Comments on Searching for the center of design

Jess McMullin — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:35:24 GMT

Hey Richard,

Thanks for the thoughts. I completely agree about speaking the language of business – I ran a panel on that exact topic at the 2005 IA Summit in Montreal. I’ve also written about business and design (particularly design maturity and business fluency) on my blog at www.bplusd.org and at Ambidextrous Magazine.

best,

Jess

Richard Johnson — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:10:49 GMT

You make some good points about connecting with management. The Business mind, in many cases interested in the dollar value or the mission value, fails to see the user value in building designs that help users accomplish their goals. A user may be interested in what your companies mission is, but chances are they don’t want it screaming at them across the homepage. They came to your site for a specific reason. It might be for information or to purchase a product. Helping the user accomplish their goal while balancing business drivers is the key to success. The best way to get buy-in from management is to speak in the language they understand.

Great article! I hope to read more from you in this topic.

Bob Baxley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:42 GMT

Thanks for following up Jess. I’m wondering if you could elucidate on goals-based design a bit more. I’ve never thought it was adequately explained in the literature. For example, I could image a goal such as “connect with friends or family” and one way of fulfilling that goal might be “share photos”. However, I don’t see how you can have a meaningful discussion about that goal without describing how it might be addressed and how it might be addressed requires some conversation about the medium or technology that might be used.

I’m not saying that technology should drive the product and certainly not that it should drive users but the unavoidable truth is that these products require a conversation between users AND technology and any such conversation has to start with a healthy respect for both parties. Sometimes the technology can come a long way toward the user, e.g. voice recognition, and sometimes it can’t, e.g. hand-writing recognition. The trick is to find those opportunities for moving them closer together so that the conversation can be more effective.

At a higher-level I’m concerned whenever I see designers avoid, ignore, or downplay the technical realities of the situation because in doing so they alienate themselves from the process of building and developing the products, ultimately losing what little power they may have had in influencing and controlling the means of production.

jess — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:42 GMT

Hi Bob,

I’m familiar with Doblin’s online material, though I haven’t seen the particular piece you mention. I actually think that talking about technical feasibility is secondary. The content or product offering is secondary too – that’s why Offering and Delivery reside ‘behind’ the intersection of individual and business goals. While Delivery includes technical feasibility, I see that as supporting goals, rather than determining them.

That said, I’d guess you (and Larry) would agree – both technology and the functionality or content offered should stem from goals, not drive them.

Bob Baxley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:42 GMT

Jess, in your research for this article did you come across any of the work by Larry Keeley of the Doblin Group? Larry talks about the need to balance (1) business viability, (2) technical feasibility, and (3) customer/user desirability.

Your piece seems to advocate a balance between viability and desirability and I’m curious how you think technical feasibility should figure in the equation.

Incidentally, Hugh Dubberly wrote an interview with Alan Cooper that discussed this 3-axis balance in greater detail. The interview was published by the AIGA about 18 months ago. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the article has been published electronically.

jess — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:03:42 GMT

Thanks all for your kind comments.

Mary, you raise a critical point.
>Jesse James Garrett, in his seminal book Elements of the User Experience, includes business goals and constraints amongst those requirements that lay the foundation for a user-centered design process.

I helped tech review Jesse’s book, and absolutely agree that good UCD practitioners already understand that business goals are important and need to be balanced with user needs.

Value-centered design largely provides a platform for conversation with business – while we understand the importance of business goals, business sometimes doesn’t understand the importance of indivdual people’s goals. That’s where we typically start talking about user-centered design. Sometimes that works, but often business folks tune out when the focus is on the user. VCD puts the focus on something business can engage with – value – while bringing users into the picture. That simple reframing has helped several clients ‘get it’ rather than glazing over.

Mary Deaton — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:02:38 GMT

Jesse James Garrett, in his seminal book Elements of the User Experience, includes business goals and constraints amongst those requirements that lay the foundation for a user-centered design process.

My experience is that anyone who works for clients already knows that business goals are a key requirement that, along with user goals, must be met to have a successful outcome. If they do not, they do not stay in business.

However, I have seen user experience specialists in large organizations who refuse to acknowledge or simply do not understand the value of business goals, or even chooser goals. Product teams can either so removed from the business decision-makers and implementers that they do not see themselves as on the same team, or the leadership of the organization has failed to foster an environment that values cross-discipline teams. In the first instance, the product team may feel pitted against the business team. In the second instance, each discipline may feel pitted against other disciplines, all trying to make their value clear to management. In both cases, I blame management, not the implementers.

It is management’s responsibility to give people the information they need to make good business decisions, and to create a work environment in which implementers do not feel isolated or unvalued. It starts at the top.

ML — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:42 GMT

Wow Jess! This was a very timely article. I just shared with our web team here and it’s refreshing to see more about business context for IA/UE. Thanks and I hope B&A gives you the chance to write more! :) -ML

David Heller — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:02:16 GMT

Jess, this is really great stuff. Thank you.

I have been thinking about this from a different direction as I have recently joined a great group of business-centric folks who are interested in UCD, but I think the ends are the same and the point is similar.

The way I put it is that UCD is really about giving users motivation to fulfill business goals. I think that is the same as achieving value for both side of this coin. It seems that my colleagues anyway have been able to appreciate this as they know they have no business if users aren’t motivated to come.

On a separate note I think it important that for decades before there was UCD businesses were supplying people w/ great stuff. They do have methods and tactics that are quite useful in engaging customers to come forth and realize business goals. We should engage in those practices and quite honestly learn from them.

—dave