UCD from across the PondA case study in Remote UX

Neil Turner

My background…

What would your ideal project look like?

Co-located team

Awesome project war room

Easy access to users

And stakeholders…

Who works in a co-located team?

Who has an awesome project war room?

Who has easy access to users?

Who has easy access to stakeholders?

Ideal world vs Real world

Welcome to the messy real world of Remote UX

Thanks to globalisation, remote UX is on the rise…

And of course more of us are frequently working remotely

Redesigning a global research platform

Not UCD across this pond (at my office)

But this pond…

Not much chance of co-location…

Or going on a ‘Swift’ world tour…

How to carry out user-centred design remotely? How to carry out UX team work remotely?

How we carried out UCD remotely

Using the Internet of course

ForSee and Survey Monkey for capturing user insights & participants

WebEx for user interviews and usability testing

User Testing for rapid mobile usability testing

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Chalkmark for click testing prototypes

With some good ol’ fashioned face-to-face user research when possible

How we carried out UCD remotely

• Online surveys to capture user insights & recruit participants

• Moderated remote user interviews & testing• Unmoderated user testing & click testing• Face-to-face user research when possible

How we carried out UX team work remotely

It wasn’t as easy as being co-located…

“Long distance relationships are SOOO easy!”…said NO ONE! Ever!

How can you replicate this remotely?

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With difficulty, which is why we got the team together for a week

Local teams working remotely

Team members in the office when possible

How can you replicate this remotely?

Daily stand-ups (local and remote)

Weekly design reviews (online)

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Talking to someone, not emailing

How can you replicate this remotely?

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Good meeting discipline

• Have a clear agenda• Share content beforehand• Turn up on time• Use headset audio (or video)• Be polite• Get to know online meeting tool

With headsets and a decent Broadband connection

How can you replicate this remotely?

Used online UX & collaboration tools

With an online style guide

And Jira as the single source of truth

How can you best work across time zones?

How can you best work across time zones?

• Tried to be considerate to working times• Utilised cross-over times (afternoons in UK)• Scheduled meetings at least painful time• Kept meetings short & sweet

How did we carry out UX team work remotely?

• Local teams working remotely• Got whole team together for 1 week• Used range of online design & collaboration tools• Scheduled regular, disciplined catch-ups• Encouraged phone & IM over email• Had single of point of truth

We got there…

How can we work better remotely?

• What should we start doing?• What should we stop doing?• What should we continue doing?

How to be a remote UX…

Do stuff face to face if you can (UX research & design)

Come up with a good remote game plan

Invest in good remote tools and tech

Use online UX & collaboration tools & learn how to best use them

Be prepared and always run a pilot

Meet-up online as regularly as possible

Use video, phone and IM over emails

Make the best use of team time together

Be considerate

Oh, you want me to work late? Well, I want you to go f**k yourself. We can’t always get what we want.

Get used to working remotely

www.uxforthemasses.com

THANK YOU :-)

@neilturneruxslideshare.net/neiljamesturner