How to Hire a Head of User Experience
Head of anything is evocative of responsibility, power and knowledge, but what does Head of User Experience (UX) really mean and how do you know if your getting one?
User experience in its value and effectiveness is geographical and sector based, that is to say it means different things to different people by country, by business and by route to the role (in-house HR or agency service). With this many variants how can anyone be sure that they have hired a Head of User Experience?
One of my colleagues in a recent contract described User Experience as turning the turd (poo) into a piece of glitter covered turd. If this is the expectation it's not really surprising if the wrong people get senior roles, then the incompetent lead.
What I want to show is some basic indicators about hiring a Head of User Experience;
Please don't be offended if it's what you do for a living (recruitment or employment agent), glean what you can and discard anything you don't need. 
Who, What, When, Where, Why.
Who do they know and how do they deal with them?
They must know users; understand user drivers and perspective for every project just as they must know the client stakeholders and leaders with the environment that they are working in. The level of knowledge will vary, as much of the information is second hand from Lead and Senior designers or researchers. But the Head of UX will have both their own knowledgebase and be able to elicit extra business and strategic information not visible to other ux practitioners.
Can they let their team work or do they micro-manage? It’s really important when working with a new (to the Head of UX) team that the teams strengths are encouraged and supported. UX is one of those skill sets where diversity of experience is critical in evolving multiple parallel project solutions within a team of peers. Giving the team rights over the group output is critical to maintain quality and to challenge narrow thinking. How they manage, mentor and train people is key to the future of the team? How will they deal with internal applicants for the job they have just got? Conflict is a given in any location where people are, what are their stratagies for conflict? Watch out for people with an 'I problem' if it's all about them they cannot see other people. Get references from colleagues as well as employers, you can find them as connections on Linkedin.
What do they do for a living, how do they describe themselves, their ux work and their colleagues?
How do they describe what they do for a living, a couple of years ago recruitment agencies where told by someone that ux people only focus on the user and that should be their response when ask who they focus their efforts on. Wrong, ux is a service that is based on creating a meeting point between people, organisations/businesses > providers and products/services > content. Any Head of User Experience who does not know this is not a Head of User Experience, it’s a business. It’s a great business that gives an audience access to the content they are looking for, makes it easy to interact with and enables communication with the content provider, but it’s still a business. Watch out for divas they upset clients and stakeholders alike a Head of UX is a savvy business person and knows which things to fight for and which things to mitigate as a risk.
Do they have a process? Can they describe the process and where it came from, how it has evolved through their experiences and which projects made the most change or option routes for it.
When did they acquire their skills?
People involved in user experience who have the kind of experience to be a Head of User Experience come from diverse backgrounds. A colleague of mine started in the US DoD (in the 1980’s) designing graphic manuals for troop training and another NATO information systems. Find out what else they have done and how they evaluate their experiences, because their experience underwrites their other skills and gives them a breadth of understanding about various sectors that may not be on their CV’s. For instance I have had lots of experience setting up business banking accounts, some really lousy (maybe for another post), some grossly inefficient (some excuses of epic proportions) and others utterly fabulous. Ask them to describe an experience, evaluate it and provide a solution to any problem they have encountered. For people like us it’s easy, for example I’ve had a fix for the supermarket self checkout bottleneck for years, it’s obvious.
User Experience in its current form is a fairly recent naming when I meet practitioners with experience before 2005 described as user experience, I know there is something wrong depending on where in the world they say they got their experience.
Where and with whom do they associate?
Confirming the professional level of a person is now quite easy with Linkedin, connect with them and have a look at their connections, if they don't know any senior people outside of ux they are not senior themselves. It's a cultural thing we tend to mix with people at or above our own level when thinking professionally, occasionally people come on the radar where they a worth following to see where their career goes. Yes, Linkedin again, if you don't use it, you won't know what your missing.
Why do they think they fit?
Based upon their research, they should know enough about the role, the people, the ethos and the clients or stakeholders to be able to pitch a reason why they fit in.
Don’t ask a Head of User Experience;
Don't ask for a portfolio asks for a presentation. Presentation ability is required when working the board of directors, client stakeholders and when conducting pitches with new business or internal advocacy. Look for the narrative, a really good ux presentation has a story that it's telling 'What is UX?', 'How can UX help my business?', 'Project name UX concepts', 'Project name user stories' etc. Also look for substance over style, the presentation must be meaningful and hint at critical thinking and creative talent, really flashy presentations make me concerned when they lack any real information, interpretation of data or concepts that have a provable pathway from researched insights.
Finally get references
I mean get real references, as if your job depended upon it, because it and your future reputation do. User Experience is still a small field, when someone with little or no experience gets a Head of User Experience role the first question we all ask is what was the agency that did this? When I am really unsure of an applicant (due diligence is critical in client services) I use a private detective, just give them the CV and ask for verification.
User experience as a process
Process thinking in user experience
The first step in user experience needs to be the recognition that every problem is different and will require a separate solution. Because if they are not, then every business is the same which they are clearly not.
In effect there is no quick fix or standard method but rather there is an armoury of methods each with associated risks, limitations and plus points. Anyone offering a standardise method without flexibility should be ask to leave as they about to cost you a fortune.
Offering user experience services is a bit like dungeons and dragons in that you role your 12 sided dice and hope the business does not throw some trolls at you.
I have worked with very well known agencies who are unable to get their clients to understand the importance of user experience - research, testing and design as they focus on the design component without proper understanding that it is only one part of a three stage process. The reason that clients give for not paying for research and testing is the assumption that user experience people a such great experts that they can do their job in total isolation from the business and the end users. Maybe 'Super User Experience Person' does exist but I doubt it, more importantly users change.
Some process steps for user experience
This process list is based on personal experience and is open to reduction or extension based upon just how savvy the client is and how must they really want to be successful rather than just being seen to be doing something.
1. Understand the problem
2. Do research
3. Analyse research
4. Get validation
5. Compose concepts
6. Create buy-in
7. Define the audience (actors)
8. Create personas
8.1 Research
9. Define critical tasks
9.1 Research
10. Define key pathways
10.1 Main pathway
10.2 Alternative pathways
10.3 Failure pathways
11. Set the tone of voice
11.1 Type of language
11.2 Level of formality
11.3 Use of jargon, brand identity or subject specific words
11.4 Content style
11.4.1 Meta standards
11.4.2 Content object model
11.5 SEO if web based
12: Wireframes
12.1 Selection of type & method
12.1 Wireframe Concepts
12.1.1 User testing
12.2 Wireframe sketches
- Client sign off
12.3 Wireframe prototypes
12.3.1 User testing
- Client review
12.4 Wireframe & Visual design integration
13. Functional specification & analytics specification
- Pass to development
14. Usability Test plan
15. Accessibility Test plan
16. Functional & Content Test plan
17. Testing handover with participant screening document
18. Review testing results
19. Modify labels, interactions & structure in line with findings
20. Done, until .....
21. Check interactions based upon analytics and more user testing.
22. Offer enhancements to clients.
Supporting users with design principals
User centred design (UCD)
User centred design (UCD) is a project approach that puts the intended users (audience) of a product or piece of technology at the centre of its research, design and development. It does this by talking directly to the user at key points in the project to make sure the product or piece of technology will deliver upon their perceived requirements and align the client with their users or consumers.
Supporting general interactive behaviours
New systems must comply with but not limited to the following provisions;
Provide context and orientation information
Provide context and orientation information to help users understand;
- Where they are
- What it’s for
- How to use
the complex pages or elements that they are viewing.
Provide location indication that consistent across all interfaces, which is not part of navigation. This is to help users know explicitly where they are and what data is shown so that they can be confident about their activities.
Grouping elements and providing contextual information about the relationships between elements can be useful for all users. Complex relationships between parts of a page may be difficult for people with any type of cognitive disability and people with visual disabilities to interpret. Regardless of the working environment no two people think exactly the same way this divergence is based upon the various inputs and experience they have. Recognising variance and synergy in knowledge is a key finding from pilot studies that support the creation of personas and user scenarios.
Provide clear navigation mechanisms
Provide clear and consistent navigation mechanisms;
- Orientation information
- Navigation schema
- Sub navigation
- In app/widget controls
- Site map
- Help
- Glossaries
- Comparable experiences (to their other business or outside work experiences)
Interactive behaviours to increase the likelihood that a person will find what they are looking for and be able to interact with it.
Clear and consistent navigation mechanisms are important to people with cognitive disabilities or blindness, but fundamentally benefit all users and enable rapid adoption, reuse and buy-in.
Provide explicit interactive behaviours
Users require an absolute learning environment in order to quickly review and adopt new technologies.
The interactive behaviours of any system they use should make logical and emotional sense.
Interactive logic is driven by expectation, in that if a user clicks on text that is underlined they expect to go to another page related to that text (a hyperlink) therefore if text is blue and underlined but does not take the user to a new page, a user will doubt the technology and themselves as it creates insecurities. Other considerations related to interactive logic are about an expectation of delivery in that if a user clicks on a chart they expect to see the data behind it.
Interactive emotion was touched on in the previous point and is related to confusion, insecurities, doubt and conflicting emotions driven by unexpected interactions. Users when arriving at the wrong location in software expect the back button (if web service) to take them to the previous screen. In software they expect a link or return to last page. If the developer had locked pages or not considered a user wanting to go backwards or sideways in a planned pathway, the user will feel trapped, this is an interactive emotion. The users invested (time, knowledge) activity (purpose, task) has been trapped (voided, considered worthless) in a process and their perception is that they are unimportant.
The more users' expectations prove right, the more users will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users' expectations, the more they will feel insecure.
Ensure that text is clear and simple
Ensure that text is clear and simple so they may be more easily understood. Consistent title location, page layout, recognisable icons and easy to understand language benefit all users. However where users require subject specific language based upon their activities a glossary is advised to support the constant churn in user involvement.
Opening New Windows
Opening up new window is like a polluting a user screen it creates a loss of focus and no matter how great a mind a user has they will still lose their place when checking where they are in a process or task across multiple partially visible or hidden screens.
Designers open new windows on the theory that it keeps users focused on their system or it delineates separate activity. This creates a user hostile message and is self defeating since it breaks any trust in the delivery of technology that make users life better.
Non-Standard use of GUI Widgets
Consistency is one of the most powerful best practice principles. When things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen base upon their earlier experience.
The worst consistency violations in technology are found in the use of GUI widgets such as radio buttons and checkboxes. The appropriate behaviour of these design elements is defined in the Windows Vista User Experience standard, the Macintosh human interface standard, and the Java UI standard. Which of these standards to follow depends on the platform used by the majority of your users, but it hardly matters for the most basic widgets since all the standards have close-to-identical rules.
Slow Server Response Times
Slow response times are the worst offender against user expectations.
Users don't care why response times are slow. All they know is that the technology doesn't offer good service. Slow response times often translate directly into a reduced level of trust and they always cause a loss of use and adoption as users find a work around.
Use of colour
Ensure that text and graphics are understandable when viewed without colour. If colour alone is used to convey information, people who cannot differentiate between certain colours and users with devices that have non-colour or non-visual displays will not receive the information.
When foreground and background colours are too close to the same hue, they may not provide sufficient contrast when viewed using monochrome displays or by people with different types of colour deficits.
Ensure user control of time sensitive content changes
Ensure that content that changes does so in a manner that is obvious or had a secondary advisory so that users are made aware of that change.
Design for device independence
Use features that enable activation of page elements via a variety of input devices.
Basic UX design patterns
Principles
Pre-accepted and trusted visual standards are vital to user acceptance and experience as they encourage adoption of technology systems. This is vital so that users don’t need to learn new or counter intuitive interaction behaviours.
Overview
Just as the creators of hypertext transfer protocol (http) were able to attribute their invention to Vannevar Bush’s ‘Memex’ so user interface architects are able to attribute the key concepts of user interface structures to principals defined by Gestalt. The following explains the key principals of user interface design as key patterns based upon Gestalt principals.
Karl's Research
The psychology of visual location, shape and colour are critical to enable user to understand and interpret their location and expectations of use in any given area. My research from 2002 defined additional aspects as 'biographical templates' that establish key perceptions and personal drivers which I linked to persona's.
Key patterns
Law of continuation
Continuation is the eye’s instinctive action to follow a direction derived from the visual field. For example, in Figure 1.1 our eyes follow the rail tracks from the left of the picture to the top or vice versa, with Figure 1.2 the eye follows the text box layout.
Figure 1.1: Rail tracks directing users view
Figure 1.2: Text boxes directing users view
Law of figure-ground
We distinguish the foreground and background in a visual field. Two different foreground colours let the viewer perceive different things from the same illustration, as illustrated in Figures 2.1 and 2.2. If our focus (foreground) colour is black, then in the Figure 2.1, you can see a vase. In Figure 2.2, when the background is black, we see two faces.
Figure 2.1: Vase
Figure 2.2: Two Faces
Law of closure
Open shapes make the individual perceive that the visual pattern is incomplete and the sense of incompletion serves as a distraction to the learner.” Our minds will tend to close gaps and complete unfinished forms. In Figure 3 the letters used to form the word “INCOMPLETE” are sliced into parts but our minds complete the unfinished forms.
Figure 3: Law of Closure
Law of balance / symmetry
A visual object will appear as incomplete if the visual object is not balanced or symmetrical. A psychological sense of equilibrium, or balance, is usually achieved when visual ‘weight’ is placed evenly on each side of an axis for example, Figure 4.1 illustrates visual balance but in Figure 4.2 the image appears unbalanced.
Balance Figures 4.1: Blocks and Web page template
Imbalance 4.2: Blocks and Web page template
Law of focal point
Every visual presentation needs a focal point, called the centre of interest or point of emphasis. This focal point catches the viewer’s attention and persuades the viewer to follow the visual message further. Figure 5.1 shows how a differently shaped element appears to protrude out from among other elements and draws attention, 5.2 create high impact.
Figure 5.1: Changing Shapes
Figure 5.2: High impact
Law of isomorphic correspondence
All images do not have the same meaning to us, because we interpret their meanings based on our experiences. If we were to see the image in Figure 6 on a computer screen, we would interpret its meaning as a help or question icon, even if we could not understand the German word “Hilfe” because we associate a question mark with ‘help’ based on past experience.
Figure 6: Help Icon
Law of proximity
The law of proximity states that items placed near each other appear to be a group. Viewers will mentally organise closer elements into a coherent object, because they assume that closely spaced elements are related and those further apart are unrelated. In Figure 7, people mentally arrange the sign in component together as a form.
Figure 7 Hotmail login mind base joining of form
Law of unity / harmony
Unity implies that a congruity or arrangement exists among the elements in a design; they look as though they belong together, as though there is some visual connection beyond mere chance that has caused them to come together. If the related objects do not appear within the same form, the viewer will consider the separate objects to be unrelated to the main visual design, leading to confusion. Figure 8.1 and 8.2 are examples of unity in presentation where all of objects are arranged together into a unified form.
Figure 8.1: Hotmail, password problems
Figure 8.2: Apple, password problems
Law of Similarity
Similar objects will be counted as the same group and this technique can be used to draw a viewer’s attention. Below in Figure 9 the viewer can recognise a triangle inside the square, because these elements look similar and thus part of the same form.
Figure 9: Similarity creates a focal point
Law of Simplicity
When users are presented with visuals, there is an unconscious effort to simplify what is perceived into what the viewer can understand. The simplification works well if the graphical message is already uncluttered, but if the graphics are complex and open to interpretation the simplification process may lead to unintended conclusions. The example below Figure 10:1 shows the Plough star grouping which people can naturally join together, while Figure 10:2 just shows the Sky
Figure 10.1: The Plough
Figure 10.2: The sky
References
Chang, D., Nesbitt, K., V., Australian Computer Society, 2006. Developing Gestalt-based design guidelines for multi-sensory displays. MMUI '05: Proceedings of the 2005 NICTA-HCSNet Multimodal User Interaction Workshop - Volume 57 , Volume 57.
Kearsley, G., Campbell, R., L., Elkerton, J., Judd, W., Walker, J., SIGCHI conference. 1998. Online help systems: design and implementation issues (panel). CHI '88: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems.
Flieder, K., Modrritscher, F., CHI Montreal 2006. Foundations of a Pattern Language based on Gestalt Principals.
Usability and Accessibility Legislation
International projects should be constructed in consideration of the most stringent standards this is expected to be those pertaining to the USA, but also to include ISO9241 guidelines;
Australia
Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission - http://www.hreoc.gov.au/
The Act provides key legal standards which inform their Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/dda1992264).
Their disability standards and guidelines are hosted at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/standards/standards.html.
Canada
Canadian Human Rights Act and the Employment Equity Act 1976-1977 (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/H-6/relprov.html )
Treasury board of Canada Secretariat
The Equity and Diversity Directorate of the Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC) - http://commissiondelafonctionpubliqueducanada.com/research/world_ps/canada_e.htm
Europe
The Euro Accessibility Consortium, launched in Paris on April 28th 2003 is intended to foster European co-operation toward a harmonised methodology for evaluating the accessibility of Web sites (see http://www.ddm.gouv.fr/dossiers_thematiques/documents/cisi2003f.html). This initiative is a joint undertaking by 23 organisations from all over Europe and the W3C/WAI (http://www.euroaccessibility.org/).
An overview of European legislation, not specific to the Internet, is available at Horizontal European Activities in Rehabilitation Technology (HEART) http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/heart.html.
New Zealand
New Zealand is served by the New Zealand Disability strategy administered by the Office for Disability issues (http://www.odi.govt.nz/nzds/).
United Kingdom
In the UK, the legislative initiatives are aligned with the Disability Discrimination Act and equal opportunities directives.
- Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995, 1999 - www.disability.gov.uk - http://www.disability.gov.uk; http://www.disability.gov.uk/dda/index.html; http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/1995050.htm
- Disability rights commission act 1999 - http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1999/19990017.htm
Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001) - http://www.dcs-gb.net/part4dda.html
United States of America
In the United States there is strong governmental support that has led to about 11 pieces of disability legislation. The key legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990) which applies to all walks of life was effected in 1992 during the George Bush (Snr) administration.
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 1990; 1995 - http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/
- Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act (1986; amended 1998) - http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/508home.html
- Workforce Investment Act 1998 - http://usworkforce.org
Report on application of ADA - http://www.rit.edu/~easi/law/weblaw1.htm
Translate
Switch site
Twitter Updates
- After seeing the http://t.co/3e6fV6UA boom and bust, I know business model is important revenue is critical. http://t.co/df6Kprl2 3 days ago
- I still keep seeing graphic designed UI without any UX thinking so 'Less UX fluff and more Proof of the pudding' http://t.co/NUBfyZfx 6 days ago
- When I did my exec training in the 1990's this sort of thing was described as a key indicator of a disconnect between vision and capability… 1 week ago
- The sad thing with British Airways, I was in T5 trying and failing to book a ticket. I want to buy, they want to sell http://t.co/sg4V6mdR 1 week ago
- British Airways security update stops ticket sales « Karl Smith User Experience Architect (UEA) http://t.co/htJxLsuA via @Digg 1 week ago
- Does the 'have a go' attitude of many companies detract from real digital strategy?: http://t.co/e3KbdQjF 1 week ago
- http://t.co/HYOeiOy3 You don't allow changes during a sprint, you suspend or review tasks and put them back into the backlog, but you... 1 week ago
- Writing strategies for digitalization corporations since 2002 that have business process change, market movement, governance and technology. 1 week ago
- http://t.co/Nfmsw2lO I have been writing stratagies for digitalization for major corporations since 2002. Digital changes every day but... 1 week ago
- http://t.co/5bP9W37b UX research and design can evolve in Agile however the framework should be established 1 or 2 iteration before... 2 weeks ago