User Experience 2005 NN/g Conference
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Making it Work: A Case Study of Success in
Enterprise Application Development
User Centered Design and IT Development Collaboration and Solutions

User Experience 2007 Nielsen Norman Group Conference

Barcelona, Spain: November 9, 2007
Las Vegas, NV: December 7, 2007

Joseph Selbie – Tristream, Lead Experience Designer and Team Leader
Scott Mitchell – Cartus, Director of Application Architecture

Join us for a case study of the user experience and user interface design challenges we encountered, and the solutions we developed, during a major application development project at Cartus, the largest provider of corporate relocation services. We will discuss the challenges, and show you actual solutions — solutions applicable to any enterprise application development project, regardless of industry, service or product — clear and rapid enterprise navigation, timely and contextual searches, flexible and optimal multi-tasking, the right data, at the right time, at the right place, and integrated intra-application communications and extra-application communications including email, fax and telephony. Over 2000 people use the application as their daily work tool to provide service delivery to 120,000 customers annually.

We will also discuss the methodologies we found successful to focus the often conflicting inputs, POV’s, & needs and responsibilities of the multiple teams needed to make it all work – especially the core dynamic of interactive design and IT architecture and development. Hitting the right balance between form and function, design and development, was as much a key to our success as the solutions we created. Joseph, outside consultant and experience designer, and Scott, in house director of application architecture, were key to creating this successful dynamic.

Who Should Attend:
Team members in any web application development project will benefit from this tutorial, including interactive designers, experience designers, user centered designers, developers, programmers architects, stakeholders, project leaders, product owners, project managers, business analysts, UI developers, graphic designers, usability specialists, and business process analysts.

Context and Methodology

  • The Context
    • Re-platforming a business
    • Integrating data from 2,000 employees, 50,000 suppliers, 2,000 clients, and 120,000 customers
    • Incremental release strategy
    • Keeping an eye on the future
  • Multi Team Dynamics — UE/Architecture/Development/Business
  • Developing Business Requirements
    • Six Sigma
    • User Research
    • Use Cases
  • User Experience Iterative Development Cycle – From concept, to use case, to whiteboard, to wireframes
  • The Development Process
    • Pre-development Activities – defining styles and templates
    • Architectural Activities – Creating templatized "user controls" to ensure standardized UI and UE

Challenges and Solutions

  • Enterprise Navigation – 197 user roles, 2,286 navigation choices
    • Navigation Domains
    • User dynamic
    • Highly extensible
    • Task-based – Dashboards and work queues
    • Tertiary and Quaternary navigation
    • Tabs
  • Integrating Communication – 100’s of communications per customer
    • Integration with Outlook
    • Integration with Telephony
    • Notes, mail, fax
    • "in context" quick links
  • Search – Clients, Customers, Suppliers, Employees, Contracts, Policies, etc.
    • Quick Search
    • Advanced Search — filters
    • In context, filtered, automatic search
  • Multi-tasking – 2,000 consultants, worldwide, in a call center environment
    • "Dirty" tabs
    • Multiple instances of browser
    • "Save" user conventions
    • Quick Search
    • Quick "Pickers"
    • Shortcuts
    • Multi-Select List vs. Check Box List control
  • "Drilling In" to data – the right information, at the right time
    • Summary to detail — user conventions
    • Minimizing clicks to data — "View More"
    • Maximizing screen real estate
    • Workflow mapping
    • Redundancy
  • Designing for speed – terabytes of data, real time access
    • Use of I-Frames
    • Changes in development methodology
  • Keeping the user experience consistent – minimizing training, maximizing speed and accuracy, streamlining development time
    • Module types
      • "Flat" forms for one-to-one data relationships
      • "Preview/Edit" for many-to-one
      • Grids
      • "Expand" widgets
      • "Floating" tables
      • "Tree View" tables
      • "Locked Grid" tables
    • Other behaviors
      • Table ordering
      • Filters
      • Form submission – success and error messages
      • Use of pop-ups
      • "Submit Down" button