DISCOVERY-- a Deeper Defining of our Audience

So last week we talked about "User-Centered Design". Another word often connected to User-Centered Design is this one: usability.

Usability is defined as "the degree to which something - software, hardware or anything else - is easy to use and a good fit for the people who use it." (upassoc.org; above emphasis added)

I like this definition because it encompasses what is intrinsic to something that is usable, that it’s "a good fit for the people who use it."

How can we know if something is a good fit?

If you were a tailor, creating a suit to fit a customer, how would you ensure that what you created for the customer would fit not only the person himself, but also his expectations? The occasion? What he would be using the suit for?

You would begin by asking for information about the customer right? What's the occasion he's going to be attending? Where is he going to wear the suit? What is his style? You would also begin by taking his measurements, right? And then creating that suit to what you measured.

http://www.cartoonstock.com/

By discovering all of this information, you are narrowing in on what you have to create to "fit" this customer, but also increasing the possibility that what you create for him will make him happy and satisfied (and a returning customer, you hope!) You are also saving fabric that you might have used if you had guessed the man's size, accidently made it too small, and then had to recreate it.

Or maybe, instead of asking him up front what occasion the suit was for, you created the suit in a couple different types of fabric just to make sure. In this case, you would have spent extra time, energy and resources trying to "pinpoint" what might be right instead of spending extra time up front on "measuring" and ensuring that you identified all the "fit points".

I want to show you a BEFORE and AFTER scenario to illustrate how Discovery (or going deeper in defining who our audience is and what they need to do) can lead to a different product (than what we may create without this process) and often, one better suited or that "fits better"--to the needs of the customer.

The first version of the teachers' website was fashioned from ideas, brainstorming sessions, and wouldn't it be cool conversations.

 BEFORE taking the Customers' measurements

The IT staff spent hours and days and months fashioning these features into an interface that we'd hoped would WOW our customers. And then we asked some of our customers to try it. And boy did we learn. We brought teachers in and watched as they struggled through the different pages and tried to remember where to go next.

We saw how it wasn't clear where to go to find what they were looking for. We saw confusion about what features were called. We learned that even though we gave them control over student accounts, for them, this scenario wasn't the best way of solving the common student "I forgot my password" problem. We learned a lot. And then we made changes

The second version of the teachers' website could be called simple. But honestly, its functionality far surpasses anything we've offered teachers before, it’s organized in a way that teachers are used to, it refers to buttons and pages using language that is familiar to teachers and ultimately, it allows the teacher to complete their identified tasks quickly and efficiently.

AFTER taking the Customers' measurements

We arrived at version two through discovery—through taking measurements--listening to, watching and observing: what tasks the customers were trying to complete.

Tasks/Requirements

• Check the student book for the page number they need to assign for reading-this required that they have access to the student text/site from the teacher site
• Look at the unit test/customize for different classes. this required that the test be available in formats that were customizable
• Access teaching Manual from home to check on activity-this required that the Teacher Guide also be available online so that the teacher could access this even if their print book was at school

The above tasks & requirements, along with others identified, formed the skeleton and the base structure for what became the second teachers’ site. This base gave IT clear direction on what the teacher was trying to do. IT and design could then concentrate their time, energy and resources on coding/developing/designing those pieces necessary for teachers to successfully complete the above tasks.

That's how the discovery process (taking the customer measurements and defining more deeply our customer's tasks) helps to pinpoint the product specifications that allow a product to go from an "okay fit" for the customer to a "great fit and a great experience".


To see the BEFORE and AFTER example of the teacher site-in a larger format:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/66111958/Before-and-After-the-Discovery-Process