Did I get your attention? Today in our BA/UX meeting our new, very consumer-oriented UX person asked why he is sent to our business representatives to get answers instead of having access to users. It made me realize how different our process in creating enterprise applications is from the process recommended in UX consumer-driven design
Don't get me wrong. Our employees do the work and the applications need to be designed to support them. But the process to complete the work takes center stage. In the enterprise you don't get to allow employees to define the process they would prefer to follow or even maybe currently follow to design a new application or update an old one. There are far more important things that matter to business such as adhering to government compliance and regulations and performing tasks expediently in a predetermined order or process.
Many large and international companies have a group that determines the processes that must be followed by employees all over the enterprise and adhering to that process is closely measured. If you were to allow employees to determine the process to be followed, the first casualty would be company data, the second would be your customers.
This isn't to say that users shouldn't be listened to when it comes to process. They're the first ones to tell us when something is broken or won't work for them. In my company process changes are taken out to the field to make sure the will work. But I'm sure that doesn't happen in all companies and especially when it comes to new government regulations.
UX's responsibility is to design applications that follow business processes. A well designed application keeps users in the system and makes them successful both to themselves and for the company.My goal as a UXer is to give my user a good day at work while creating value for the company.
I rely heavily on my business analyst to ask the right questions about what the expected process is. Then we go out and we ask users what does that process look like in real life. We look for workarounds and pain points where the current business process doesn't work. I look for places where our employee's current tools do and don't work, where they have improvised and with what. Business and our process group determines why process isn't working for various branches and what should be done for those issues. Working with business analysts and developers, I figure out what changes to the current or new application should be made based on those process changes.
I still do the other work that consumer-side UXers do to understand my users and integrate it into my design: user research, personas, prototyping, wire framing, usability testing, SUS surveys, focus groups, and work flows, etc. My design must support how users think about their work and how they use technology. A good design means that our training department is training our process, not the tool that has been created to fulfill that process.
Don't get me wrong. Our employees do the work and the applications need to be designed to support them. But the process to complete the work takes center stage. In the enterprise you don't get to allow employees to define the process they would prefer to follow or even maybe currently follow to design a new application or update an old one. There are far more important things that matter to business such as adhering to government compliance and regulations and performing tasks expediently in a predetermined order or process.
Many large and international companies have a group that determines the processes that must be followed by employees all over the enterprise and adhering to that process is closely measured. If you were to allow employees to determine the process to be followed, the first casualty would be company data, the second would be your customers.
This isn't to say that users shouldn't be listened to when it comes to process. They're the first ones to tell us when something is broken or won't work for them. In my company process changes are taken out to the field to make sure the will work. But I'm sure that doesn't happen in all companies and especially when it comes to new government regulations.UX's responsibility is to design applications that follow business processes. A well designed application keeps users in the system and makes them successful both to themselves and for the company.My goal as a UXer is to give my user a good day at work while creating value for the company.
I rely heavily on my business analyst to ask the right questions about what the expected process is. Then we go out and we ask users what does that process look like in real life. We look for workarounds and pain points where the current business process doesn't work. I look for places where our employee's current tools do and don't work, where they have improvised and with what. Business and our process group determines why process isn't working for various branches and what should be done for those issues. Working with business analysts and developers, I figure out what changes to the current or new application should be made based on those process changes.
I still do the other work that consumer-side UXers do to understand my users and integrate it into my design: user research, personas, prototyping, wire framing, usability testing, SUS surveys, focus groups, and work flows, etc. My design must support how users think about their work and how they use technology. A good design means that our training department is training our process, not the tool that has been created to fulfill that process.
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