Arrk Group | Putting The User First | June 2015

Editor's Notes

• #2: Don’t worry its only 15 slides
• #3: User First A component of – Usability Defined by the design of the – UI/UX Which is all a component of the….. – Customer Experience
• #4: Ignoring, being inflexible or slow to respond to your users demands will result in them migrating away from your product. Even if you are the sole provider of a particular service, failing to accommodate your end users developing requirements will result in at the very least a level of resentment. 'So what’ is a standard response, the attrition caused by a poor user experience will (probably) be absorbed by a constantly enlarging user base. Or if you have a closed market, then you can provide what you (the developer or business owner ) sees fit.  Terminology From Arrk’s perspective, I.e. as a developer of digital products, we treat ‘User First' as a component of the Usability discipline, this itself is a core element within a business’s 'Customer Experience’. With the assumed constraint that Arrk will have influence over a business’s digital products, our impact on Customer Experience is limited to that. Customer Churn Lets address customer churn first.  Today we don’t even have to offer a poor experience, one of you competitors just has to offer a marginally better service. Or as in the case of many traditional business’s that are undermined by a completely disruptive offering. Be that; Uber, Amazon or Ebay.
• #5: User First A component of – Usability Defined by the design of the – UI/UX Which is all a component of the….. – Customer Experience At least one of these should be a good fit with a customers perceived pain points Ian’s slides – expense per transaction Closed Market Should you be offering a service to a closed market, then developing your product using user first principles will have a positive impact in these areas; An increase in successful conversions An increase in successful registrations Fewer abandonments Reduced Customer Service interactions Decreased training costs Increased usage Time save at all levels Reduced development time Reduced errors The above list is a generic collection gathered from Arrk engagement outcomes. We’ve found that many of them will be relevant to the individual digital product.
• #6: Risk Mitigation From a developers perspective, one of the most pertinent aspects of a better customer experience is the reduction of development time and reduced errors (from a developers perspective). Arrk describe these benefits under the umbrella term of ‘Risk Mitigation’. Fundamentally we have witnessed that a direct outcome from deep integration of the user at project inception, during production and as a component of product evaluation and refinement, results in our projects being delivered on time, with more accurate prediction of required effort and with greater business owner and end users satisfaction. Avon Example Avon consulted the rep managers, the people who managed groups of reps (the people who go door-to-door). The end product was to be used by the reps. The reps rejected the product as it made them inefficient to the point where the job (usually part time) was not worth their while. The wrong user group was consulted – because it was difficult to manage the relationship…
• #7: User First : In Practice Within Arrk the key method of integrating user first principles into the project process is as a component of Usability practice.  Arrk constantly begin engagements with our customers where a traditionally strong IT culture has to be tempered with consideration for the end users. I often refer to myself as the end users 'champion', as I see many departments within a business that are dedicated to providing products, content and services for the end user, however there is often little feedback sought from the end users, even less a strategy for integrating the end users requirements into future products. Agile I've witnessed (and embraced) the establishment of lean iterative agile production methods that have become dominant within the industry (ok @Arrk). I've seen how this strategy has empowered the developer and dissolved the pressure and inflexible practices that waterfall methodology has engendered. However one advantage of the waterfall process was that the initial planning period, would result in the delivery of a series of Hi-Resolution mockups from the design department these would be delivered as a fait-au-complete to the developers whilst the creatives sauntered of the the pub. Why do I perceive this as an advantage? Aside from the trip to the pub, the creative team lead the design. Bleeding edge concepts (which may have required massive effort to deliver) still made it into the design. The poor developers have a precise model to deliver to, and probably resented the entire process. Moving onto an agile process, and indeed the developer leads the design, this results in reduced risk through minimizing unknowns and allowing proven strategies being re-deployed. However (and finally I bring this back to the end user), insisting that every sprint (or other timely iteration) is tested on the end user introduces changes, sometimes minor, occasionally pivotal to the entire project. So now I sound like a User First doom-monger. Not so, If we continue with a flawed project, it will fail eventually. Catching usability issues as early as possible is key to my strategy of minimizing risk. If the effort expended to determine the strategy is minimal, then we've achieved a high value balance of ensuring success early and often. So what's the nuts & bolts of our process? EmbArrk We like to begin our engagement with an intensive discovery, learning & creative series of sessions we term an 'EmbArrk'. The process is begun with a series of conversations with the product owners, we prefer accumulative bite sized sessions as quite often entrenched methodology has to be integrated, new working concepts introduced and validated.
• #8: Interviews Usually the on-site work is begun with a series of user interviews. The interviewees range from naive end users, through to the business owners themselves. As with many components of the EmbArrk, these sessions are tailored to the individual engagement. This is where the value of Arrks experienced consultants come to the fore, tailoring new methodology to dovetail with a customers entrenched process is a key 'invisible' skill. To drive home the user first aspect of this, we've actually spoken to the end user. In actuality the favoured process is a guided narrative interview that is recorded. We're adept at enabling an interviewee to become relaxed and trusting. Of course we never lead the interview, using the narrative of an existing process (such as an existing digital product, or manual process that is to be digitised). We've fond that delivering the highlights of these interviews to the development team can result in some painful truths being aired and a validation of customer service experience. Don’t Ladder or 5 whys – A great way to alienate yourself from the interviewee  Actually being interested in them  Having empathy with the interviewee  Encouraging a narrative, enabling the interviewee to guide you through their process  Gaining the interviewees trust  Adopting the interviewees mannerisms, speech patterns & prejudices (at your own risk)  Video it – a strong asset for justifying solutions 
• #9: Personas & Experiential mapping  Key benefits Encourages team working  Participants will defend the group outcomes  Heretics get it out of their system  Wallflowers can’t hide  Destroys silos  Teaches the usability language, methodology and techniques  Experiential Mapping  Calms troubled minds  Instant team building  Enables damaged projects to be rescued  Nullifies shouty or dominant people  Disables Hippos  Identifies issues  Generates solutions  HiPPO is an acronym for the "highest paid person's opinion" or the "highest paid person in the office."  The acronym is used to describe the tendency for lower-paid employees to defer to higher-paid employees when a decision has to be made.    The term can also be used to describe an organization's reliance on human instinct rather than data in the decision-making process.
• #10: Paper prototyping  - As per the slides
• #11: Digital simulations  Digital simulations at Arrk cover the roles traditional taken by development development Wireframes, Lo & Medium fidelity mockups and Demonstration mockups for testing & presentation. We use Axure & Balsamic to produce the simulations, these being developed to demonstrate User flow, element layout and overall look and feel.  They work best within an iterative development process, where feedback from usability testing, pivots that can emerge during a product development cycle can be integrated into each successive release of the simulation. Within an agile development process, the simulations value decreases in direct proportion to the finish of the developed product. This gradual handover ensures a seamless experience for the business owner.  Though of reduced need, Hi fidelity mockups are generally produced for showcases, or where the product in production needs to be demonstrated to an audience who is not part of the development team. 
• #12: Analytics for Usability  Arrk successfully use analytics tool such as New Relics and Google Analytics to aid the development, testing, delivery and planning of customer experience within projects  Analytics for Usability are broadly split into the following elements;  Assessing the customer experience  Exposing concealed obstructions  Testing assumed knowledge of user behavior  Validating business strategy  Analytics engagements are a bespoke mix of these elements that are determined by the customers requirements and the maturity of the digital project.  The value of Analytics specifically from a User First perspective is two fold; 1. Firstly deriving knowledge about a Users needs and requirements from interviews, testing and review sessions are invasive and require a high level of effort on the part of the developer, business owner and end user. This level of interaction is appropriate, however once a project has gone live, the effort and invasive nature of this method has to be scaled back.  Though Arrk encourages a continuous release cycle, many companies need to grow into this working methodology. So the constant feed back from continual testing cannot be utilized.   We also witness diminishing returns with the quality of user feedback once they become attuned to user first practice and can tend to seek to please the tester, rather than objectively report their experience.  2. By continually monitoring a the users behavior within a digital product, a performance benchmark can be initially determined, then subsequent UI changes can be objectively judged against previous performances.  Benchmarking is a vital component of demonstrating the value of a User First development methodology and when used for trend prediction can form a strong influence on business strategy.
• #13: construction leads construction database. Although our core business is supplying leads to the construction industry, we recognize that support and delivery are equally important. Mention Big data tracking users, mention Datensparsamkeit if receptive This example of continuous release shows rapid prototyping and testing, through to product updates on a regular cycle ….. Oh and a very successful monetized app for a Chester based data aggregation company
• #14: Prototype for Camden shown on the left was developed in November 2014, the site went live in March 2015. It’s responsive, mobile first and User first. The council has an obligation to be user first, so took this strategy to heart Mention simulations being demoed at kings cross station while people wait for trains
• #15: Dustin Curtis