Week 1: Background Research

This week has been all about getting up to speed and homing in on exactly what I'll be doing for this project.  My field supervisor, Robin Silberling, provided me a tailored overview late last week of what the UE team would like to me explore over the next 15 weeks.  I'll be working on a redesign of a very sticky and inconsistent piece of the Web Experience Management (WEM) interface called the "picker." Pickers are one of the defined frameworks used in the WEM product to allow users to move items around and make selections.

Example of a multi-select picker in version 8.1

I reviewed the results of summative testing done on the WEM product and problems with the picker interface were identified as two of the top 10 items needing to be addressed in the next version.  Only 40% of customers and 44% of non-customers were able to add a channel to a content item on the first try.  The team aims for an 80% success rate without help to give a task a passing score.  Some of the issues include

• The single picker and multi-picker interfaces are different
• Confusion about the red "x" icon used for the remove action, concern this meant there was an error
• Users expected to be able to select channels from the tree
• Users often didn't notice that an item had been added to the "Your Selections" area
• Confusion about the need to click the "Add Selection" button to confirm choices

I'm excited to have the chance to come up with some design improvements for these pain points.  I don't know yet if my proposal will actually be tested with users but that would be really great to see how they scored.  I have several suggestions from users and the UE team to get me started and I have started a list of my own.  I think the biggest challenge will be coming up with a unified design to satisfy the many instances in the interface where pickers are used.  My first task next week will be to sit down with a development version of WEM and use it myself to get a feel for using this product.

Project Proposal

My project proposal has officially been accepted by the University and I am registered for INF 388L for the spring 2012 semester.  Below is the working outline:

This project will give the student an opportunity to work with a user experience design team at a large corporation, helping to improve the experience of customers using OpenText software.  The student will be creating a prototype (and other information architecture-related deliverables such as wireframes) that translates business requirements for a new version of an enterprise software product (OpenText Web Experience Management 8.2) into a graphical user interface.  The student will be working within the context of established corporate UX guidelines, ensuring compatibility of interface labels, considering the impact of user flows through the system and evaluating feedback from the development team and software users.

The student will work on site at the OpenText corporate offices within the Development – R&D group as an extension of her current employment responsibilities in the IT department, which has been negotiated with her manager and agreed upon by her Field Supervisor.  The student will apply 125 hours to this project, approximately 9 hours per week for 14 weeks.  The project is scheduled to run from January 16-April 27, 2012 but could start as early as December 2011 due to changes in project planning and availability.

The Field Supervisor will meet with the student weekly to evaluate the status of the project by receiving updates on the progress of deliverables including any rework requested.  Development is expected to occur within an Agile environment utilizing Scrum methodologies, such as short daily meetings with stakeholders and work sprints.  The Faculty Advisor will meet with the student and the Field Supervisor at least once on site to monitor project status.

The culminating product will be a prototype of a UI which will be used by Engineering to develop release 8.2 of OpenText Web Experience Management.

And So It Begins

It's been a long, long time since I tried to blog--I just don't have that much to say all that often.  But, as a way to keep my faculty adviser apprised of my capstone project, I have set up this blog.  And I think it will be a nice, historical record for myself as well down the road.  The title, User Experience Design in Enterprise Software is more of a working title that I came up with for my project proposal so it might change over time, who knows.  I'll post the project proposal in another entry; this was was just to get the ball rolling.

I struggled with whether to install Wordpress on my own domain and host the blog there, or use a standalone service like Blogger; whether to create a blog for me or just for this project--I tend to over think things.  This time, I've decided for now that 1) I can always move this blog to my own domain and 2) nothing precludes me from posting non-capstone related stuff here if I feel like it. :D  Thanks for coming along with me!