Lyndon Cerejo: UX Design Leader, Author, Mentor, Certified UX Practitioner

Prototyping accelerates a Design-Led Approach for SaaS Implementations

November 5, 2018

In the past two posts in this series, we looked at the need of following a user-first design approach to enterprise software implementation instead of a system-driven approach, as well as the steps involved. In this final post in the series, we will dive deeper into rapid visualizations, a cornerstone of Rapid Design & Visualization, and the role prototyping plays in enhancing or customizing the design of SaaS solutions.

The old adage, “a picture speaks a thousand words” captures what user interface prototyping is all about: using visuals to describe thousands of words’ worth of design and development specifications that detail how a system should behave and look.

In an iterative approach to user interface design, rapid prototyping is the process of quickly mocking up the future state of a system, be it a website or application, and validating it with a broader team of users, stakeholders, developers and designers. Doing this in a rapid and iterative manner generates feedback early and often, improving the final design and reducing the need for changes during development.

A Design-Led Approach for Software as a Service Implementations

October 1, 2018

My previous post described why we should follow a user-first, design-led approach to enterprise software implementation instead of a system-driven approach. Yes, even with modern user interfaces like Salesforce Lightning, SAP Fiori & UI5, Pega, or SharePoint on Office 365. The benefits include saving time and money, easier implementation and roll-out, and satisfied (and happier) users.

This post describes our process, a focused version of Rapid Design & Visualization (RDV), Capgemini’s user-centered design methodology.

Software as a Service Implementations Need a Design-Led Approach

September 17, 2018

Software implementations today are different from what they were just a few years ago. Gone are the days when software packages were implemented with little to no opportunity for customization and could only be run on computers in an office. Users were an afterthought and had to deal with a steep learning curve. They also had to adapt their processes to the software.

Fast forward to today, when we have Software as a Service (SaaS) disruptors like Salesforce, and traditional software like SAP and SharePoint that look nothing like their earlier versions. Software today is increasingly available:

in the cloud,
with modernized interfaces,
featuring responsive designs that work across desktop and mobile devices,
is more usable out of the box, and
the user interface is constantly being improved.

How to make IoT a reality for your company

April 12, 2017

The Internet of Things is here to stay. Bain predicts that annual IoT vendor revenues could exceed $450 billion. That same survey found that about 90% of respondents remain in the planning and proof-of-concept stage and only about 20% expect to implement solutions at scale by 2020. At CES this year, apart from the theme of “Alexa everywhere”, there were many examples of existing products becoming smart and connected.

Ask 10 people for a definition of IoT and you will get a dozen different answers. My favorite definition is from openSAP combined from by Gartner, Wikipedia, and Digital Trends,:

“The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to sense and interact with their environment and each other to collect and exchange data to make our lives better.”

Impact of the Government Shutdown on Federal Website User Experience

October 14, 2013

As I write this, the calendar marks day 14 of the US government shutdown. There is enough finger-pointing going around, so let’s focus instead on the impact to users of federal websites. With some vacation time coming up in December, I was planning a family vacation to Arizona. The first result in a search for “grand canyon” was a link to the U.S. National Park Service, which led me to a message that the website was also shutdown (see below) – an online dead end!

NPS Grand Canyon Website shutdown

Thankfully there were many alternate sites, and I could continue planning our trip. The experience however got me interested in how other federal websites were impacted by, and handling the shutdown. Federal websites that were impacted by the shutdown broadly handled the online user experience in one of three different ways:

Glanceability & The Glanceable User Experience

July 10, 2013

Tight flight connections are tough – and I’m not talking about actually getting from one flight to another. The difficult part is finding out which concourse and gate you need to get to, as well as the most efficient way to get there. This is just one of many scenarios where a glanceable user experience is essential – starting with displays (be it on an airport monitors or on a phone screen) that tell you where you need to go, and what time you need to be there, followed by clear and visible signs directing you to your next gate.

Simply put, glanceability refers to presenting important and relevant information to users in a way they can easily understand and act on it. While the airport is one place where glanceable information is important, we are surrounded by many other situations where a glanceable user experience is not only important, but also crucial. One such example is a car dashboard, where the driver needs to be able to monitor gauges with a glance before focusing their attention on the road again.

Gestural User Interface and Experience Design Considerations

January 17, 2013

The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2013 wrapped up last week, and apart from 4K TVs (3D was so last year), there were many gesture-based products and services being showcased – including Leap Motion, a gesture add-on for iOS devices, and Intel’s perceptual computing.

The gesture-based products caught my attention more than the fancy TVs, since I had just bought a Kinect over the holidays. Not the Xbox gaming system, but only the Kinect sensor. I bought it along with a couple of books on hacking the Kinect, to get hands-on experience with non-gaming gestural user interfaces.

Five User Experience Takeaways from Online Holiday Shopping

December 18, 2012

Yesterday was Free Shipping Day in the US – the last one-day, online-shopping event marketed by thousands of merchants offering free shipping with delivery by Christmas Eve. As the informal end of the online shopping push by retailers to drum up online business leading to Christmas, it comes in last after Green Monday, Cyber Monday and the start of it all – Black Friday. From the looks of it, retailers had a great online shopping season with E-Commerce spending on Black Friday topping $1B for the first time.

Five User Experience Takeaways from Superstorm Sandy

November 13, 2012

Superstorm Sandy caused a lot of devastation last month, including leaving millions in the New York area without electricity. While our family was blessed with not having to deal with flooding, a blackout meant no Wi-Fi and only a few hours of electronic device use. We were well prepared for the storm with two fully charged 3G devices, along with other essentials like drinking water, canned food, batteries and flashlights. For the better part of 48 hours without access to high speed internet access, we had to rely on an overly congested 3G network during short bursts of connectivity to the outside world. Accessing email, informational websites, and social apps in that context of use highlighted a few lessons that apply to the way we design and manage online user experiences:

Conveying Trust Through The Online User Experience

October 26, 2012

I jumped out of a plane earlier this year. A tandem skydive from 14,000 feet may not sound as spectacular as Felix Baumgartner’s space jump, but it was an exhilarating experience! While the actual skydive took less than 10 minutes, the process of finding a trustworthy skydiving facility took over 10 hours.

Since no one I knew had gone skydiving themselves, I started with a Google search. It wasn’t very consoling that Google’s top search suggestions had to do with skydiving death and accidents, but I pressed on anyway. With most skydiving facilities being equally far away from civilization, and prices being similar, the selection process came down to how trustworthy they seemed. This was an extreme example, where I was literally putting my life in the hands of a business based on their online presence. Even with lower stakes, trust is a basic user expectation and online businesses need to convey trustworthiness.

Category: UX Design