Change Is Good (AxureWorld)

Change is Good Or How to reduce anxiety and increase quality by embracing change as part of your organization’s design and development process. Ravi Singh User Experience Architect Follow me: @ravijsingh Friend me: facebook.com/ravisingh Network with me: linkedin.com/in/ravijsingh Image source: Google Images

I love you just the way you are “ Successful businesses hate change. People with great jobs hate change. Market leaders seek out and cherish dependable systems. ” - Seth Godin, Fast Company, "Survival Is Not Enough" Dec 31, 2001

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it Image source: Google Images

A profile in innovation and quality Meet the Dyson TM Innovative cyclone design challenged the status quo , introducing a vacuum cleaner that never loses suction Clear vacuum chamber exposes its actual performance Innovative industrial design Most reliable vacuum cleaner according to Consumer Reports Resulted in a billion dollar empire for Sir James Dyson Image source: Google Images

What’s quality? Best in class in terms of Design Engineering Reliability Consistency Functionality Utility Usability Ergonomics Innovation & Emotional response! Image source: Google Images

Birth of a quality product Did John Dyson just piece together others’ good ideas? Or find a gimmick that one-upped the competition? Or was he divinely inspired ? Could it be? Image source: Google Images

Outtakes takes are not just funny, they’re useful Best in class design outcomes are often so simple or clear that they feel like the rabbit pulled out of a magician's hat. The messy process of creating and editing is invisible in the final product. It’s not magic – it’s a lot of trial and error. Quality rarely appears in the first iteration of a design because the first iteration is the least educated . Learnings come from failures, so try, fail quickly, learn and refine . The Dyson design solution took 12 years of development & over 5,000 prototypes. Image source: Google Images

Stay relevant by embracing change Change is a means to an end – a better product for better user experiences and better organizational value. Our world is changing now more quickly than ever, so to resist change and follow a slow moving design-development process, is to make yourself ever less able to compete and progress. If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less. – General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

Big changes – exciting stuff! This happens over decades Paradigm shifts can render conventional product designs obsolete Image source: Google Images

Small changes for continuous improvement Early prototype Still same form This happens over years Image sources: Apple.com

Change is a challenge to the status quo While predictability is critical to usability , it doesn’t lead to innovation which is critical for market differentiation. Yet too many companies are stuck in the lost cause of market parity , unable to take the risk of reinventing the way they do business with their customers. In the design world , challenges to the status quo could be as minute as eliminating a sign up experience for your customers. But the effect could be an exponential increase in customer conversions . VS Very good Even better

Design is about micro-change Designers recognize their process to be a series of cumulative adjustments and occasional leaps of inspiration or creative destruction . As this is the only way to achieve quality, they must enlighten stakeholders to the value of an iterative process for visual design, information architecture and technical development. Designer: Matt Willey Watch online: youtube.com/watch?v =uhnV21sL9UI Image source: Youtube.com

A simple concept and a BIG idea In simple terms, change is when something has been modified. Dull, but true. As a big idea, change is not a neutral effect but an active process that allows for improvement and innovation when harnessed.

Show, don’t tell The most persuasive presentation for change is through a literal prototype of the actual thing , not an abstract description of what it could be. Prototype it , tinker with it, test it out and sell it by demonstration , just like Dyson did, in whatever your medium happens to be. Vetting your prototype is the best way to mitigate the risk of an ill-conceived design change.

Not all change is equal An attempt for Positive Change Worse than before Just different Better than before Uh oh. Undo the change! Hmm… Why bother changing? Yippee! Claim victory and make progress. Part of an explorative process. An active way to encounter serendipity. A way to identify bad ideas that can be avoided in the future. Something was learned. Improved design. But watch for unintended consequences and cost to achieve. Value Responses Outcomes

Evolution or Revolution, for better or worse Southwest.com 1999 – All visual metaphors (cutting edge for ‘99) Image source: Webarchive.org

Evolution or Revolution, for better or worse Southwest.com 2005 – Changed to unambiguous links and facts Image source: Webarchive.org

Evolution or Revolution, for better or worse Southwest.com 2008 – Focus on Key Tasks, a change for the better Image source: Webarchive.org

Evolution or Revolution, for better or worse Southwest.com 2010 – Less focus, more options – a step backward? Image source: Southwest.com

A change averse design-dev process Identify a business idea Describe and research the audience for the idea Recruit customers that fit the audience description Talk to them about their requirements Design a solution for the customer the business Get feedback from customers the business on the design concept Refine the concept based on the customer feedback Test the experience with the customers on a high-fidelity prototype Refine the prototype Develop and deploy the solution Test customer satisfaction in production for the first time

A value-oriented, customer-centric change process Identify a business idea Describe and research the audience for the idea Recruit customers that fit the audience description Talk to them about their requirements Design a solution for the customer Get feedback from customers on the design concept Refine the concept based on the customer feedback Test the experience with the customers on a high-fidelity prototype Refine the prototype Develop and deploy the solution Test customer satisfaction in production

Iterative customer-centered design process Customer Research Prototype Design Customer Validation Finalized Design Requirements Document Graphic Design Copywriting Development System testing Marketing Campaign Conversion Analysis Project Completion Project Kickoff Project Scoping Business Case Internal Reviews End User Feedback Refinements Design/Research Iterations

Acknowledge emotions during a process of change Consumer feedback is critical when proposing large-scale design changes. It also helps reassure project stakeholders. Branding is very sentimental , so only testing unbranded prototypes of a product may not completely reveal actual consumer response. Don’t be Tropicana , so in love with your own innovative redesign that you lose sight of the consumers it should appeal to. Before After Consumer response: “ I miss the orange with the straw in it.” Unintended Consequence: 20% drop in sales Image source: Google Images

Don’t rock my boat! Sources of resistance to change: End users who are comfortable with an existing product experience (notice how each Facebook “upgrade” is greeted with complaints from loyal end members) Designers who don’t want to address changing business requirements Product managers with a personal investment in a preferred or functioning design Project sponsors and managers who are focused on scope, budget and time vs. product quality Yet, these are also the parties that often influence change. Image source: Facebook.com, Twitter.com

How does Axure help us with Change? Axure facilitates an iterative low to hi-fi design process : sketching  refinement  interactions  annotations It keeps it simple so you can focus on the design, not the tool It is easy to learn (unlike DW, Photoshop or Visio) It is modular and scalable to facilitate revisions (unlike Visio or PPT) It eliminates ambiguity (unlike Visio) It requires no technical knowledge (unlike Dreamweaver) It requires no graphic design skill (unlike Photoshop) It facilitates ongoing user testing (unlike DW) It produces consistent documentation creation and simplified revisions (unlike Visio or DW)

Design changes occur at many different levels Large and small scale adjustments Site Architecture Process Flows User Interface

Features of Axure to assist quick change Variables (a favorite is PageName) Masters/templating (headers, footer, navigational elements, masters within masters) Find/replace Duplicate/copy-paste (pages, actions, objects) Versioning (on collaborative projects only) Custom widget libraries (rapid development across related projects) Custom and open-source pattern libraries (don’t recreate the wheel if you really want to reinvent the car) The prototype itself is a key tool for the change agent. It is used to communicate functional changes easily in a design review, to solicit feedback from end-users during testing, and to get buy-in from stakeholders.

Grid-based designs Ease the translation from wireframes to visual design to HTML development (I prefer 12 col 960 grids) Style guides, templates, color palettes Avoid ad-hoc stylistic changes Project process flow Define a process for handing-off deliverables between team members within iterations User testing Finalize decisions by soliciting feedback from real end users Project management Manage scope, risk and timelines while weighing business value of off-cycle change requests Other Strategies for Managing Change

Seth gets the last word “ [Through positive change and successful new techniques], organizations can defeat their slower competitors . It is our fear of changing a winning strategy and our reliance on command-and-control tactics that make us miserable – not change. Change doesn't have to be the enemy. ” - Seth Godin, Fast Company, "Survival Is Not Enough" Dec 31, 2001

Change Is Good (AxureWorld)

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Change Is Good (AxureWorld)