UX and UCD at Cambridgeshire County Council

Steve Grange,Project Manager,

Cambridgeshire County Council, UK

• In all our projects we, at some point, use UCD/UX techniques

• Generally speaking, I use UCD techniques during the early stages of my projects and UX techniques in the latter stages – through an iterative process

• We use a lot of different techniques so I’ll describe the common ones we use most frequently

• I don’t follow UX/UCD rules exactly – if it will produce results, I’ll use it wherever I think is appropriate

User Centered Design/User Experience

Technique 1 - Personas

Technique 2 – Wireframes

• Expert reviews are used to look at a product from an experienced user’s point of view

• It’s a good technique to iron out glaring bugs and issues without undertaking full usability testing

• Also useful to identify where standards and guidelines haven’t been followed; something general users might not consider

Technique 3 - Expert Reviews

Technique 4 – Usability Testing

Technique 5 – HTML Mockups

Technique 6 – Surveys

…the other techniques•There are some techniques which have been used but I’ve not had direct experience of these, yet. These include:

•Card sorting

•Focus groups

•User journey mapping (occasionally done by our Business Analysts)

•Browser testing

It’s not all plain sailing though…

• Of course, there were problems along the way

• Stakeholder management is a bigger problem than it may at first seem. I’ve learnt that I need to:• Empathise with stakeholders when planning UX• Ask stakeholders “what does success look like to you?”•Get them involved in the UX Planning• Speak the language of them

Other problems•Developers who are protective of their creations

•Lesson learnt – involve them throughout. Tell them you’re doing it, tell them what you’ll be looking at and ask them how they want the results produced

•A final issue is getting people on board. Getting volunteers on board and making sure they turn up is difficult. Solution – regular communication and incentives

Using UX in the futureA final rhetorical slide

•A question I’ve asked myself recently is “what’s the future for UX?”, especially in regards to work back home

•How will UX be managed on mobile products as more of our traffic goes from the Web to Mobile Web?

•What new techniques will be created and what current techniques will become obsolete?

•I’m not sure yet but I’m looking forward to finding out

Email: grange.steve@gmail.com Twitter: @grangesteve

Blog: www.StevesSocitmTrip.wordpress.com

Questions?