On Jul 15, 2009, at 2:10 PM, Alan Wexelblat wrote:
So the question is whether I want to try to fight for the extra
development time to implement proper viewing/scanning-oriented screens
or just throw in the towel and let the users suffer. I can't marshal
data to back up my professional intuition (not least because the
project is already late and taking the time to gather the data to
prove my point would put us even farther behind) but I'd bet a mighty
fine dinner that doing things the programmer's way is going to cause
pain and suffering.
Hi Alan,
Upon reading this, my first reaction is you have a bigger problem.
Decisions like this crop up in every project. Intuition put into
question, as each team member's intuition is formed from their own
personal experiences and contexts. The result is what we've called an
'opinion war', which are unwinable. The only forward movement comes
from the HiPPO or person who has control over the final code.
To me, it sounds like you don't have a mechanism for moving things
beyond opinion wars. For teams we're working with, we're recommending
they build both a solid feedback mechanism and develop a solid
experience vision that the team shares.
The feedback mechanism is some type of regular activity (we recommend
a minimum frequency of every 6 weeks) that lets the design team see
how people are actually using the design. Usually this is usability
testing, but other forms, such as field studies also are effective.
The experience vision is a long-term view (we recommend 5 years out)
of what the user's experience would be like. (Important: this isn't a
vision of what the design would be like. It talks to the user's side
of the equation, independent of design particulars.) This long-term
view is an aspirational experience, that you can then compare to
today's actual (often frustration-ridden) experience. We've found that
it's the space between the aspirational and the frustration where
innovation and insights emerge.
(I've written more about feedback and vision here: http://www.uie.com/articles/the3qs/
)
Because you didn't mention that you have a feedback mechanism and an
experience vision in place, I think you are forced to get into
intuition-based opinion wars. Since you're not holding the purse
strings or decision power, you probably won't win those wars, no
matter how much "evidence" you accrue.
So, strategically, my recommendation is for you to let this one go,
but instead start asking the question, "How will we tell if these
screens are improving the users' experience?" Start by building out
the feedback mechanism to give a solid answer to that question. Then,
it should be clear who was right, and, more importantly, where work
still needs doing. Ideally, you'd get the dev manager and other power
brokers to come to the conclusions on their own that things need a
different approach.
Then, you can start to talk about having a vision, which you can all
use as a guide to help ensure you're moving in the right direction.
Hope that helps,
Jared
Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: jsp...@uie.com p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: @jmspool
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