User Experience Design
The User Experience Design (UED) capability is the ability to proactively consider the needs of users at all stages in the life cycle of IT services and solutions.
Structure
UED is made up of the following Categories and CBBs. Maturity and Planning are described at both the CC and the CBB level.
- AMeasuring and Understanding User Experiences
Manages how user experiences might be gathered and communicated to inform the design of IT services and solutions.
- A1Researching User Experiences
Assess user behaviours, needs, and motivations — for example, through surveys, focus groups, individual interviews, direct observation, and usability testing.
- A2Communicating User Experiences
Convey user behaviours, needs, and motivations to stakeholders to enable informed action — for example, by using personas, user scenarios, storyboarding, use cases, and storytelling.
- BDesigning, Testing, and Improving User Experiences
Uses the collated user experience data to explore and evaluate how future user experiences might be improved.
- B1Designing User Experiences
Conceptualize design options for enhancing the user experience of IT services and solutions — using abstraction methods such as drawings, sketches, blueprints, wireframes, prototypes, papers, and formulas.
- B2Evaluating User Experiences
Apply evaluation methods and criteria to assess user experience of IT services and solutions, and to assess design options relating to them. Evaluation methods might include, for example, surveys, interviews, focus groups, walkthroughs, productivity studies, and usability tests. Evaluation criteria might include, for example, system performance, task success rate, time on task, error rate, and satisfaction ratings.
- B3Informing User Experience Design
Make available and implement feedback to improve the user experience of design options and IT services and solutions.
Overview
Goal
The User Experience Design (UED) capability aims to address both the usability and the usefulness of IT services and solutions across various audiences, purposes, and contexts of use.
- Usability relates to the ease with which IT services and solutions can be used from a user's perspective.
- Usefulness relates to how well IT services and solutions serve their intended purposes.
Objectives
An effective User Experience Design (UED) capability aims to:
- Shift from technology-centric to user-centric design of IT services and solutions; in other words, make the transition from designing within the engineering boundaries or limitations of the technology to designing IT services and solutions around the needs of those who will use them.
- Place the user's experience of the IT service or solution (rather than the service or solution itself) at the centre of design and development — for example, a user's experience of email may rely on computer hardware performance, network connectivity, email client usability, user proficiency, purpose of the task, and the environment/context of access.
- Consider users' experiences across their interactions with IT services and solutions — including their knowledge about the range of services available, their experiences of taking delivery of services and using services, the training and support they require or receive, how upgrades are handled, and how redundant services are removed.
- Adopt a user experience design approach that reduces development time and cost, and produces IT services and solutions that satisfy both business and user objectives.
Value
The User Experience Design (UED) capability helps increase levels of proficiency and productivity by using actionable information obtained from users in the design and maintenance of IT services and solutions.
Relevance
User experience design is not the same as user interface design; it extends beyond promoting visual consistency and simplification of design elements for an IT service or solution, to also cover user needs, wants, and limitations — and it does this in different contexts, with different purposes, and across different audiences. Typically, failure to take a user-centred approach to design has consequences after the deployment of an IT product or solution, and shows up in recurring IT helpdesk calls, disappointing usage levels, the need forn additional user training, continual change requests and upgrades, lost employee productivity, and poor satisfaction levels. An IT product or solution that fails to take all aspects of the users experience into account can end up being very costly.
By establishing an effective User Experience Design (UED) capability, an organization can help ensure that IT services and solutions are fit-for-purpose — that they make sense (are more usable) and solve real problems (are more useful). It can facilitate a common understanding regarding the goals users need to accomplish in pursuit of their business objectives, and then enables design of a user experience that directly supports achievement of those objectives. IT services and solutions should be designed from the very beginning to bridge the gap between the user and the business objectives, with the aim of reducing costs, increasing employee productivity and satisfaction levels, and boosting organizational competitiveness.
Scope
Definition
The User Experience Design (UED) capability is the ability to proactively consider the needs of users at all stages in the life cycle of IT services and solutions.
Improvement Planning
Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)
Representative POMs are described for UED at each level of maturity.
- 2Basic
- Practice
- Define a user experience vision for IT services and solutions, and communicate it with stakeholders and project teams.
- Outcome
- The core characteristics of the desired user experience are communicated, and provide the foundation upon which future design decisions are based.
- Metric
- Percentage of stakeholders and project team members to whom the user experience vision has been communicated.
- Practices
- Provide training on the user experience assessment methods — for example, using focus groups, surveys, usability tests, A/B benchmarking, eye-tracking, and accessibility analysis.
- Begin to roll out user experience assessments across IT services and solutions.
- Outcome
- A consistent approach emerges for capturing the user experience across IT services and solutions.
- Metric
- Percentage of relevant stakeholders trained in the use of user research and validation methods.
- Practice
- Promote the use of user experience design methods in the (re)design of IT services and solutions — for example, through the use of sketches, wireframes, prototypes, and storyboards.
- Outcome
- Comprehension of user experience is embedded into the creation of IT services and solutions.
- Metrics
- Percentage of users who can perform a core set of tasks faster than they could with a previous version.
- Percentage of users who can perform a core set of tasks with no help or training.
- Percentage of users who rate an IT solution's ease-of-use as acceptable.
- Percentage of users who call support when using a new or redesigned IT service or solution.
- Practice
- Equip users with training, documentation, and social/collaborative crowd-sourcing platforms for guidance on how to use IT services and solutions more effectively.
- Outcome
- Users have the self-directed means to increase their proficiency and deal with deficiencies in usability.
- Metric
- Percentage of IT services and solutions that are supported by appropriate documentation, user training, and problem-resolution guidance.
- 3Intermediate
- Practice
- Formally incorporate user experience design practices into IT project delivery methodologies.
- Outcome
- Project timelines and methodologies can be extended to allow for the incorporation of user experience design practices.
- Metric
- Percentage of projects with user experience design activities built into their project plans.
- Practice
- Segment and profile users, and ensure appropriate sampling occurs to capture representative feedback.
- Outcome
- The (re)development of IT services and solutions will more broadly reflect various user needs and goals, and result in better success in addressing them.
- Metrics
- Percentage of users sampled across profiles.
- Percentage of users (by segment) who rate an IT service's or solution's ease-of-use as acceptable.
- Practice
- Standardize master guidelines on usability principles (for example, across criteria such as accessibility, the level of information provided, the quality of the interaction, and the visual design) for developing internal and assessing external IT services and solutions.
- Outcome
- Guidance is available to help ensure increasingly consistent user experiences.
- Metric
- Percentage of IT services and solutions that are compliant with usability guidelines.
- Practice
- Standardize the business impact criteria used to measure improvements to the user experience.
- Outcome
- Understanding the business value of better user experiences helps ensure that an improved user experience is prioritized for new IT services and solutions or for changes to existing IT services and solutions.
- Metric
- Quantification of the business value/impact of improving the user experience.
- 4Advanced
- Practice
- Empower users to suggest designs for better experiences for IT services and solutions — for example, through user networks, special interest groups, themed competition challenges, and hackathons.
- Outcome
- Allowing users to collaborate with each other on ideas to improve their user experiences may lead to fresh insights not possible with more traditional approaches.
- Metric
- Implemented user-generated ideas relating to the user experience as a percentage of all such user-generated ideas.
- Practice
- Formalize an organization-wide community of practice on user experience.
- Outcome
- Lessons learned and proven practices can be readily shared across individuals and projects, and can help improve practitioner expertise.
- Metric
- Community participation levels by relevant employees — for example, levels of membership and growth.
- Practice
- Track comparative survey results relating to user experiences of IT services and solutions over time.
- Outcome
- The quality of the user experience of IT services and solutions (as reported by users themselves) can be tracked over time and benchmarked to support decisions on what improvements to make.
- Metric
- Percentage of IT services and solutions with user experience data.
- 5Optimized
- Practices
- Set up a continual improvement programme to enhance the methods used to capture and integrate information about user experience.
- This might include, for example, knowledge sharing with external peers, assessing the organizational impact of user experience practices, and acting upon lessons learned.
- Outcome
- The organization can benefit by improving existing and incorporating the latest approaches.
- Metric
- Number of updates made to the approved suite of user experience design practices.
- Practice
- Assign executive ownership for the continual improvement of the user experience for individual IT services and solutions.
- Outcome
- Insights about user needs, attitudes, and behaviours drive strategic decision-making for IT services and solutions.
- Metrics
- Yes/no indicator regarding the assignment of executive responsibility.
- Percentage of users who rate their satisfaction with IT services and solutions as high or very high.
Reference
History
This capability was introduced in Revision 16 as a new critical capability.