UCD Team Mission: Item Analysis

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Original Question

The instructions above the text box where respondents typed their data read: The Team's Mission and/or Responsibilities.

Results

Discussion

In addition to critiquing mission statements, an item analysis was performed where mission statements were decomposed and phrases were categorized according to activity/service/mission type.

Mission statements were parsed as follows: 

• Some mission statements had phrases that fell into more than one category. These phrases incremented the counts of each of those categories. Hence, for 100 respondents, the sum of the category frequencies can exceed 100 since each mission statement may contain instances of more than one category.
• Some mission statements had several phrases that fell into one category. This would only increment the category once. 
• 26 mission statements were blank (8), stated they did not have a mission statement (1), or unusable (17). Unusable mission statements typically included a list of skills instead of a list of responsibilities or services. While it was possible to infer services from a list of skills, this was not done. These were categorized as "Nothing Relevant." For purposes of interpreting the chart, consider the overall response rate for this question to be 74. (100 total minus 26 Nothing Relevant equals 74.) 

After reading 100 mission statements and reviewing the results of the item analysis, it is apparent that the majority fly in the face of Kreitzberg and Shneiderman's advice:

“The way in which we deliver the message must be pointed and unambiguous.  While among ourselves we will surely continue to debate nuances, outside the usability community we must deliver punch and clarity”.

Granted, the way respondents may have dashed off the answer to this question may have been more haphazard than how they would explain their mission to their CIO. Be that as it may, the vast majority of these mission statements or descriptions of responsibilities fell prey to the following problems:

• Were a laundry list of UCD activities.
• Listed the skills and abilities of staff members without indicating what the team actually does.
• Did not explain (except for one respondent) how their activities will impact the business.

If you have to build a mission statement, browsing the following phrases may give you ideas for useful verbiage. However, be careful to ensure that your mission is stated with "punch and clarity."

Specific Phrases from Mission Statements 

Misc. UCD Activities

• conduct a usability test
• Our developers and IAs use a variety of techniques (a pot-luck, if you will) of Use Cases and UML and of Extreme Programming.
• commissioned a usability study
• User experience audits, usability testing, heuristic analyses
• testing, customer site visits, contextual inquiry sessions, scenario writing
• usability testing
• which we test against sample user groups
• User profiles, task analysis, heuristic evaluation, user testing
• initial customer research, task analysis, focus groups, personas, through lab testing
• customer centered research activities around new product definition, user interface design, and usability testing.
• usability evaluation
• watching and listening to our users using a variety of usability methodologies
• usability testing
• GUI review.
• usability testing
• conduct appropriate usability testing
• Usability evaluations of our software products
• Usability Testing, Human Factors, Heuristic Evaluation
• I work with development teams to conduct usability testing
• Usability testing of product after implementation
• usability testing.
• usability activities
• facilitating labs *
• develop a user research and user testing program for internal use
• designs and facilitates usability tests, creates reports.
• usability testing
• manage the full usability lifecycle from requirements gathering to usability testing
• usability evaluations,
• Usability Testing
• provide usability evaluation
• We perform usability tests and evaluations,
• Instill usability and other best-practice design elements
• conduct usability tests.
• running usability tests, analyzing the results and suggesting improvements
• To design and validate quality products by employing usability techniques
• Usability study planning, recruiting, moderating, reporting, etc.
• Providing usability support in form of Human Factors Research, Prototyping, Documentation, Graphics Design, and text editing.
• heuristic reviews, usability testing, workplace observation, task analysis
• usability consulting - very usability study oriented with little interaction with the client once studies have been conducted
• carry out usability testing.
• review all web materials, take notes and ask questions
• system evaluation
• a first look and hints and tips on usability
• Most of our ""usability"" consists of my strong arming people to do a dry run through a product
• conducting usability reviews
• Evaluates existing site usability,
• perform expert reviews for existing and updated products
• focus on all aspects of our users' experience
• develop and execute user research studies conduct field studies to learn more about users
• determine user needs
• identify and evaluate usability problems
• we are responsible for the ""user experience"" of site,
• do upfront customer needs research;
• To understand the customer experience
• We conduct user research to gather data that influences all phases of product design.
• review user feedback
• Helping other people around the company get good customer feedback (surveys, interviews, usability tests of their own, etc.)
• we put it out with a ""feedback"" button, then we (I) collect the data and update in 3-6 months
• do beta follow-ups with customers
• gather user data through focus groups, interviews and surveys;

Affect Product Design

• design learning modules
• create [product] interface
• usability design
• translate user research results into concepts, prototypes, and interaction models
• design and development of the information structure, navigation, and visual/artistic elements of the company’s products/applications.
• UI recommendations, prototype design & creation,
• We take the requirements document and create designs
• redesign recommendations and storyboarding
• Stimulate, design and implement usable concepts for large, interactive web sites.
• prototyping
• I stepped up to do the design.
• make necessary adjustments to the corporate intranet
• make recommendations
• architecture, usability, and UI design.
• Create information architecture for websites
• design the user interface and visual interactions for our products
• User Interface Design,
• User centered design through use cases and iterative low-fidelity prototyping
• design new internet services
• Oversee all content development, management
• designs and wire frames site structures
• paper prototyping of work we do for clients,
• user interface design sessions
• UI Design
• interface design
• responsible for some interaction design,
• do UI design and architecture,
• Provide information architecture support to developers
• lead interaction design
• Design user interfaces
• We are responsible for mocking up designs,
• To design and validate quality products by employing usability techniques
• Some design recommendations, though we are partnered with a separate group devoted to design
• Providing usability support in form of Human Factors Research, Prototyping, Documentation, Graphics Design, and text editing.
• create prototypes,

Make It Better

• improve the level of usability achieved in our software products
• insure that user needs, business requirements, and design goals are achieved
• ensure that user goals are consistently with web site features and functionality
• provide the end user with an easy to learn and use interface
• I have overall responsibility for the usability of the site
• Accompany web products from the start to the end of their development and ensure user-centeredness of their design.
• ensures that users have a positive and productive experience
• To ensure that the sites developed are navigable and easy to use
• delivering an improved customer experience on the Web
• To improve the ease of use of a suite of products.
• enhance their usability and utility
• make all our products consistent with each other, make them easier to use, and easier to learn
• make our Web site more user-focused
• assurance of usability of web based learning units.
• Assisting the company in making all internet applications easy to use, easy to learn, and useful.
• develop world-class software, increase user satisfaction with the software.
• improve company products by implementing user-centered design techniques
• Use discount usability techniques on prototypes and beta products to assure fit to users and use.
• our goal is to have the interface easy enough to understand and use that users can figure it our for themselves. As much as possible, we try to fit the interface to the users' tasks and need
• Design usable products that will increase market share.
• to translate that into new and better products and services for our customers.
• Help improve user interface for internal product.

Raise Awareness

• raise the level of usability awareness throughout the company
• Champion UCD and usability concepts within the company
• Reports from these evaluations are shared with the development team
• make people within the company realize the importance of an iterative design process
• Introduce UCD process into the software development process.
• Promote usability testing and the use-centered design process.
• We explain usability, show every-day-life examples and then teach them
• Evangelize UCD across the company.
• I will work with one assigned person who is learning about usability.

Contribute to Development

• implement [product] interface
• design and development of the information structure, navigation, and visual/artistic elements of the company’s products/applications.
• Stimulate, design and implement usable concepts for large, interactive web sites.
• To develop and maintain intranet programs and sites for our Customer services.
• do usability testing,
• we are now beginning to contribute to documentation, the corporate web site, and training modules as well.
• We are also responsible for writing online help and messages for the final product.
• Providing usability support in form of Human Factors Research, Prototyping, Documentation, Graphics Design, and text editing.
• Performance support - documentation/online help, training development and electronic training delivery

Write Reference Documents

• to develop a set of standards for the development team to apply to new development
• Set the standard and vision for all UI, visual design, and user assistance company-wide
• publishing usability web guidelines
• guidelines,
• develop, maintain, and improve detailed req't spec's
• Our job is to write a very general usability handbook, a QM-document for a user centered development process (as ISO 13407 proposes), a style guide

Other

• implement reusable elements
• structure the information so it is re-usable
• I will then be responsible for developing software change requests
• looks out for the latest technology advancements
• watch server logs

Expected Benefits

Only one respondent listed expected benefits to the business in a lucid manner.

• Expected benefits from making recommended changes to the applications include reduced Help Desk calls, increased user workflow efficiency and effectiveness, diminished user training time, increased customer satisfaction, and reduced development time and cost.

Phrases Categorized as Nothing Relevant

• everyone has multiple roles developing a [product]
• To bridge the gap between the business and the technology teams
• Our team is comprised of professionals with experience in qualitative and quantitative research, user interface design and usability testing methodologies
• This is a very hard question for a consultant to answer because it varies so widely.
• I consult with clients and work with their team.
• user researcher - user studies, usability study, data miner - stats, logs prototyper - html, JavaScript, usability skills myself - director
• Makeup: 1 - IA, 1 - Junior IA Main mission: Develop a UCD process for national online development teams Specialties: Psychology
• I do usability studies Usability Specialist plus 7 designers
• To consult and test current and future online initiatives
• Developer Interaction Designer Information Designer
• I am the Usability Specialist
• Support all internal applications developed for customer support (we do not support the public website).
• Each team member is matrixed out to one or more project teams, and generally works on each project for the whole life cycle.
• Provide support to company web developers
• Each person works for a different segment of the company.
• Each of our Usability Consultants have the following skills: Gathering Usability Requirements Designing a Usability strategy Preparing/running User Evaluations Contributing to Heuristic Evaluations Information Architecture Task Analysis Abstract Navigation Developing Conceptual models Creating lo-fi protos Writing UI Guidelines Training UI and UCD courses Can work on Web, Gui, Wap.