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May, 2010 – Cloud UX: The Next Generation of Institutionalization

Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Hello. I am Susan Weinschenk, Chief of User Experience Strategy in the Americas for Human Factors International. And welcome to our webcast today. Our topic today is Cloud UX, the next generation in institutionalization. And I have with me here today Dr. Eric Schaffer, CEO and founder of Human Factors International. Welcome Eric. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Hi. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So before we get started on our topic, I just have a few reminders for our audience. There is a whitepaper on this topic that you can download and there’s a link on your screen for that. And also you can submit questions during the broadcast and there’s a button for that in the lower right corner of your screen. So let’s get started, okay. Cloud UX, so we’re in the clouds now, right. Or do we mean like designing the user experience for cloud computing? Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay you are giving it out. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: [Laughter] So what do you mean by Cloud UX? Dr. Eric Schaffer: So I’m really excited about this, because Cloud UX is truly the next step in institutionalization of usability. I think most of the audience knows that I’ve had a real quest going on to see the user experience field operate on a large scale, industrial strength, process driven, organized way. And in my way of thinking, unless we can do that we really fail, because you can’t do the amount of user experience work that’s needed on the basis of separate individuals who are very smart, working on the basis of cross function. So we need to institutionalize and I think today almost a half of the consulting work that I’m involved in I think we’re involved in as a company involves moving companies towards having an internal practice in user experience and supporting that. So it’s fun today to see that vision of industrial strength, user experience design coming to (inaudible). It really is the dynamics in the industry of change. So today, most of the high level, C-level staff that I talk to get the idea that user experience is important. And the question they are asking me is how to do it. And the battles we’re fighting are how do we deal with governments, how do we deal with organizational structures, how do we build infrastructure. So all that’s going on, but in a way from my perspective, the institutionalization battle is well in hand and we’re moving to a time when we have another generation of issues with user experience design. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So we have some more problems we haven’t [laughter] addressed yet. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Well, it’s a problem and it’s an opportunity. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It’s a good problem. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s a good problem. So if you think about what happens in user experience design when you have an individual or an individual with a few apprentices working, they develop a concept of the customer, and the work flows, and understanding the artifacts, the environment, the eco system. They understand all of that through that project they’re on and they work from the perspective of that. That’s cool. But what happens when we have not 3 people working in a corner, but we have 20 people, 100 people, 200 people in an organization and they’re all working on a set of different customers and eco systems, but it’s an overlapping set. And if you think about it, it’s almost like you have a cloud of knowledge. And we need to be able to operate from the perspective of that cloud. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You know, what you, a cloud of knowledge. So you’re talking about the personas the … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah, there’s so much different stuff. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Past analysis. All of this work that has built up over time. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So in the user experience field, we have a lot of different stuff that all interacts, right. So we do projects. Those projects build applications. You can have multiple projects building one application. You can have a project that affects a number of applications. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: The projects that we work on involve looking at users, scenarios, tackling with task flows, right. They look at different environments that people are working. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. Physical environments like someone is at the office, or they are at home, or they are in the city, or they … Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s a physical environment, but it’s a social environment also. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So what are the client interactions going on. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: When we look at eco systems, we are moving from a time when it was okay to just think about human computer interaction. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. You have one person. Dr. Eric Schaffer: One computer. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Sitting in front of one computer which only a computer was … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. And they’re in a cubicle so their boss didn’t look across. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Eric Schaffer: But now you have your beclouds computing and I have my mobile device and I have my computer, those things interact with multiple applications and … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And sometimes I might be doing a study in which we’re interested in the interaction between this person or actor over here and the other person or actor. Dr. Eric Schaffer: (Inaudible). Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So it’s complicated. And we got all of this (inaudible). Dr. Eric Schaffer: And I have that. I also have my infrastructure stuff of methods, my infrastructure stuff of standards. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Or even just the deliverables. I did a project and I have a usability test report or I have an interface design specification data. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Exactly. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. So you’re saying this is the … Dr. Eric Schaffer: So it’s this visible cloud… Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The cloud is all of these things that we have. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. And it’s a good thing to have the cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s a tremendous resource. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That’s the opportunity. Dr. Eric Schaffer: If you can use it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But the problem is … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Is that you may not be able to use it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well, or you may have someone who created something that’s in the cloud but then he left the company. And it’s in the cloud somewhere but nobody knows where it is. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. So the thing is that if we can operate from an organized cloud, we become so much more powerful instead of being an individual and what I know, it’s what we know. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So I want to, I mean I want to go back and talk about the concept, but I actually would like to get really practical right now. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Because I know you’ve talked about if we get the cloud organized, the way that usability person or user experience practitioner would do their job would be totally different. And you have an example, I think, of what you mean by that, what your vision is of that. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Sure. So if you’re working from the cloud instead of as an individual. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: If you’re working from an organized cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Organized cloud, what does it look like when we communicate what does it look like when we provide deliverables. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. So show that vision. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. So this is an email. So, when you get older the glasses stop working. So what you’ll find is that this email is a manager asking for a project. Now normally, asking for a project like this, as everybody knows, would be about 20 pages of description. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Because you’ll have to describe everything you want to study and what kind of study you would want to do and etc. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Exactly. So here … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So it would be a 20-page document. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But before that there would have been about 20 hours of meetings … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: To talk about it. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Exactly. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Now, it’s just this one page. And what this says is – and one thing that we came up with as part of our Cloud UX kind of program in UX Enterprise, these stamps are created to allow you to communicate and document the different objects so … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So these boxes we’re looking at, you just call them stamps. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah. They are stamps because they are images. You can pick them up out of the tool. You can drop them in. You can double click on them and go to that object. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. So what …. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So what this says … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Email says. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. So what this says is we need to do a simulation test. If you look down on mobile air conditioner, I want to run 15 responsible shoppers and 15 digital (inaudible). Dr. Susan Weinschenk: These are the personas. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Personas. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. And if you want the details on it, you just click and you get all the details. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So the first one is simulation tests that I wanted, this is the kind of study I want to do. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Exactly. So that has the full methodology along with the supporting templates. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So for e.g. when I read this, I don’t have to go well, now what do I do. I click on that and it has the step by step procedure. But it also has things like a protocol already written. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. So all this stuff is in the cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: And pull it from there. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Alright. So I want a simulation test of the product the mobile air conditioner. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. And so this is the specification of the product. So that has … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: it’s in the cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s in the cloud. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. And I want to do it on these two personas. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: The details about it are in the cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Correct. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Alright. Then what’s this next part? Dr. Eric Schaffer: So now I have it’s an urban apartment that’s the environment. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: And so that’s an environment and it references the characteristics of that apartment. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Alright. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Common household tools are artifacts. Now that’s an idea taken from ethnography. They are things that we designed, but they are tools and different things that people work with that we need to understand and work and balance them. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Those are in the cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah. So I need to know what are the common household tools that people have as I think about working with this air conditioner. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So we have to find that in the company. And the cool thing is you can actually say we have standard sets of these. So there you can make your own artifact or you can say here’s a set of artifacts that we have as a project defined for the company so that we all agree that this is what we (inaudible) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, alright. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Alright. And then I have the scenario. So out of box set of normal adjustment defines the tasks I want to test. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And so those tasks are in the cloud. So the idea is that all the stuff is in the cloud and it’s all organized. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. And it’s indexed this way. So now I just get this email and it’s all defined. Right. When I am done, what I can do is in the project itself all I have to do is show that and instead of having 20 pages of these are the personas and this is the methodology and all that stuff, we’re done. And what we can concentrate on is the real content, the real innovation, the real value of the report. What are the findings. So instead of being over whelmed with oh my gosh, I got to document this and this, instead of being deep in documentation, we just reference these things and go now let’s go ahead and talk about what the real content is. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So if you have an organized cloud, then you’re able to do your work in this way rather than the way that … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah. So it’s another way of doing the work. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Now there’s also another side that I got, I don’t know if you want to talk about it right now, but the other side of it which is you know all the stuff is on the cloud. And you might want to almost do exploratory research out of the cloud, right? Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah, so that you have to be able to work with the cloud effectively, which has been an enormous challenge. I mean we’ve done about 18 person years of work in building this UX Enterprise. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So UX Enterprise, you’ve mentioned that, that’s the tool. Dr. Eric Schaffer: That’s the tool that we’ve created to … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: To manage the assets that are in the cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Correct. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. So I also find it very interesting because I know we’ve talked about I could say well, I’m interested in the responsible shopper. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Then you can just click on that or there’s a code and you can go and get this is so important because people don’t realize when they start doing usability work, you know, you do your first, this is from one client. One client, right. And these are the projects we deal with. I mean look at that. You start with okay, we did two little projects. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Three projects, and then it explodes exponentially. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: There’s so much of research. Dr. Eric Schaffer: And they’re doing work and we’re doing work and it’s all these … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So what happens with that? In this case, you know, what you find is that large scale usability creates problems that are completely different. It’s like when NASA made a building for the space shuttle, it started having weather inside the building. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Because it’s so large. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s so large they had clouds and it would rain inside the building, right. So it’s the same thing when we do large scale UX work. I mean this company had 1.77 terra bytes of data in a file structure. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: They had videos. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Even forget the videos (inaudible). Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Just the reports and the … Dr. Eric Schaffer: And so, you know, I’ve seen best in class is being able to put it in a share point. It’s an environment like that and now I can get to all the projects and I’ve done some meta tagging. But it’s not really an effective way of building that knowledge base. So the real bottom line question, and I mean we face it all of the time right, where we’re coming and we say oh, you know, who are we designing this for. Right. And they go off, oh we’re not sure. So … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Or sometimes they say, oh I think it’s we have a persona for this don’t we. Isn’t this like when we did, yeah this is like when we did that other study 2 years ago. Do you have that persona for that. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah, sometimes we do, right? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Sometimes we have, we find it plays on, yeah. Dr. Eric Schaffer: But what happens is that dissipation of intellectual property. So if you think about it, we know that today user experience is a key may be the key differentiator between companies. And the foundation of user experience is that cloud that models the customer. And that knowledge of the customer it’s probably the crucial intellectual property that a client will have of ours. If they keep loosing it, because people leave or it just gets lost on someone’s hard drive or, that’s terrible. And so really the vision here is building decade after decade a model of how the customer interacts and keep building on to that and building on to that, right. So for each of the stamps that we showed, there’s an online repository that allows you to very easily set the things that are important and have a working model that keeps growing. You can save images. You can save videos. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: What kinds of things when you say set, what do you mean? Dr. Eric Schaffer: So what we want to do is have this is for e.g. a persona and it has a description of the persona but it also has a defined set of categories of things. And we’ve initialized that what we think are the most important. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Age or … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Age is in there, of course. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Education. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Education is in it. Language is in it. But even things like motivation, you’ll find massive scale in there, cultural dimensions, so we fought very hard about what things matter to design. So there’s a set of things that really don’t matter much and they’re not in it. But things that generally matter to design are there. So each data element is defined and described in terms of the implications of why it’s important. And you can upload files against it. So if you have a report that pertains to it, you can put it there. You can also add new ones. So if you think there is something that matters to you, you can easily put a new data of object if you have permission to do it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So talk about the relationships between you know I mean some of the relationships are obvious, like I have personas and they do certain tasks. So I might want to connect the persona with a task analysis or a scenario. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So when we talk about an eco system and designing for an eco system, we’re talking about being able to see the big picture of what matters in a given situation. But what matters in a given situation varies widely. And so what we’ve sorted out how to do and this was (inaudible) running a (inaudible) application on this right now is sorted out how we can have a process which allows you to say I’m interested in this, show me the eco system that pertains to it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Give me a concrete example, right, yeah, please. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. So let’s think about so let’s say I’m going to be working on something we design, right. So I go to the UX specification. I go to that movable air conditioner. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. Or it could be a website or anything. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Does that exist, a movable air conditioner? Dr. Eric Schaffer: There is a movable air conditioner. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I would like one. Dr. Eric Schaffer: And it works well, but anyway, so I go that movable air conditioner. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: And I say show me the eco system around that. And then I can see movable air conditioner. What projects have been done around a movable air conditioner. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You mean, for instance, we did a usability test on it. Dr. Eric Schaffer: We did data gathering around it. We did innovation work for it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: I can see the whole set of projects that pertain to that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I can see, can I see what personas we did … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Exactly. So who uses it, where they use it, what scenarios compete with it, what artifacts … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So this is just any data that we have in the cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Everything’s there. And we can connect in a way we are, so one of the nightmares, we actually started it and went oh my gosh it’s almost a full time job to make all this connection. That could be several full time jobs. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So we had to find better ways of doing it and actually the first prototype we built about a year and a half, two years ago exploded. So you can say show me the eco system and we will show you that one. So everything is connected to everything, right. But we figured out how to do it and there are multiple ways of doing it including when you put the stamps in the report, it scans. And even if that stamp is just the image, because it’s got that bar code on it, it picks it up and indexes it. But that’s not it, we need more than that. But it’s a very efficient way so that you can say show me, even something like this, so let’s say you are thinking about changing the wizard standard screen type. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. So I’ve got I use wizards in my interface design. And I’ve got a standard. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. And now I’m saying I’m going to change that. You need to know what applications use it. So I can say here’s the wizard. Show me all the applications that use it. Show me all the people who use the applications that use it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You mean the personas. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Well, there are personas, there are actually user profiles. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, user profiles, okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So show me all of those. Now I know who’s impacted by that change, right. So its … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So these are very – again the idea is to build an organized cloud. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right, and allow you to access it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So I can ask questions. Dr. Eric Schaffer: In a way, exactly. So you know if you think about it like a even though it’s there, a search on the text like a text screen search is not very interesting because I’m interested in connections. I don’t know the work. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. I want to know what applications or parts of the websites you have done usability tests on. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Exactly. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I mean how this kind of specific kind of question. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. And so this is the tool that we used to do that where you can say let me tell you the things I care about that I’m interested in and you show me the eco system around it. So if I am working on a project for a given user, you can say show me all of the projects we’ve done. Show me all the methods we’ve used for that user. Show me all the scenarios that user’s in. So now we have, and one of the things that I think is hugely powerful with this, I mean, you know how HFI is in a funny position because we are global and we work with really some of the biggest and best companies. And those big and excellent companies will call us and we’ll get 2 or 3 calls to different HFI offices from different groups within the organization. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That want the same… Dr. Eric Schaffer: Same thing [laughter]. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: They want the same project done. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. Dr. Eric Schaffer: And so you know we’ll have 3 different groups saying you know can you look at entering into (inaudible) script on cell phone (inaudible). Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I think one of the worst situations I had was one we went in to start a project and then as we got into the details I realized that we were already like half way through the same project with another group. What it actually meant, it meant that the project we were starting didn’t start. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It was like oh gee I just … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Well, but we have to do that, but that way you can do it. An executive might go oh you want to run this project, let me see the other projects we’ve run on this persona or this application. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. But, okay. So I can see the benefits of this to the organization. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It totally changes that value prop up of building a knowledge base and being able to work from that knowledge base. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: What does it mean though for the, you know, the usability practitioner? What’s the benefit to them? Dr. Eric Schaffer: I think for the, no, for the first time I mean to say we have a really practical efficient way that we can work with the power of all of us instead of just individually. And so it means that while I’m working, I don’t have to do the ground work that we used to have to do. The detailed documentation and descriptions and all that. I can draw on the work that’s been done. I can leverage that work. And that’s just very, very powerful. So it means we get to do the finer stuff. We get to do the ideation. We get to do the creative design. And we spend less time worrying about, okay, I’m going to get in and I have to worry about documenting this persona or finding this scenario data and who has it and that frustration which leads us at the end of the day to reinvent the wheel and restudy things, re-research things. Basically, my feeling is professionals don’t start from scratch, right. So when you’re in school, they are like you know if you copy somebody else’s paper, you’re plagiarizing. That’s bad. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That’s not, yeah. And you get kicked out. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right, you can get kicked out. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And then when you graduated and you’re in the work world … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Exactly, now you can plagiarize, [laughter] right. But that’s what we want. So we’re going to start working from that foundation. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: I think it would be interesting too to get to the point where a user experience specialist might be looking at the cloud, analyzing it, and figuring out where the gaps are like you know we thought this particular user profile and we’ve only done one or two studies on that and that’s an interesting profile. May be we should do some more user research around that or questions like that. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Correct. So the UX team’s not the only set of people who are interested in this kind of perspective. And so this knowledge base becomes something that I could ask questions too like you know what programs have we been doing. What’s missing? What context we’ve been designing for? What haven’t we, so … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s a very powerful way of being able to see the vision of the whole organization. So even – so in institutionalization of usability, probably the biggest challenge that I face today and I don’t know what you found but I think governments is number one, right. So the executives get it. But then what’s the governments? What’s the administration of the customer experience? And that’s usually fragmented and different people feel they know it long enough. And in a way this provides that unified customer model that a steering committee can refer to as they look not just at individual projects, but the company’s overall strategic approach to customer’s interests. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Do you want to take some questions? Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Is that … Dr. Eric Schaffer: We can do that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. We have a couple of comments. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So let’s start with this. Oh, here this question has my question. What is the difference between Cloud UX and cloud computing? Dr. Eric Schaffer: So they’re very different. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So cloud computing is when you have lots of servers or computers and they’re all acting doing a unified thing. Now this is not the same. This is when we have a lot of UX-related objects, UX-related personas, and UX-related scenarios and all that. And that forms a cloud. And we find a way of unifying that and working with that to do one thing. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So what we are, so we’re not talking about as I mentioned. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So UX Enterprise is not a cloud computing application, right. That’s a, you know, in a box, it’s in a server. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Dr. Eric Schaffer: One server’s enough to do it even though you’re handling you know terra bytes of stuff. But it is conceptually this dispersed set of content of knowledge of artifacts which you are effectively connecting to and operating from on a day to day basis. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But it does share the concept of … Dr. Eric Schaffer: It is. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Of the idea of having one place where all of the stuff resides and that different people can access. I mean that’s the concept. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Although in cloud computing it’s in every place. But that’s … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: [Laughter] Okay, alright. Here’s another one. We have a repository that stores all of our old usability tests. Isn't that enough? Dr. Eric Schaffer: Well, so if you’re a group of 3 or 4 people, it’s fine. But as you start getting bigger, get to be 10 people and operate for 2 years and you know very well it’s not enough. Very hard. So now I have a stack of paper that’s 4 feet high, 6 feet high, 10 feet high. And that paper throughout it refers to a given user, a given scenario, a given … How do you find that, right? And it may be so I may index it by the thing I’m testing. That’s really great. So now I’ve tested one application. So I’ve got a mobile device, a mobile application, and I’ve tested. That’s great. But I’ve tested it with a user that’s doing other things too. How do I find that user when I’m doing the other thing? Dr. Susan Weinschenk: But how could you think about this concept on Cloud UX has been just I mean is it just another word for a repository? Dr. Eric Schaffer: I think it goes beyond repository because it reaches out. I do my design work in it. So I create the UX specifications in it. And it provides the ability to communicate with it as we showed like with the email. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: It’s not just a place you store things. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s not just a place you put things. And the cross indexing is what you really mix with the cloud. And that’s the thing which is really difficult to do easily. And I think that’s the magic of it, because that’s what makes it effective. A stack of reports is dead. Very quickly it’s just – unless you personally remember that there was a study and you found this or you … Right. So another kind of object is the need or opportunity. So I have to remember those, I – where are they? They’re in the report somewhere, okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Now I – no one has asked this question so far. I scanned the questions. But I have a question. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: UXE, you mentioned that, where’s the standpoint? Dr. Eric Schaffer: So the … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: User experience now what’s is the acronym? I just want to know the acronym. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. UX Enterprise. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: UX Enterprise. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. UX Enterprise. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Alright. Let’s do another one. My company uses "use cases", not scenarios or personas. So what do I do? Because you have to talk about use cases. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Well, so one of the things you find is that our field specializes in multiple words that mean the same thing. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: A lot of multiple words. Dr. Eric Schaffer: A really lot. So I mean what is the …. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Sometimes the same word means different things. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Means different things. Right. So affordance means one thing or you know I’ve been an engineer and a psychologist, personnel system designer, human factors engineer, usability specialist, and user experience expert. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Well, now we have use cases and scenarios. So that sometimes we have use cases scenarios, right. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Well, so basically what happened with use cases is that we used to do a task analysis that described what users are doing, right. And so we would do okay these are all the task flows that can happen and then you design for that. The problem is when we got to graphical interfaces, and they became asynchronous, there is a infinite number of tasks you can do in a word processor. Because once you start saying well, first I edit, then I save, then I (inaudible). So then what we said is well, we’ll take a sample of example tasks. And then we call those use cases or scenarios. Use cases tend to be a little smaller. So scenarios give you more surround. So they give you the context. Use cases, just the online activity. But they’re really similar. And so one of the things that I’ll say is that in some ways UX Enterprise has had to settle down on language and it’s pretty standard kinds of language. But yeah, if you use use cases as a term, you’re going to find in UX Enterprise we use the term scenario. And … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: It’s not (inaudible) to use the standard term. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Here’s an Agile question. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Oh no poor folks. We need our own – do we have (inaudible) Dr. Susan Weinschenk: You did say that. Do we have a webcast on Agile? Dr. Eric Schaffer: If you haven’t done it, you need to do it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: We need to do a webcast on Agile, okay. But this person says, we do Agile. So how does this work with Agile? Dr. Eric Schaffer: Well, it actually does in fact in some ways it’s even more usable in an Agile environment. So many of the things that we do in an Agile environment are just exactly the same. But if you’re doing the wind sprints if you’re trying to do design on the fly, the ability to quickly go in and say this is what we’ve already got and apply that, that certainly does make it easier to do that kind of work. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: And I would think because of the fact that you can do all of these ad hoc explorations that that will help as well. Does the data in the cloud change over time? Do my personas get changed by someone else on the team? Dr. Eric Schaffer: So the answer is that the cloud is a constantly changing, growing entity. And it’s built with the idea that it’s constantly changing and growing. And it’s very easy to say okay here’s my digital native. This is my understanding. We learnt new things. So … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Digital native is like a user profile. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So that’s a user profile and now I’m going to add new data to it, upload video or pictures or … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay, but I have a question. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: If I have – if I did a study using a digital native or this product and in this environment and that’s it now. That study is in the cloud. So let’s say I did a user research. But now the digital native user profile gets changed. Then I didn’t really do that study on that digital native, because the profile changed. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So we don’t radically change the profile. We change our depth of knowledge about it. So … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So we know about it. Dr. Eric Schaffer: So if I find okay I’ve done a persuasion interviews PET interviews on a digital native, I’m going to add that. So my knowledge gets deeper. If I go wait a minute, now there’s a digital native that is may be in a different geography or may be … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: May be the age is … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Age is different, something like that. Then what I’m going to do is I’m going to make a new one. And I’m going to say the elderly digital native. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Oh, okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: That would be – and so the elderly digital native and that’s going to take me like 20 minutes to do. But I’m going to - or 7 minutes probably. And I’m just going to … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So somebody has to decide at some point … Dr. Eric Schaffer: And so … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Whether they need a new user profile. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right and so you’re permissioned in the system … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: As to whether you can … Dr. Eric Schaffer: Whether you can do that or not. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So some people might just be able to add a look. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Some people might be able to add. Some people might be able to create new .. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Correct. And in fact there’s a facility to restrict what people can look at to particular eco systems. Because, again this is the company’s intellectual property. We have security systems for this that are probably more than name banks, right. So I mean there’s an option when you log in where the only way to log in is put a user id password and then get a code sms to your phone. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah (inaudible). Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah well, but you can do that. This is the company’s … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Secure (inaudible) and it’s not usable. [Laughter] can’t you just read the (inaudible). Dr. Eric Schaffer: But somebody might take in your (inaudible). Dr. Susan Weinschenk: No problem. Alright. Next one. Who should be doing this in our organization? Doing this I assume they mean who should be organizing the cloud. Is it something that the marketing department should do? Is this something that the usability people should do? Dr. Eric Schaffer: It is very much intended that the central usability in the organization takes responsibility for it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Do you think that they are fighting? Dr. Eric Schaffer: You know if the central usability organization owns it, they own it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Okay. Dr. Eric Schaffer: And then they’re providing the ability or read only to other organizations. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. If I had cloud usability, how would my work day be different? Oh I think that may be … Dr. Eric Schaffer: We may have talked a fair amount about that. So it’s really about being able to stop all the time we spent running around trying to see what we got in the past or reinvent or worse, recreate it. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: That doing things that we did in the past that we didn’t remember or we didn’t know we’d already done. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Right. And don’t you hate it when you’ll be like you know I just created all these scenarios it’s like you know Joe did that. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Oh that happens a lot. It actually happens a lot. Dr. Eric Schaffer: I know. And it’s really sad, right. So that goes away. And we start being able to build off of that, contribute to that in a way that builds the strength of the overall organization and become more effective ourselves because we’re able to do higher level things of doing design work, doing providing insights, providing innovations as opposed to okay, I’m going to document another … Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Right. Well, that was our last question. Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: So let me just remind people that if they would like to view this broadcast later, it will be archived. If we do have some more questions come in down the wire … Dr. Eric Schaffer: We may be (inaudible). Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Yeah, so check on the forum at HFI Connect which is connect.humanfactors.com and we’ll answer any other questions that come in there. And I think that’s all we needed to tell them. So are there any parting comments that you have? Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay, well, no. I mean I’m really excited about this. This has been a journey and a vision. And I think it does define a whole another wave of capability in institutionalization. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Till then do I get to say see you on the cloud? Dr. Eric Schaffer: [Laughter] okay. Dr. Susan Weinschenk: Thank you everyone for joining. Top