user-centered design for over twenty years, and I found myself circling tips and tricks.” –Harley Manning, vice president & research director, customer experience, Forrester Research ”Some argue that the big advances in our impact on user experience will come from better methods or new technologies. Some argue that they will come from earlier involvement in the design and development process. The biggest impact, however, will come as more and more companies realize the benefits of user-centered design and build cultures that embrace it. Eric offers a practical roadmap to get there.” –Arnie Lund, connected experience labs technology leader and human—systems interaction lab manager, GE Global Research “User experience issues are a key challenge for development of increasingly complex products and services. This book provides much-needed insights to help managers achieve their key objectives and to develop more successful solutions.” –Aaron Marcus, president, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. “This handy book should be required reading for any executive champions of change in any development organization making products that demand a compelling user experience. It does an excellent job in laying the foundation for incorporating user experience engineering concepts and best practices into these corporations. In today’s competitive economy, business success will greatly depend on instituting the changes in design methods and thinking that are so clearly and simply put forth in this most practical and useful book.” –Ed Israelski, director, human factors, AbbVie “If you’re tasked with building a user-experience practice in a large organization, this book is for you (and your boss). Informed by years of case studies and consulting experience, Eric Schaffer provides the long view, clearly describing what to expect, what to avoid, and how to succeed in establishing user-centered principles at your company.” –Pat Malecek, former user experience manager, AVP, CUA, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. ”For those of us who have evangelized user experience for so many years, we finally have a book that offers meaningful insights that can only come from years of practical experience in the real world. Here is a wonderful guide for all who wish to make user experience a ‘way of life’ for their companies.” –Feliça Selenko, Ph.D., former principal technical staff member, AT&T “Dr. Schaffer’s mantra is that the main differentiator for companies of the future will be the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying user experiences. This is a book that provides the road map necessary to allow your organization to achieve these goals.” –Colin Hynes, president, UX inc.