Communicating Rich Experience Information

During the Masterclass I attended a few weeks ago, there was a session about how to communicate rich experience information (that is the result of research) to designers in such a way that these designers are empathized with the user, are engaged and inspired by the information. During this session, the framework developed by Froukje Sleeswijk - Visser during her thesis research was shown. However, just a small part of it was discussed.

Interested in the topic, I read her thesis (which you can find here). Her thesis tries to determine which elements play a role in a successful communication process of rich experience information and how rich experience information can be successfully communicated in the
design process.

The result of the thesis is a framework that consists of 3 'fields':
1. Qualities (that determine the success of communicating the rich experience information)
2. Operational means (that user researchers can apply to fulfil the qualities)
3. Mechanisms (that influence the impact of choices of operational means on one or more of the qualities)



As a result of the studies, Froukje also developed guidelines in how to use the framework:
1. Make a good communication plan
2. Represent real people
3. Sensitize designers
4. Address designers' own experiences
5. Make communication participatory


One of the things that was mentioned several times in the thesis was that time, money, organizational structure, communication standards and the attitude towards users determine, to a large degree, the success of communicating rich experience information. Although there are many possible efforts in engaging designers and (other) stakeholders, the effects remain limited to the possibilities in the organizational structure and mindset of the company. It makes it clear that it involves the entire company and not only one (or two) departments.

It was really nice to read the thesis (also because she used actual drawings in it) and would advise anyone interested in user centered design to read it too.

Image credit: Froukje Sleeswijk - Visser

Mississippi Burning

Yesterday, I watched the movie 'Mississippi Burning'.

I knew what the movie was about, but had never watched it.

All I can say is: Very, very impressive!!!

User Experience Master Class

Last week, I attended a Master Class (organized by the TU Delft and Exact Software) where the goal was linking "designing successful products that people love to use" with "designing great software" to achieve a great user experience.


Looking back at the class, I think the ground rule should be clear: (try to) understand your customer! That way, you can create better products, products that are in line with the needs of your customers, have a lower failure risk and a higher customer loyalty.

The diversity of the attendees (Product management, Functional design, Marketing communications, Consultancy, Customer support, Product line manager, Software engineering, Product marketing) was very good. It gave insight into the different perspectives of different people.

During the Master Class, we met with very passionate, expert lecturers that presented their area of expertise and mixed it with a hands-on element. We had to visualize our development process, make collages, personas, mindmaps, observe other people (outside of the classroom), make prototypes, discuss personal items that are connected with an emotion, etc. The hands-on elements were really great, because some it put us in the 'customer seat' instead of the 'developer seat'.

Everyone who attended the Master Class was really energized to start working with the methods and concepts. Already a few ideas have started, more is to come. Hopefully we can convince our collegues and management we really need to use available techniques to come to a better user experience of our products.

Image credit: James Garrett

Microsoft DevDays 2009 - The Hague

Last Thursday and Friday (28/29 May) it was time for Microsoft DevDays. First thought when I was asked if I wanted to attend this event, was that it was not the right place for a 'functional' developer, because (in my mind) it was just about 'tech' stuff. But after having a look at the sessions, it turned out that there were some interesting sessions planned for me.

So here is a small summary of my experience:

The website
Initially, I liked the website. Looked nice. But after a while, I got annoyed by the fact that several sessions still did not have additional information (additional besides the title). Not even 1 day before the event took place. It also looked nice that you could make your own agenda. Great! However, my 'own' agenda turned out to be the 'normal' agenda with my selected sessions highlighted. And I could not find a (normal) way to print my agenda. So in the end, I just wrote the interesting sessions on a piece of paper and took it with me (like many others did as I saw). That can be greatly improved next year. Also very annoying is the fact that if you have a look at the sessions on Friday, and use the IE back button, you end up in the sessions of thursday. Another improvement for next year.

The location
The location World Forum in the Hague was great. The organization on the 2 days itself was also good. Great lunch, in between sessions refreshments were available. Even in the morning, 'ontbijtkoek' and some other bread rolls were served. A lot of stands of Microsoft and partners were there where people could ask 'experts'. Every member of the organization had a special shirt with his/her role on the back (speaker, staff, expert, etc.) making it easy to contact someone. There was one big disappointment: the session planning booklet. First of all, the sessions were ordered by the location / room, making it difficult to find a session for a specific time slot. Second, the way the sessions were presented on the website (by time line or by topic) was totally different. Everyone had trouble finding the right session he/she selected from the website. Another improvement for next year!

And now for the sessions:

A lap around Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010 Team Foundation Server

Although the description of the session already said it was a 'demo-intensive tour of the new capabilities in Team Foundation Session', I found it very difficult to follow the presentation. The speaker Adam Barr showed new possibilities and what TFS could do for 'you'. For me, it was very detailed and since I do not have experience with TFS, was difficult to understand the presentation.

Building better user interfaces

The speaker of this session was Jason Beres who is Director of Product management at Infragistics. His key message was to listen to the customer, to include the customer in the design process. He explained that there are a lot of User Interface Patterns and advised to have a look at Quince for them. Here users can also add new patterns or add examples of existing patterns. He ended his session with the hall of fame and shame. He explained why several websites or messages belonged in the hall of shame (even though it was obvious for the websites). Like a message explaining that something went wrong. But not telling the user what to do next. I would have liked it if he also explained why some websites were in the hall of fame.

Test Essentials 2010: The year of the tester

After reading an article of James Whitaker about how a tester should make a developer a better developer, I really wanted to attend this session. I was disappointed by the fact that he was not able to speak at the DevDays and was 'replaced' by Ed Glas. He gave a nice presentation but did not have the 'wow' factor in his presentation (as he said in a later session, James gives a better presentation, he knows more about the product). He basically gave a nice overview of 'what's new' in Visual Studio Team Test. And even though I have no experience with VSTT, it was not a problem for me to understand the presentation. I really liked his statement that it all begins with manual testing. As he states: automatic testing can only take place when the application works (at least at one point in time). And how do you know if an application works? By manual testing. He talked about how 'quality' should be defined and that testers do not basically assure quality, but that they shine a light on the product (in order to to find bugs)! Even though I have no experience with Visual Studio Team System, I could follow the presentation and liked it.

Data visualizations and dashboards

The speaker of this session was also Jason Beres (same as 'Building better user interfaces'). I even liked this session more. He explained the most important things to think about when creating dashboards. What a common 'mistake' is, is that too much information is being shown in a (part of a) dashboard or graph. Most of the time, simplifying the dashboard or graph really improves the way the viewer can understand it. The goal of the dashboard / graph always has to be the starting point (what do I want to show here, what is most important). He stressed that a dashboard is for a 'quick' view and details should be shown in a different page or table. He highly recommended the book Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few for anyone involved in (creating) dashboards.

TFS 2008 Best practices - 6 ways to ensure quality

Speaker Neno Loje gave a nice overview on how TFS can be used to ensure quality (and can be adjusted to the needs of the company using TFS).
His 6 ways:

1. Work item workflows,


2. Quality gates: a gated check-in where the checkin first is validated
   before it is actually checked in.


3. Code review: as he explained, you can define (within TFS) some kind of
   process to do this, but it was not an separate part of TFS


4. Isolate by feature


5. Build verification tests: configurable build options, for example to
   create a build after each checkin and when the checkin fails (due to the
   quality gates), no other checkin's are allowed until the failed one is
   solved.


6. Trend analysis

How development is done @ Microsoft

Gert Drapers gave an overview of how his team is doing their work and why they do it like that. One of the things he told was that people are trained to give good estimates on the duration of the work, explaining that it costs time to train the people, but that it is important to create a good / realistic planning. He also told about the Bug Jail at Microsoft: when a developer exceeds a set number of bugs (in his flow), he is put in the Bug Jail and has to drop everything he is doing and solve the bugs. He explained that previously the team would first finish the feature(s) and after that would have (some) time to solve the bugs. However, that way of working was actually more work (took more time) than how they are doing it now.

When testing meets the future

This session was also planned to be presented by James Whitaker and was again 'replaced' by Ed Glas. He gave the presentation the title 'Test automation in Team Test 2010' and explained the different testing 'area's': from a Generalist (doing manual testing) to a Specialist (doing coded UI tests). The Test essentials part of Team test is especially suitable for the Generalist tester. The (rest of) Team test is especially suitable for the Specialist tester and contains Web test, Load test, Unit test and UI test. The Web, Load and Unit tests were already available in Visual Studio, the UI test is new in Team test 2010. The presentation had some overlap with the Test Essentials 2010: The year of the tester session, but Ed adjusted his presentation with some extra information on Web testing. For me, the details of Load testing and Unit testing were a little outside my working area. I wonder what kind of presentation James Whitaker would have given.

So overall, it was a good event 'even' for functional developers!

Group thinking

Yesterday, I read a column of Roos Vonk in the Intermediair about Group thinking. Her statement is that it is not true to think that a group will come to a better decision (because multiple people know more than just one). Apparently, the need to reach a consensus is often in a group stronger than reaching the correct decision.

I really liked the column because it shows really how a group decision taking process is in practice. I recognized the situation that someone in a group (meeting) is considered as being 'difficult' when he or she ask (critical) questions or tries to bring in alternatives. Or that the group nearly reached a consensus / decision, and someone doesn't agree which evokes a reaction of the other group members 'don't start being difficult now we have almost reached agreement!'. I have to admit, I also have had that thought sometimes.

To support the group decision, the group members think 'everyone agrees, so that will be the right decision'. It is not often that someone says 'I don't understand'.

Reading this column, I was kind of glad that I do (try to) ask questions if I don't understand the arguments or situation. Perhaps we should all say 'I don't understand' more often!

Follow up: Importance of a company website

As mentioned in my previous post about the importance of a company website, I would let you know if, when and how a would get a response of the V&D organization about the fact that I cannot find the product warning announcement on their website.

I did get a response on my question (asked via the Contact Form). I send that question on 09:44 (CET) and got a reaction at 13:30 (CET), so that is not bad at all.

It turns out that the product warning IS available on the website. In the response I got on my question, I got a link to that announcement (http://www.vd.nl/vendWebShop/contents/Acties_recall_0509). So that is then oke, you would say. Not completely however for me.

First of all, I had a look and it turns out that the announcement can be found in the 'Actions' menu. Very strange place to put a produce warning announcement!

Then, when you use Internet Explorer 8, you will only see the 'Actions' menu if you have Compatibility mode on.

Unfortunately, still when searching for 'Slaapzak Frendz', I still get no results.
If I search on 'Veiligheidswaarschuwing' (product warning), then will I get to the announcement on the site. But who will search for a 'Veiligheidswaarschuwing' (product warning) if you are not already notified from another source that there is some kind of product warning?

So according to me, this is a missed chance for V&D to have inform their customers pro-actively on their site (or at least make it easy for customers that want more information, to actually find that information!)

Of course, I gave my remarks also to the V&D (with a simple reply to the received e-mail). I have to say that I got again a reply within 30 minutes! Wow, that is great. Also the content was encouraging for the future: they wrote that they appreciated my feedback (as according to them, it demonstrated my involvement with the V&D) and already forwarded it to the appropriate management. With a closing sentence that they hoped to see me as a satisfied customer in their department store, I had a better 'customer experience' than I would have thought this morning.

Importance of a company website

This morning I was listening to the radio and heard an announcement about a product warning for a 'sleeping bag' for babies of their own label (Frendz) of V&D. Because of possible suffication danger, the sleeping bag (several types of it) was not save. According to the radio announcement, more information could be found on the website of the company. When the newsreader mentioned the website, there was immediate discussion on how you have to write the website? Was it www.V&D.nl or www.VenD.nl or www.VD.nl? Probably just try and find out!

Curious as I am, I decided to have a look at www.VenD.nl. On their homepage, there was no announcment about it. Also when I explicitely looked at 'slaapzak Frendz' no results were found:



So, now let's see what Google will come up with:



When reading this product warning, it states that the source of the information comes from V&D (dated May 15th)! So why is this information not available on their own site?!?

This reminded me about a post I read a few weeks ago on how important a website is for a company.

So, again curious on the response process, I asked them via a contact form (where only an e-mail address and name was mandatory) on the website why this product warning was not announced on their website. Let's see when I will get a reaction (and what the reaction will be of course).

I hope V&D (and companies like it) also will understand this and make sure that besides products, also (important) information can be found!

I'll let you know how long it took them to put it also on their own website (if all)...