Author Archives: uxdiva

Looking for a better way…

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Over the past year, I have been trained in User Centered Design techniques by some of the leading names in this country. It seems the whole Contextual Design process is very time consuming. I have a hard time making users visits because I do not access to a solid repertoire of customers from my work site. The application I do UX for requires lots of hardware and setup. I have received great UI feedback from trainers, but even some of their requests are hard for me to test in my current environment.

Because of the previously stated issues, and the fact that I’ve been reading up on the IXDA website, I am getting interested in Action Centered, or Behavior Centered design. This takes the User–the most inconsistent and unreliable element out of the equation. I am looking for good resources on ACD, and how I can integrate the ACD workflow and methodology into the scrum process that we are initiating at my location. I am even interested in doing maybe a hybrid of methods, because I believe it is important to know the users, and listen to their needs, it just seems like it may not be practical 100% of the time.

Scrum, an Agile project management methodology

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Today I attended a 2 hour session on Scrum. Apparently the concept of Scrum is derived from the sport Rugby. The concept is that you have a team of people working together to achieve a common goal in small iterations. The scrum process consists of periods of development known as ‘sprints’, and are moderated by people called ScrumMasters. Yes, it all sounds strange, but the concept is that if you design something iteratively, that you can change development direction as needed and determined by the Product Owner.

I was partially exposed to an Agile development methodology working from a remote location, and it seemed rather chaotic. Hopefully this will run smoother since most of the people involved are in one location. One of the most important elements to Scrum are daily stand-up meetings. These are 15 minute long meetings to monitor progress on a day to day basis.

Tomorrow I will be giving a presentation on Interaction Design integration into the Scrum process. This integration may prove to be a challenge for me as I am the only HF/UX Designer at this facility, and there may be several Scrum projects going on concurrently. I will need to determine when and how I will be involved in each of the projects. I’m sure that my role will evolve throughout time. I am interested to see how this all pans out.  For more detailed information on scrum, you can check it out on wikipedia here.

Cascading style sheets

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So the whole content management part didn’t end up working for my site that I’ve been working on, but I did learn how to make a website using more than 1 cascading style sheet to alternate looks. Because of the variety of ages of my target users for my website, I wanted to provide text large enough for older users, but I didn’t want to design the entire site that way. I wanted to allow the user to easily change the font size of the text on the page for easier readability.

I tried a few techniques before I found one that I settled on. I was very surprised when I researched the subject matter how many people were of the very strict opinion that text size should only be modified through the browser. This does not seem like a very good solution for people who either do not have a mouse with a scroll button (ie, using the ctrl-scroll method of changing font size) or for people who are not very computer savvy. I have witnessed first-hand geriatric computer users who can barely operate a computer mouse at all.

But I digress. I found an excellent article on switching out style sheets for websites to create different looks. This of course could be used for changing font sizes, and I found the solution to be EXTREMELY easy to implement. I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated at first, but after the encouragement of one of my fellow web developers I successfully pulled it off. Here is the article I used to do this technique.
Alternative Style: Working With Alternate Style Sheets by Paul Sowden

Free Online Content Mangement (CMS) Applications

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I recently volunteered to do a small web project for a non-profit organization. I used several of my user centered design techniques, and it really does seem like using this process almost makes the site self designing. Although this will sound contradictory, i didn’t do customer interviews because the project was supposed to be a surprise and I didn’t want them to know I was working on it. Instead I imagined I did the interviews, and I created personas based on this experience. That process in itself became rather inspirational, and I promise in the future I will not cut corners like that.

Anyway, back to my original topic. I realized that once I designed the website, I wanted to be able to “hand it off” to the non-profit webmaster. Now had this organization had a fantastic website, i would probably have not been so compelled to redesign it. My dilemma was how to make the site easy to maintain once i was finished with it.

My original idea was to create a framework using ASP includes, so they would not be able to mess up the header or navigation. I brought this subject up to a peer this weekend, and he suggested that I check out Joomla. He said he uses it all the time, and it was very easy to use. I remembered seeing Joomla available from my hosting service, and I called customer service to find out that I could not use it because I use ASP hosting instead of Linux. So they recommended I check out DotNetNuke instead. After about 3-4 hours and 3 calls to customer service I finally got Dotnetnuke set up on one of my URL’s.

The application seemed relatively easy to use, and offered lots of functionality, but unfortunately the website I designed used lots of complex cascading Javascript Navigation. I ended up not using DotNetNuke for this particular project, and I will be going back to my original plan. I am glad I messed around with this application because I think that it could be very useful for making simple websites. There are also a whole array of free skins available for these type of websites.

Writing Personas

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Part of my responsibility as a Human Factors engineer is to write user personas. A personas is a fictitious character that embodies many of the characteristics of many users into one user. The persona is generated from customer data collected during interviews in the User-Centered Design process. A persona is only effective when it can be used to help solve design decisions when designing a product.

I was having a hard time writing personas because I had not generated any user interviews. However my coworker provided me the customer data I needed to get started. Having information to base the character off of made the persona creation much easier. It required quite a bit of creativity to be able to give details to the customer face, but once I got started, I enjoyed the process.

Today I sent out 4 personas to be critiqued by people who are in the same role as those I wrote about. Some of the elements that I used to give the personas their character was a handwritten quote at the top of the page written in the person’s own handwriting. I also included a photo, the character’s story or narrative some profile characteristics, and daily task lists. I am hoping that when I present the personas to the developers who will be using them, it will help give them insight to the needs of the people we are designing the software for.

Coxsackie Virus Sux

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When I originally started this blog, my intent was to be able to keep a professional journal, but every once in a while when you get your personal world gets rocked, it becomes very hard to keep focused on UX only, so I am dedicating this blog post to what happened to me and my family this past week.

My son (William) and myself picked up a nasty virus the week before last. William started showing signs of sickness on Tuesday (6/24) evening, but he seemed ok the next day, so I assumed he was just uncomfortable from teething. When I picked him up from daycare on Wednesday, I was told he was sick. So I took him to the doctor promptly Thursday morning. The doctor said he had the Coxsackie Virus, and that there was no treatment, and that he would have to just let the virus run it’s course. I also noticed on Friday (6/27) that I was starting to display show the same symptoms. I was kind of bummed out because my husband and I were going to throw a 4th of July/birthday party for me on Friday (7/4/08).

William and me at the emergency room of the hospital

William and me at the emergency room of the hospital

I took off work on Thursday & Friday (6/26-27) to take care of myself and William. We both got plenty of bed rest. On Saturday, Williams grandmother came to help take care of him. When he woke from his afternoon nap, we noticed he was beginning to limp. We could not figure out why he was limping, but on Sunday the limp became pronounced enough for us to become concerned. So we took him to the emergency room to get checked out. The doctor x-rayed his legs, and did an ultrasound on his hip, and could not find anything wrong. His blood tests did show signs of inflammation. He told us to keep an eye on William and to bring him to the doctor later in the week.

Monday I let William rest at home and his condition did not get better by Tuesday. My husband and I took William back to the pediatrician on Tuesday, and he was concerned about his leg, and recommended an Orthopedic specialist. My husband took William to the Orthopedic specialist, and I came into work. We assumed he would just check things out. Shortly after I arrived at work, I got a text message that William’s knee was infected, and that he needed immediate surgery. The doctor was concerned that the infection could have damaged cartilage in his knee that could cause permanent damage. Of course I was mortified. I excused myself from the office and went directly to the hospital where William had been admitted for surgery.

William and me after his surgery.

William and me after his surgery.

William was at the hospital for 5 days after his operation. They wanted to keep him under observation to make sure that the infection did not return to his leg. I was rather surprised at the lack of response by our friends during the time we were in the hospital. I was glad that my son was okay, and that even though we were in the hospital for the 4th of July we managed to get discharged from the hospital in time for my birthday on the 6th.

William is at home and recuperating. Hopefully he will have a full recovery in no time. We are all looking forward to our lives returning to normal. And now back to our regularly programmed material…

Visualization or UI Prototyping Applications

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I have recently been exposed to a new type of software that I did not know existed before. Being in the line of work I’m in, it seems to me that these applications would offer a tremendous advantage. The software that I am speaking of is Visualization or UI Prototyping software. These allow users to take UI front ends, and add simulate functionality that is generated on the backend. The 3 software packages I have have been examining are iRise, Axure, and Serena Prototype Composer.

The first program I researched was iRise Studio 6. iRise can generate interactive application simulations.  It includes a drag n drop whiteboard to begin conceptualizing tasks. It allows for scenario creation and simulates real interactivity. This can be used to generate requirements, and to do real-time user testing. iRise studio 6 has recieved excellent reviews, however it seems it may be a bit pricy. I was contacted by a sales representative but I was never given a solid quote. The website says pricing starts at $5000, but I’ve seen anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000 in online customer reviews.

The second application I looked at was Axure RP. I have also been notified that some of my coworkers are also considering this application. Axure is marketed as a rapid wireframing and prototyping tool to be used in defining requirements and specifications for application design.  Their target market being UX designers, business analysts, information architects, and usabililty experts and product managers. This application runs on a subscription model of $589 per user license for a 12 month period, and $149 for each 12 month period thereafter.

The final piece of software I have been looking at is Serena Prototype Composer. This program allows for the storage of Project Information, Defines roles and responsibilities of project team members, and stores project requirements. This application also lets the user define process flow and interface design. The application UI is similar to a Microsoft Outlook application. I think this may be the harder to learn of the three applications, but at a price tag of FREE it might be worth the extra time to learn.

I survived DSView 3 Training…

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This week I attended a formal training class on DSView 3 software. This is the primary application that my team develops and supports. It is also the application which has the User Interface that I support.

DSView Virtual Center Federated View

Now the DSView3 UI looks dated at best. However, updating and making changes to this UI is going to hold several challenges for me. But before I get into that, let me go into some background about the application. The company that I work for is mainly a hardware manufacter. We manufacture KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) switches, MergePoint Appliances (these group and control Service Processors), Power devices (SPC – Power Distribution Strip), and 3rd party products (sensor hubs, & auditors). DSView 3 is the application that allows the remote access and control of these appliances to be traditionally used in a lights-out datacenter.

Definition of a lights out data center as per Webopedia.com:

Also called a lights out datacenter, a room that contains a number of servers under lock and key and kept in the dark that under normal operation is not entered by human administrators, and all operations in the room are automated. The computers in a lights out server room typically are controlled by the use of KVM switches to help ensure the security of the locked room.
So the target user of DSView 3 software is someone who wants to access, manage and monitor target devices remotely. DSView 3 offers Hub & Spoke architecture which allows for redundance/disaster recovery, performance improvement, and load sharing. The different DSView 3 servers use replication to keep their information in synch across locations.
So some of the design challenges of DSView 3 stem from the fact that the functionality of the application is driven by the various hardware in which it communicates. Each piece of hardware comes with it’s own Onboard Web interface in which DSView offers centralized management. Many pieces of the application are written using plug-ins based on the hardware. This allows DSView to quickly add new functionality as new appliances are available, but it also means that it limits the flexibility of the UI.
Another design challenge that I face is that DSView 3 users have become used to the strange navigational structure of the application, so any large sweeping changes may be resisted. Sure the current UI may be difficult to learn, but many people have already done that, and it’s a lot easier than learning each individual Onboard Web Interface for each piece of hardware.
Due to the design challenges I mentioned, some analysis should probably be done to the current application to see which pieces can be made more intuitive without upsetting current users, or the business. I need to start gathering customer data to find out what the current users base likes about the application and what can be improved on. It was also suggested by Lane Halley from Cooper that I create a Concept Model (as per Dan Brown) to help establish a new interface structure. 
Yesterday I downloaded IHMC Cmap Tools which is software used to assist in the creation of Concept Models, but I still need to figure out Dan Brown’s process before I can impliment it.

Interesting UX Resources

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I’m feeling very excited about some websites that I’ve discovered on Usability. I tend to think a lot of the UX content that I find online is a bit dry, but today I stumbled across a website called DesignCrux that I just cant’ stop reading. It exposed me to the term Captology which is Persuasive Design Technology. Now I’m familiar with Usability Design, which means making sure that a website is easy for a user to use. Well Persuasive technology deals with persuading the user to make certain decisions once they are on website. I.e. bags.com shows pictures of their products holding items so the user can see the capacity of the bag.

I could see persuasive design being very important in several other fields, especially child-rearing information. It would be fantastic if all e-commerce websites gave the type of persuasive informational content about items as a sales person could in a store. I guess it would make the internet more like a giant informercial.

I was so stoked about this new website that I’ve already added a link to it from my website, and I added a link to Catalyze which I’ve been using for a while.

Summer Cold Renders Author Useless

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Wow, it feels like it’s been years since my last blog entry. I caught a summer bug about 3 weeks ago, and I’ve been suffering ever since. I guess it took me that long to figure out that Sudafed no longer has Pseudoephedrine in it, and it has basically been rendered useless. Managed to get some of the behind the counter medication with the pseudoephedrine in it, and I’m starting to feel human again. Needless to say my cold had left me feeling uninspired to transcribe any of my thoughts from the past 3 weeks, most of which were circling around whether or not I had enough Kleenex to last me through the day.

So what were some of the missed activities other than a plethora of sneezes? Well, my mother came down from Jacksonville Memorial day weekend. We went to a farewell BBQ on Sunday as my friend Tracey had to put her dog down, and wanted to have a going away party for him. And another BBQ on Monday, my mother babysat for both parties. It was after Monday that the sickness started to set in.

So what have I been working on at the office in those last 3 weeks? Well I started to design a new skin for DSView 3, and I’ve been messing around with Scala InfoChannel Designer 5. Yesterday I wrote a Style Guide for Flex pages that are going to be integrated into DSView 3, and today I wrote a Power Point Presentation on how to integrate the Interaction Design process into the new SCRUM process that we are going to be implementing at work. So perhaps there was more than 1 reason why I didn’t document my latest experiences in the past 3 weeks. They have been less than inspiring so to speak.

Hopefully this weekend I will be in tip-top shape as I have been invited to a co-workers bday party, and the weekend after that we’re taking William on his first airplane ride. We will be going to Ohio for my grandfather’s memorial and a small family reunion.

I would like to end this treatise with a special thanks to President Bush for making products that some of need to function completely useless. Till next time…