Before getting started Louise Ferguson, VP of the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) in the UK, did a straw poll of the audience to assess what groups were represented.
Rough Statistics, around 45 attendees made up of:
Academic – 6
Public Sector – 2
Design Agency – 6
User Centred Designers (UCD) – 25+ (approx.)
An excellent turnout, among them some eminent members of the global usability community.
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Global Watch Project on User Centred Design – “Innovation through people-centred design”
Rachel quickly explained that the title of her talk was not very appropriate but that she had come to report the findings of DTI Global Watch Project with a mission to,
“investigate the impact of user-centred research in the design process, with a particular focus on new technology including computer hardware and software, mobile phones, and technology services. The group was interested in the ways in which user-centred research becomes integrated into both the product design and development process as well as embedded within organisational culture and long-term strategic thinking.”
Full DTI Global Watch User Centred Design Report
The project involved the team visiting a number of global organisations including Volvo, BMW, Intel, IBM, IDEO, PARC, Microsoft and Nike to help understand the impact of user-centred research in the design process.
The Talk
The first striking thing about Rachel’s talk was the absence of PowerPoint slides and emphasis on having a discussion (Tufte would be impressed!). Rachel talked through the findings of each of the mission team members.
Taking thorough notes is not why I was there but the following rougly-recorded points struck me from the talk and the discussion:
• UCD folks are seeing a need to be made accountable for the designs. Current organisational structures do not make UCDers accountable and this is a problem. Rachel explained that Microsoft has a system of using Smilee faces (and the opposite) to mark up various User Interfaces (UI) to show how popular aspects are. Just one way to begin to be accountable.
• UCD folks are very concerned about showing ROI and their contribution to the business.
• Several UCD specialists are increasing involving executives in their projects since they believe it critical to have a champion at that level (ie CEO level). For some, this is seen as a necessary dimension of a project, eg IDEO I believe.
• There is a belief that UCD activities can play a part in mitigating the risk of new technology innovation
• Companies like Intel are making very impressive use of UCD. They recognise that the future of their business is not through making ever faster chips, because chips have got fast enough for most people’s purposes now. Intel are reinventing themselves and are using UCD to help do that.
• BMW Design works is another company that have clearly impressed Rachel in their use of UCD
• Rachel talked about the lengths that e-bay goes to in order to remain “user driven”, numerous user conferences throughout the year and much discussion with expert users on new features and what they want. This is how companies like this stay ahead.
• The organisational structure of businesses trying to do UCD came up. It was felt that things only really start to happen for UCD when a company has a director of design on the board. Apple is the best example of this but sadly they would not open their doors to the DTI project.
• Microsoft now take UCD more seriously. We were told that Longhorn has 20 UCD professionals working on it.
• Rachel cited some success with simple ‘experience models’, ‘experience frameworks’ and photo stories used in some companies. Some of those are new ideas to me, would be good to see some examples!
• A document describing the redesign of the BBC website came up in conversation but it seems that it is no longer available – anyone know where to get a copy?
Huge thanks to our speaker for the evening, Rachel Jones of Instrata in Cambridge, and also to all those who turned up to make this a most excellent and interesting first Cambridge UPA event.
Posted by carl.myhill at March 18, 2005 08:22 PM