Communicating Design

1. Communicating Design
By Daniel M. Brown
Presented by
Stanley Chang
Ph.D. student, University of Michigan

2. Outline
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Simple intro. to User Needs Documents
• The good of the book

3. About the Author

4. Dan Brown
IA & User experience design
• Consulting work
• Writing and speaking
• Commitment to IA communities

5. Consulting Experience
• Developed user models, interaction models,
information architectures, and content models
for such clients as First USA, the World Bank,
webMethods, and US Airways.
• Developed wireframes and user flows for major
applications on USPS.gov, including ZIP Code
Lookup, Online Tools, and Carrier Pickup.
Designed usability tests and analyzed results to
improve applications.

6. Dan Brown > Speak and Write

7. Introduction

8. Structure of the book
• What is deliverable?
• Why produce deliverables?
– Consistency of vision
– Accountability
– Traceability
• The Ten deliverables
• Layers of each deliverable
• Tips of presenting
• How are they used with other documents?

9. The Ten Deliverables
• User Needs Documents
– Personas, Usability test plan and Usability test
results
• Strategy Documents
– Concept models, Content inventories and
Competitive analyses
• Design Documents
– Wireframes, Flowcharts, site maps and
screen designs

10. Deliverable, Like a Cake
• Layer 1
• The most important
elements
• Layer2
• Enhancement, some
background information
• Layer3
• Very further details

11. Layer Example
• Layer1
• Layer2
• Layer3

12. Tips for Presenting
Deliverables
• Establish and • Invite the minimal number
communicate a purpose of people possible
• Decide what you want to • Send materials around
get out of the meeting before the meeting
before going into it. • Write up an account of
• Think through participant the meeting.
expectations, agendas, • Take pride in running a
and questions good meeting
• For new clients, assume
the first meeting won't go
well

13. User Needs Documents

14. Personas
A summary representation of the system's
intended users, often described as real
people. Also known as: user profiles, user
role definitions, audience profiles.

15. Persona > Overview
• Purpose
– Help prioritize system features and content that
best support the audience
• Audience
– Design team the primary audience
• Context
– At the beginning of a project
• Challenges
– Summarizing can be tough
– Dealing with companies that have done business
successfully for years without personas

16. Persona > Creating >
Layer 1
• Name
• Motivations and needs
• Scenarios

17. Persona > Creating >
Layer 2
• System Feature
• Behavior
• Quotes

18. Persona > Creating >
Layer 3
• Demographic information
• Technology comfort level
• Personal background
• Photograph

19. Persona > Justification
• Recruit for usability
test
• Rationalize existing
design decisions
• Clients not buying into
personas
• No time or resources
• Identify extraneous
content
• Show how existing
segmentation models
are inadequate

20. Persona > Presenting >
Meeting Purpose
• Buy-In meeting: Selling the Idea
– Only at the very beginning
– Show the need for personas
– Demonstrate their function
• Feedback meeting: Getting
input from the team
– Need to be well-structured
• Brainstorm meeting: Building personas
Together
– Review and then construct

21. Persona > Presenting >
Meeting Structure
• Priority order approach
– Most important persona first
• Steps followed approach
– The most popular meeting structure
– Explain the process
• Family resemblance approach

22. Family resemblance approach

23. Family resemblance approach
Personas
Tree

24. Persona > Presenting >
Key Points
• Keep meeting
participants engaged
• Keep the agenda on
track
• Make use of research

25. Persona > With Other Documents
• User-Needs Documents
– Usability Test Plan
– Usability Reports
• Strategy Documents
– Competitive Analysis
– Concept Model
• Design Documents
– Wireframes
– Site maps
– Flowchart
– Screen Designs

26. Usability Test Plan
The usability test plan describes the goals,
method, and approach for a usability test.
.

27. Usability Test Plan >
Overview
• Purpose
– Lay out the approach for a usability test
• Audience
– Everyone in the team
• Context
– Whenever scheduling usability testing
• Challenge
– Creating a multi purpose document but not out of
scope

28. Usability Test Plan > Creating >
Layer 1
• Test objectives
• Test logistics
• Test scenarios

29. Usability Test Plan > Creating >
Layer 2
• User profiles and Screener
• Pre-test and post-test questions
• Script

30. Usability Test Plan > Creating >
Layer 3
• Background
• Functional details
• Expected behaviors

32. Persona > Presenting >
Meeting Purpose
• Securing buy-in
– Go through every aspect of the plan
• Soliciting input
• Testing the test
– Mock test
– Ensure you can do everything you need to in
the given amount of time
– Potential issues

33. Usability Test Plan > Presenting >
Key Points
• Risk of losing sight of objectives
• Usability newbies
• Methodological questions

34. Usability Test Plan > With Other
Documents
• User-Needs Documents
– Persona
– Test results
• Design Documents

35. Usability Reports
The usability report is the outcome of a
usability test, whose results are compiled
into an actionable format.

36. Usability Reports >
Overview
• Purpose
– Highlight the main findings
• Audience
– Everyone
• Context
– As long as there is a test
• Challenge
– The more details you include, the more you need
to explain
– Distinguishing between observations and
recommendations

37. Usability Report > Creating >
Layer 1
• Test summary
• Basic observations
• A little context
• Next Step

38. Usability Report > Creating >
Layer 2
• Summary of observations
• Summary of recommendations
• Severity level
• User quotes

39. Usability Report > Creating >
Layer 3
• Quantitative data
• User profiles
• Tactical recommendations

40. Usability Report > Creating >
Risks
• Inflating severity
• Too much or too
little detail

41. Usability Report > Presenting >
Meeting Purpose
• Presenting findings to stakeholders:
– They are more concerned about the overall
tenor of the usability tests
– Spend more time on the pre- and post-test
questions that shed light on the audience
more broadly
• Presenting findings to the design team:
– They are more interested in the observations
& solutions

42. Usability Report > Presenting >
Meeting Structure
• Start with the basics:
– Test objectives
– Test method
– Logistics
• Summarize the observation first
• If have to report findings ASAP
– hold a usability test debriefing

43. Usability Report > Presenting > Key
points
• Be objective and honest
– Tell the truth
– Offer several
explanations why
Truth

44. You may face this question…
“what
should
we do?"

45. This might not work….
“I don't solve,
I just identify”
• Difficult design problems do not have just one
answer
• So, force yourself to think of a couple
different approaches for each main design
problem
• Explain, and then suggest

46. Usability Reports >
With Other Documents
• User-Needs Documents
– Persona
– Test plan
• Design Documents
– Wireframes
– Site maps and
flowcharts
The number of users is represented by
the weight (thickness)

47. The other deliverables….
• Strategy Documents
– Concept models, Content inventories and
Competitive analyses
• Design Documents
– Wireframes, Flowcharts, site maps and
screen designs
Please refer to the books

48. What’s Good about This Book
• Use 3 layers to introduce how to create
different documents
• Readers can take advantage of the layer
structure to create documents depending
on different context
• Provide practical suggestions on meeting
strategies
• Great reference book for people new to
this field

49. Thank you