Check Your Ego at the Door:
Turning Collaboration into Lifestyle Improvements

- Lance Christmann, Chief Experience Designer, EffectiveUI

In the world of rich Internet application (RIA) development, we joke that ego is a four-letter word. When assembling a production team, the four core values I look for in people are humility, intelligence, passion and talent. It’s highly important for team members to recognize that their decisions may not ultimately be the best ones for the specific situation and time. With talented people and a healthy shot of humility, designers and developers can engage in close collaboration to achieve targeted business goals by creating the most compelling, efficient, usable and enjoyable user experience possible.

Many companies mistakenly assign designers the sole responsibility of devising user experiences. The resulting designs are then turned over to developers to implement, with varying levels of success. Often, when strictly linear workflows are followed, designs cannot be realized due to the constraints of the technology, and features or projects get scrapped when in fact they should be iterated.

Rather than silo the design and development processes, I believe that organizations need to provide a culture in which the two functions are intertwined. Great user experiences are created around what is possible to develop and implement while pushing the limits of both disciplines. There should be a close relationship between design and development team members, with both groups totally dedicated to user experience and acceptance.

Who Are You?

Software development has taken on a variety of forms and methodologies in its tumultuous past. Every company I have ever come across has its own variation of the process. While there is no perfect process, there are definitely ideals that each company strives for. As a result, organizations create individual flavors of development processes that usually conform to the culture and management of the organization or team.

With the advent of RIA technologies, a new trend is permeating the process of development. It is getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a designer and a developer. The silos are blurring and conversations are merging. Part of this is due to the emergence of new RIA technologies.

HTML, CSS, Flash, Javascript, PHP, .NET, Java … many designer-developers started their careers with these tools. The curious thing about web history is that designers and developers began to learn each other’s language. Flash literally started as an animation tool before it eventually transformed itself into the full-blown software development environment we now know as Flex. The process has been gradual enough to carry many designers along with it, transforming them into developers. As Web technologies matured, hard-core developers began to take designers more seriously, and started considering these technologies as the basis of their careers. There is still a need and a desire to keep design and development disciplines separate, but there is currently an increase in the number of professionals with a foot in both camps.

A Common Language

If you ask any anthropologist about the cultural impact that shared language has played in the formation of societies, then you had better have a full pot of coffee on hand. Embracing a common language (or languages) has done much to bridge cultural divides, enabling people to work more easily together. The same is true for designers and developers. Learning each other’s languages is critical for effective collaboration. This is not to say that each has to be proficient in the skills that each employs, just that they understand one another.

It may seem obvious, but the more that users can accomplish precisely the things they want to with your application, then the higher the adoption rate will be. Every company that is creating software ultimately wants that software to be adopted by their target users. If the company doesn’t, then they don’t want to stay in business.

If user satisfaction and adoption are such critical pieces of the software’s success, shouldn’t those two criteria be the top priorities of any development process­? We can call it different things — usability, user experience, user adoption — but when it comes down to it, you want the people using your software to have a positive response. Once teams accept user acceptance as the core objective of a project, then everyone can start digging deeper, level by level, to determine how to achieve that goal.

A 3D Case in Point

Recently, while working on an immersive user experience for Discovery.com, the main question from a design standpoint was whether users would engage better with a flat surface image of the earth, or with a 3D globe as an interface. We discussed some of the unique design challenges with 3D navigation. Today, there are many barriers to working in 3D through the browser. For instance, Adobe Flash® Professional does not strongly support 3D development yet. Sometimes it can look gimmicky. Or, it might look compelling, but it may not be very usable. The average American encounters 2D maps far more frequently, yet 3D is more tactile and accurate.

We started asking how far we could push Flash, because when technological boundaries are overstepped, the user experience often suffers. If the technology causes the 3D globe to become sluggish and or clunky, then the user is going to be frustrated when viewing the map. If that were the situation, returning to a 2D map would at least not frustrate the user, and would probably be more effective.

At first, the concepts were created in isolation from the collective team. The decision was to go with a fake 2D globe entirely because of perceived technological constraints. The resulting globe was a 2D hack that wasn’t impressive to anybody, especially the user. Because of the team’s collective agreement that the user experience was top priority, it was actually the developers that spoke up first. They became the most vocal advocates for the user. Both design and development were now united in their concern for the experience and tried to figure out a better solution.

As the designers and developers began to work side by side and iteratively, they collectively rebuilt the globe. They kept tweaking and altering the visuals and code until 3D was successfully and smoothly implemented (complete with video wrapping seamlessly around the globe). Both parties conversed and conformed to each other’s processes. It is this kind of open-minded dialogue that results in great user experiences.

The Whole User

For optimal development results, clients must first be willing to examine and re-examine who they are and what their business requirements really are. Imagine that a financial services company is building a rich Internet application (RIA) for borrowers to manage their mortgages online, but the main business goal is to sell more loans. If the users feel pushed into buying something they don’t want, they may not use your tool, thereby hindering future sales opportunities. To serve the needs of the financial company, you will have to craft the user experience to make it exceptional for customers, while boosting sales productivity at the same time. If you want to be successful, you have to understand users’ motivations.

Look holistically at your users: the whole person, the whole lifestyle. Think about how much anxiety someone might undergo if she is ten minutes away from home and the eBay auction she is bidding on is ending in eight minutes. This is a lifestyle issue that needs to be addressed. It is not simply a matter of whether a navigation button should be in the upper left or upper right. You have to look at the person’s lifestyle and day-to-day habits with technology — whether navigating with a GPS, watching films online or checking out at a supermarket.

It is also important to hold assumptions lightly about who your users are. There may be different kinds of users; there may be browsers and purchasers, and there may be users you never imagined you had. Solid research and a truly objective eye can help determine exactly who your users are, and everyone in your company has to be willing to have long-held assumptions challenged.

Going back to the example of a mortgage application, understanding the user could allow you to create better products to meet their needs. Perhaps the reason they abandoned a loan application had more to do with the way it was presented. If it is received as a solution to the customer’s current problem, it may be accepted more readily — satisfying both the user and the business. Accomplishing that result requires the designers and developers to structure the software in such a way that the presentation conforms to the user’s needs.

Let Go Ego

Anyone who has been involved in user experience design has likely been in the room when opinions creep in: “I think the user should do this or that,” or, “I think the technology can support fill-in-the-blank.” Those with inflated egos generally command the conversation and are often the ones who end up creating the application for themselves rather than for the end users. If they are representative of the target user, this can sometimes work fine. If they are not the target user, you take a lot of risk relying so heavily on their personal vision.

Much more can be accomplished when design and development teams come together in collaborative workflows and are committed to iteration. If I am a designer and I realize that my idea is outside the boundaries of the technology or makes the application feel clunky, then I should revise my design so that it feels comfortable and natural to the user. If I am a developer and I am leaning toward what is easiest to implement but I know it will result in an unimpressive user experience, then I should put more creativity and energy into modifying the application to achieve the best experience possible.

Focusing on the user experience requires that you confirm your work with the target user. This isn’t rocket science. You don’t need fancy labs. Get creative with how you test. Bring the application into the user’s environment and ask them to follow a series of tasks after giving however much training you feel is necessary. If you want to use labs, then by all means, go for it. I have seen dramatic results that shatter all of our well-planned theories just by asking something simple like, “How do you switch between screens?” If nobody understands the fancy widget you created, then either it wasn’t created well enough, or it wasn’t necessary. A few simple questions with a user can often give you more insight than a day of debate with the internal team.

Effective Results

Anyone who facilitates a brainstorming meeting understands the impact negative energy brings to the creative flow. The cardinal sin is to say that something can’t be done. Facilitators are always refocusing the discussion towards asking, “What are the possibilities?” The reason for all of this positive thinking is that it creates an environment where roadblocks don’t exist, especially roadblocks that form unnecessarily due to interpersonal communications. I have observed projects that have ground to a screeching halt entirely because of interpersonal stalemates.

I have also watched teams continue along in the spirit of brainstorming long after the initial meeting. They gather frequently to ask questions and to explore new possibilities. They check their egos at the door to help create a collaborative working environment in which the conversation can be multi-directional, allowing everyone to contribute. They are idealistic. They sit down together, united around making the user’s experience the best it can be. And, because of their unity, they do.

About Lance Christmann
Lance Christmann graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in film, animation and video from the Rhode Island School of Design. He became a freelance UI designer in 2000, creating interfaces for organizations such as Qwest, Lucent, Comcast and Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital. Lance was also the founder of Mustard Lab, a company that specialized in designing Web sites and game interfaces. In 2006, Lance was brought on as chief interface designer at EffectiveUI. His responsibilities include overseeing the design team and leading the direction of all EffectiveUI design projects. During his time there, Lance has directed the work of projects for NBC, eBay, the Discovery Channel and many others.