[ Music ]
>> If you're looking at developing a mature user experience design practice,
it's critical that we have an effective methodology.
And the most sophisticated methodology, which HFI uses itself, and --
and we use with our most sophisticated clients
who are building an internal practice, is the HFI Framework version 7.
So this methodology for user experience design is a bit unique,
in that it covers the full range of activities that are important
for optimizing customer experience and user experience.
It starts with the UX strategy, which is the biggest picture
of understanding the target market, sorting out what the persuasion engineering approach is --
the pet [phonetic] approach is -- in order to motivate that market to engage, and to convert,
and also looks at the cross-channel integration.
So when we have mobile, and when we have Internet and call centers,
how do all those things interact together effectively?
So that has to be done at the very top of the development cycle.
That's what links the executive intent through to the entire design process.
We look also at innovation.
One of the things that many organizations don't get is that innovation is not
about being innovative, it's not about having innovative people that are told be innovative.
It's about having a mature systematic process of identifying users and their ecosystems,
of being able to systematically ideate to come out with business models and products
that meet users' needs, and are effective in the industry.
We also look from the viewpoint of the existing applications, and the need to assess them
from the point of view of classical usability -- can people use them?
-- and also from the pet design, the --
the will people use them issue around persuasion engineering and motivation.
So we do usability testing, we also do expert reviews that allow us to look
and assess whether there are improvements possible to a design,
and the types of improvements that are important.
There's a set of foundational activities that have to do with setting
up your understanding of the environment.
So ecosystem research is the way that we get a picture of the space that we're going
to be designing in, understanding the types of users, the different kinds of actors,
the scenarios, the environments, the artifact.
This is an ethnographically inspired viewpoint of understanding the target environment.
We also do research in order to scientifically determine differences between designs,
and that's classical statistically moderated experimentation.
With this foundation, we have user-centered design.
And user-centered design means the first thing we do is we develop the structure --
user interface structure, which says this is how the interface is going to look,
it's how it's going to navigate, these are the functions that are within it.
It builds the big view of the -- of the design, and that's the thing which is probably 80%
of the determinant of what's good from the user experience point of view.
So if you get your navigational structure right, if you get your home page right,
and your major secondary pages right, you're 80% of the way there.
That leads to detail design, where all the pages are designed based on templates and standards.
We validate, and then we have continuous usability based on metrics.
Once a design is out, we can evaluate it, we can continue to improve it.
So this is the full range of user experience design activities.
One last thing which is special about the Framework 7 is that there's a focus on how
to set up a practice in user experience design.
So the institutionalization of user experience design is very much something
that HFI is passionate about.
We believe that the industry has clearly shown that the best practice is
to have an internal group that does user experience design.
Vendors can be used, but it's not appropriate to rely on vendors for all
of your user experience design work.
There needs to be a central capability, and we have a process for setting up that capability,
looking at everything from executive championship and advisory to setting
up the organizational structures, governance, to the infrastructure of methods
like Framework 7, standards, tools.
And so setting that up is the last part of Framework 7.
We talked about how to establish an effective UX operation.