Business and UX: express seminar logs
“Dog playground” is a wandering party “ Pavlova 's dogs ”. We invite colleagues and pros from related areas, set a topic for discussion - and exchange knowledge and opinions in a brainstorming format (that is, if possible without criticism).
The party is free, but an intellectual fee is charged for admission: you need to concentrate and describe what you may be interested in to other guests of the “Dog Playground”. The format of the benefits varies from time to time: sometimes experience is important, sometimes acquaintance, sometimes a profession. This time the ideas were important.
Next - a report on the meeting a week ago. According to the calendar, we hooked it to World Usability Day and decided to talk “about all this usability” from a business point of view. But does it make sense, but will it be good, and not to exorcise all these UX-crap trays and hire cold salespeople instead?
Accordingly, we invited managers of the 80th level, owners of companies, sane startups and other people, who are considering UX as a business tool, to visit.
')
From everyone at registration they waited for stuffing in terms of their business experience. Ideas, problems, expectations, bewilderments - everything went into business, if only it was connected not with abstract use of the whole gift, but with the concrete activity of real companies.
No wonder that the full house did not happen :) - and you know, this is good. We just wanted to filter out lazy people, freeloaders, nerds, fools, narcissistic dummies, and anyone who can only spoil a pleasant evening.
But at the entrance received half a dozen rather interesting - and very revealing - cases for discussion.
Met We talked, discussed. Now we will show you both cases and a squeeze from our conversations.
The benefits of reading you, most likely, there may be some. Once again, the tasks are the latest. Many times we have already heard these formulations (and how many more will we hear!) - always a little under a different sauce, of course. So if you are gnawing something like that (and it, like, usually attacks from around the corner, and you don’t have time to notice), at least read how colleagues look at this problem. Suddenly useful.
Once again: these are real and typical tasks that torment real and completely non-typical people. Well, the reaction of the collective mind (UX-specialists and sympathizers) to these tasks.
Immediately from the height of the brick in the forehead, right? Further it will be more difficult.
This claim is very popular. But not too fair.
Here are some considerations that next time you should keep in mind when you comb your tongue to talk about UX-charms and you want to scratch it about another plywood seller and his poor website.
Well, our format involves a constructive discussion, so let's get started.
It seems that all this is just another useless soft. But it seems that people will never stop writing tudushki. And never stop using new and new. So - good luck, which is already there.
Oh, and here is our favorite type of tasks: we are looking under the lantern, because there it is brighter. You see, yes, what's the problem with the interface?
We will explain. This platform for free (crazy!) Records courses all sorts of Yandex - such as we are for the idea, we are for world peace. It is terrible to even think how firmly bunnies with billions of turns got their babies around their necks and how reliably they hung their legs.
On the other hand, since thousands of “ordinary people” cope with recording and publishing video courses on repairing toilet bowls, then, probably, the new platform should directly solve some very serious problems of them so that they pay attention to it. Platform owners do not know such serious problems.
There is a third party. The hope of turning a startup into a business is now somewhere in the area of corporate courses. Here the companies will buy the platform, and then their employees will collect training programs for this wage. But the question here is: why, in fact, work on the UX-characteristics of the system, which people will still use (they will be hired for this)? The question is not rhetorical: sometimes a business wants to speed up these people, or make people cheaper, or something cynically pretty. But never professional interfaces are improved for the love of art - this is not environmentally friendly. So what's the point of nonsense.
But - okay, okay, we promised a constructive solution to the issue.
And the question - if you simplify it - is this: how to understand which UX features to do and which ones to score?
Here helps a simple, but not yet massively used tool: the Kano model . It is especially good for finding the most promising functionality.
Here we are further discussing the Kano model.
Sorry to disappoint you, but right there will not be an outline. Very much still a separate topic. And it has been written a lot about it already .
Spoiler: this company tells us about its UX-suffering already about the fifth (seventh?) Year. He doesn’t even go anywhere. What kind of unobtrusively hints that there is no need to save anyone here, everything is really good for people. But let's try to invent something, since there is a request.
And if confiscation is put aside - the problem sometimes occurs, yes. Not in such a neglected format, but often designers try to make interfaces and are very holding on to this activity. What is permissible, but you can also change the situation if you wish. Everything is solved.
You have already understood that the tasks go on increasing: the farther, the less UX and the more business, life and small psychiatry. Here you go.
Of course, the task is unsolvable. But this does not mean that it should not be solved!
Briefly decided this.
These are the tasks we discussed a week ago at the “Dog site” in honor of World Usability Day. For two hours we managed.
Next time we'll discuss something funny. Come if you are in St. Petersburg.
In the meantime, you can develop topics hooked in the comments. Well, we, too, did not write everything, what do we think - what if you add something useful? We are counting on it.
The party is free, but an intellectual fee is charged for admission: you need to concentrate and describe what you may be interested in to other guests of the “Dog Playground”. The format of the benefits varies from time to time: sometimes experience is important, sometimes acquaintance, sometimes a profession. This time the ideas were important.
Next - a report on the meeting a week ago. According to the calendar, we hooked it to World Usability Day and decided to talk “about all this usability” from a business point of view. But does it make sense, but will it be good, and not to exorcise all these UX-crap trays and hire cold salespeople instead?
Accordingly, we invited managers of the 80th level, owners of companies, sane startups and other people, who are considering UX as a business tool, to visit.
')
From everyone at registration they waited for stuffing in terms of their business experience. Ideas, problems, expectations, bewilderments - everything went into business, if only it was connected not with abstract use of the whole gift, but with the concrete activity of real companies.
No wonder that the full house did not happen :) - and you know, this is good. We just wanted to filter out lazy people, freeloaders, nerds, fools, narcissistic dummies, and anyone who can only spoil a pleasant evening.
But at the entrance received half a dozen rather interesting - and very revealing - cases for discussion.
Met We talked, discussed. Now we will show you both cases and a squeeze from our conversations.
The benefits of reading you, most likely, there may be some. Once again, the tasks are the latest. Many times we have already heard these formulations (and how many more will we hear!) - always a little under a different sauce, of course. So if you are gnawing something like that (and it, like, usually attacks from around the corner, and you don’t have time to notice), at least read how colleagues look at this problem. Suddenly useful.
Once again: these are real and typical tasks that torment real and completely non-typical people. Well, the reaction of the collective mind (UX-specialists and sympathizers) to these tasks.
Curved Sites
Why do my clients - small businesses - have such crooked sites?
Immediately from the height of the brick in the forehead, right? Further it will be more difficult.
This claim is very popular. But not too fair.
Here are some considerations that next time you should keep in mind when you comb your tongue to talk about UX-charms and you want to scratch it about another plywood seller and his poor website.
- When a small business says that it has no money, that’s what he means. He often has no money not only for experiments or development, but also for the most necessary.
- Until now, the development of Internet representation for small business is a matter of faith with elements of gambling. The answer to the question “Why spend it?” Is not that there is no ... But no one can take responsibility for a businessman, but he is not torn.
- The site is, and everything is fine. Nothing too tight. There are even some orders. Obviously, those who did not manage to find a company on the Internet, let alone use its Internet representation, do not give any feedback and do not express discontent. So, from the point of view of a small business, everything is in order - no one complains.
- An expert assessment of a site that reaches small businesses is often very emotional and more qualitative than quantitative. But small business is small and not interested in emotions. You to him: uncomfortable! And he to you - and what? "The user is bad" - this is not an argument at all for small ones: it’s necessary — it will buy! There is no service for maintenance.
- A small conversion has become the norm - for everyone. As a result, there is no “Make me better!” Requirement. Just the site - because of its initial stupidity - does not become a business tool. And to turn it into a business tool, you need the most expensive resource - the will power of the company owner. With her, the usual problem is deficit-s (and no, this is not strange, not stupid, or ridiculous).
- Maybe it's in the sample? Not all small businessmen are such fuckers. There are dark examples of excellent use of the Internet environment trifle. There are whole communities in which small business is enriched with the experience of Internet commerce and Internet service. Yes, this is not the majority yet, but is it possible not to notice the trend?
- Unearthly beauty and perfect convenience are completely unnecessary for solving business problems. Therefore, what “dislikes” specialists may indeed be more than acceptable - and even good - in the context of the relationship of the buyer and seller of small services. Conversely, upgrading sites often leads to a waste of money and the loss of customers. So, expert assessments are not as reliable as we, the experts, want to think.
- IT services in Russia are stupidly expensive. Yes, you can always find a student or some other relative friend. They will do cheap. But in this “cheap” you need to invest the strength of the business owner, who usually spend on other things. But if you don’t invest, it won’t work.
- You can continue the phrase “Small business because small because ...” in various ways - but our most favorite sequel is this: because it does not know how to buy services. He tries to do everything himself. Someone is doing well, but most do the nonsense. And to pay money for something that he himself has already acted to do, it seems, the toad is choking.
- Do you know how many scammers are killing, as they say, “suckers” from small business? Yes, it is pitch hell. And now take a look at the owner of the company: from his point of view, Internet services - this is one sheer fraud. To do it normally, one must not just find money - one must also find who can give this money. Not the easiest thing, and easier to score on him.
- People just don't know how it should be. Few good examples (although, again, they are). Obviously, it is impossible to reach the tough decisions - and if you look at the competitors, then they are also not trying hard to make a good website. Here comes the vicious circle.
There were several other hypotheses like "Why so." And clarifications of these formulations. But whoever didn’t come to the “Dog ground” - he missed everything (offscreen devilish laughter).
New calendar
80 percent of the tasks do not appear in our calendars. They get involved at the last moment and delay the deadlines. Hence the nerves, a feeling of discontent with oneself, resentment. At the same time, a person is not a robot and cannot spend a lot of resources on planning in small things - he is bored. Therefore, it would be good to entrust this care to the “robot”. The success of products such as the Sunrise Calendar and X.ai (as well as Siri and Google Now ) shows that there is no end to the planning and users are ready to trust robots more and more household, routine solutions.
So far, only an idea about creating an add-in or a full-fledged calendar / planner that would:
- Significantly simplified the input of standard tasks, and also generated subtasks related to the main task (meeting -> preparation, transfer, meeting, follow up);
- could integrate with a large number of recommendatory and other services to help determine the choice of establishments, sessions, find contractors to solve everyday problems, etc .;
- took a new approach to shaping the agenda, and also did not consider the event-calendar and to-do list as separate, unrelated arrays of tasks.
Well, our format involves a constructive discussion, so let's get started.
- Indeed, there is pain — typical tasks that consist of a multitude of small meaningless gestures. Half of them are lost, for the rest you need to buy something small, but at the other end of the city and only on Tuesdays ... In general, it makes sense to attach to the figure.
- It would be nice to get a calendar that understands the structure of the day - and at least differently displays different days. If I have only one interview, there should be one interface on the screen, and if I write documents or I submit reports, it is completely different.
- It is a pity that now planners do not know how to memorize successful plans from the past. It would be nice if once the done thing - with all its nuances and, most importantly, the real budget of time - could be simply "repeated" (at least in planning).
- By the way, then you can begin to exchange these successful recipes - technological maps - and plan some things using other people's templates. The closest analogue is recipes.
- Now calendars forgive postponing. And it is necessary not to forgive! So that you can’t just take and put things off like that.
- Development of the previous one: if you always postpone the case from the category of delegated (especially for money) - let the system automatically place an order. For example, you cannot take a two-week trip to change a car - the calendar causes tire service to go straight to the office.
- And a separate temptation - to make decisions for tired people. Where are we going to drink coffee today? What movie to watch in the evening? Oh, can I not decide - computer, my dear, decide yourself, eh?
It seems that all this is just another useless soft. But it seems that people will never stop writing tudushki. And never stop using new and new. So - good luck, which is already there.
Online course platform
Now business - a platform of open online courses - has a problem of too big entry threshold for creating educational content. Creating online courses is hard and long. We are doing something about it, but we need more.
How to do no more, but more focused? How to build processes to identify such changes in the product that require minimal effort (development) and bring the maximum UX-benefit for teachers?
Oh, and here is our favorite type of tasks: we are looking under the lantern, because there it is brighter. You see, yes, what's the problem with the interface?
We will explain. This platform for free (crazy!) Records courses all sorts of Yandex - such as we are for the idea, we are for world peace. It is terrible to even think how firmly bunnies with billions of turns got their babies around their necks and how reliably they hung their legs.
On the other hand, since thousands of “ordinary people” cope with recording and publishing video courses on repairing toilet bowls, then, probably, the new platform should directly solve some very serious problems of them so that they pay attention to it. Platform owners do not know such serious problems.
There is a third party. The hope of turning a startup into a business is now somewhere in the area of corporate courses. Here the companies will buy the platform, and then their employees will collect training programs for this wage. But the question here is: why, in fact, work on the UX-characteristics of the system, which people will still use (they will be hired for this)? The question is not rhetorical: sometimes a business wants to speed up these people, or make people cheaper, or something cynically pretty. But never professional interfaces are improved for the love of art - this is not environmentally friendly. So what's the point of nonsense.
But - okay, okay, we promised a constructive solution to the issue.
And the question - if you simplify it - is this: how to understand which UX features to do and which ones to score?
Here helps a simple, but not yet massively used tool: the Kano model . It is especially good for finding the most promising functionality.
Here we are further discussing the Kano model.
Sorry to disappoint you, but right there will not be an outline. Very much still a separate topic. And it has been written a lot about it already .
UX process in IT Krupnyak
UX'om we deal with people with the skill designer. Most often, a business analyst or project manager delves into the process, then they work with the designer on prototypes, and then the designer pulls the UI.
How painless for everyone to separate UX and graphic design? So that the UI-designer does not feel the colors of the buttons. Sometimes this is possible - if you put UX'om indisputable authority. But there are few of these, and more and more UX-tasks.
Spoiler: this company tells us about its UX-suffering already about the fifth (seventh?) Year. He doesn’t even go anywhere. What kind of unobtrusively hints that there is no need to save anyone here, everything is really good for people. But let's try to invent something, since there is a request.
- Hire a UX Guru and calm down? Yes, Yura Vetrov is busy, you are unlucky - well, there are still several large-scale people on the market.
- So, the designer is afraid to stay out of work. Ponder: the designer - and out of work! Maybe you just have designers there — visual, aesthetic — don't give a damn? It is not surprising that people are afraid of losing those crumbs of influence that they still have. And they catch at any task, even completely alien to them.
- In continuation of the previous paragraph: is it true what do you have a visual designer to do when the interface design is removed from it? Does he have to come up with a task for himself? Or maybe it's time to formulate this task at the top level, not at the level of “beautiful buttons”? Here, of course, the qualification of a design manager is needed, but you are a big (even fat in a sense) IT office - you will find it, do not squander it.
- Dismiss the designers. All To hell. No man - no problem. And right there, on the spot, try to hire them in the “right” role. Maybe someone will go into the status of a designer, which only in the world does not happen. In any case, the conflict will definitely disappear, not bad.
- It seems that the conflict itself is still somewhat hypothetical: no matter how it happens. So let it come out? Wait for the escalation of the conflict - and there already think what to do.
And if confiscation is put aside - the problem sometimes occurs, yes. Not in such a neglected format, but often designers try to make interfaces and are very holding on to this activity. What is permissible, but you can also change the situation if you wish. Everything is solved.
Project management system
There is a web studio. Our profile - startups, code outsourcing, automation, server side for mobile applications, etc.
Problem: antediluvian level of information management, in all forms - planning tasks, discussing a project and not only, the relevance of TK, the relationship of TK to tasks, structuring information on the project and everything else. Now it's just chaos and tin. Colleagues use Trello , Skype, Google and can not understand why the management takes a million time and nerves - and still projects drown, and from the profession I want to go into something simple and tangible, like modeling from clay or furniture restoration.
The essence of the idea: a project / task management system that contains several non-trivial solutions.
For example, the system not only takes into account tasks, but also takes into account the visual elements of the project (to the desired degree of accuracy - you can take a list of pages, or take every button into account), take into account each project’s essence and each field, take into account every five-minute dialogue initiated on any issue project, taking into account the objects of the development history (commits, pull requests), some technical entities (modules, classes, patterns in the code) - and this is all clearly linked with each other!
To arrange all this, you do not need a miracle - to write a simple system and then a little willpower and habits to put all this on the work processes.
It seems to me that this concept is universal for all cases where we have a lot of different entities, and all are linked with each other, and we need to work with them all quickly and clearly.
You have already understood that the tasks go on increasing: the farther, the less UX and the more business, life and small psychiatry. Here you go.
Of course, the task is unsolvable. But this does not mean that it should not be solved!
Briefly decided this.
- Still, we are not dealing with project management, but with project information management. That is not the same thing.
- The dashboard dream is a common viral disease among managers. Well, let's just call things by their proper names: it is fashionable, cool and hellishly want to have a dashboard on which everything is shown about business. And since we are constructive, we will not discuss the reasons why such a miracle is impossible.
- Universal control systems are all, roughly speaking, of two types. In the first there is a core to which minor components are stuck. Bitriks24 and all that. The second is decentralized: information is spread, everyone communicates with everyone. Such a thing can be collected even on the knee with the help of IFTTT and a half dozen of cloud tools.
- Participants told each other about their unsuccessful experiences in the implementation of such systems. But this does not count, since we are talking about good things.
- If you really want to want to do it, then it is really better to start with a working prototype. Here we call the prototype not pictures, but a moving system with which to work. We take the aforementioned IFTTT , use the built-in capabilities of all these endless Trello - Airtable - Slack - MailChimp - Dropbox - ... - and further evolve as we can.
These are the tasks we discussed a week ago at the “Dog site” in honor of World Usability Day. For two hours we managed.
Next time we'll discuss something funny. Come if you are in St. Petersburg.
In the meantime, you can develop topics hooked in the comments. Well, we, too, did not write everything, what do we think - what if you add something useful? We are counting on it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/296508/
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