Digital White Papers

USING DESIGN TO IMPROVE KM Second, we mapped out the journey (as illustrated) each user would take as he or she interacted with the system and completed various tasks. We did this with the CASE users and provided it to our technology team. Now, rather than just words without STUDY context, we had a story to tell and — based on the questions raised during the workshop — it was clear we'd started the kind of conversation needed in order to design and develop a useful, usable and engaging tool for our users. Several more meetings were held to review the user requirements. As the conversation continued, we realized quickly we still needed to provide more guidance on the navigation of the system from the user's perspective. That required some deep thought about the system's architecture and a mock-up of the user interface. We provided that to the technology team, and away we went! Though it required a substantial investment of work and time on our part, we found this approach effective for both the development of the system and for future communications with the technology team. At last we seem to be speaking the same language. The extent of this approach to developing UX requirements may not be necessary for every project or at every firm. In our case, the time and effort improved our approach not just on this project, but on every project since. potential to destroy value by getting in the way of the top tasks." — Gerry McGovern, Customer Carewords 4. Sketch and/or wireframe the new UX. If you have no UX or IA lead on your project, or lack the right skills in-house, this may well fall to you. Sketching is a lightweight method for communicating design ideas and gets the team onto the same page fast. It can take the form of low-fidelity sketches of the user's journey/requirements (as illustrated in the case study) or high-fidelity wireframe mock-ups to show navigation and how content is related around a user's goal. By using sketches of the user requirements and the pages involved in completing a task, the development team can visualize the requirements for the system more easily than trying to absorb the meaning buried in your written word. "Any problem can be solved with a picture." — Dan Roam, "The Back of the Napkin" 5. Prototyping. Testing with one user early in the project is better than testing 50 near the end. Even simple paper-prototyping allows you to test your design ideas iteratively before you've committed to coding. Rather than hold a fruitless meeting on what should go where in your navigation, sketch a few alternatives and test with a couple of users. It really is priceless to watch when an issue gets uncovered in early testing — it's like one of those Homer Simpson "D'oh!" moments. "Testing with even one user is 100 percent better than testing with none." — Steve Krug, "Don't Make Me Think!" MAKE THE COMPLEX SIMPLE Adopting a UX design process in our project life cycles takes the complex needs of our lawyers and their knowledge work and makes them simple. Embrace a process such as the one on the following page that allows teams to focus on the user during

• Cover