In a recent consulting project, I had the opportunity to work with a product team tasked with developing an internal tool for developers at a digital bank in South East Asia referred to as Project Manilla for the purpose of this blog. Unfortunately, the misapplication of User-Centered Design (UCD) principles resulted in several challenges worth highlighting for the benefit of other teams.
I would argue that all the good practices of UCD were followed however they were run in isolation of the product trio which created several issues that I would like to discuss in this post.
Key issues to consider
Excessive design in the pursuit of a great user experience can often result in scope bloat and significantly increase project costs. While it is important to prioritise a seamless and enjoyable user experience, it is equally crucial to strike a balance between design elements and practical implementation. When design becomes overly intricate and complex, it can lead to unnecessary features and functionalities that may not align with the project’s core objectives. These additional components not only add to the development time but also inflate the overall budget.
Moreover, an overemphasis on design can significantly slow down the delivery process, impeding the timely realisation of project goals. While aesthetics and user interface are essential aspects of any product or service, excessively focusing on perfecting these elements can cause delays in the development cycle. Valuable time that could otherwise be utilised to deliver tangible value to users may be wasted in endless design iterations. It is crucial to strike a balance between design refinement and ensuring prompt delivery, maintaining a streamlined workflow that optimizes both user experience and time-to-market.
Another consideration is the potential compromise of return on investment (ROI) when resources are disproportionately allocated to design efforts. While design plays a pivotal role in attracting and engaging users, allocating excessive resources to this aspect can lead to neglecting other crucial areas of development. For instance, investing heavily in design while neglecting robust functionality or scalability can result in a product or service that fails to meet user expectations in terms of performance and capabilities. Ultimately, the ROI may suffer if the allocation of resources is not aligned with the overall project objectives and user needs.
While design is undeniably significant in delivering an exceptional user experience, it is crucial to strike a balance that prevents excessive design and its associated challenges. By avoiding scope bloat, streamlining the delivery process, and ensuring a balanced allocation of resources, organisations can maximise their return on investment while still providing an outstanding user experience. It is the careful consideration and strategic implementation of design that can lead to optimal outcomes, both in terms of user satisfaction and business success.
Recommendations
- Establish a clear measurement of success at the outset of the design process.
- Foster close collaboration between designers and engineers to identify simple solutions and evaluate the costs associated with intricate designs.
Exploring Project Manila as a Case Study
Project Manila in late 2022 aimed to create a secure and streamlined portal for developers to request keys, certificates, and secrets within the bank. The existing process relied on ad hoc methods such as Slack, email, and in-person requests, which resulted in lost development time and compromised security. The project team embarked on a discovery phase, conducting interviews with developers and stakeholders to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem and devise a solution. As a newly formed digital in South East Asia, the budget constraints meant the team had roughly 3 months to complete the initiative and in a back drop of an independent audit it was critical to address the security issues.
The solution appeared straightforward: building APIs for requesting, creating, editing, and deleting keys, certificates, and secrets. The majority of the development efforts focused on the APIs, the underlying database for request management, and authentication and authorisation mechanisms. The UI component, which should have accounted for only 5% of the development efforts, ended up consuming a staggering 50% of the allocated budget. So, what went wrong?
Designing without a measurement of success
The team failed to align the design with the primary objectives of the project, namely security compliance and minimising lost development time. While creating a great user experience is desirable, it should never overshadow the core purpose of the product. In this case, an elaborate UI was developed with features such as sliding menus, profiles, and an intricate header and footer. The complexity of the UI led the engineers to believe they needed a custom UI framework, resulting in significant development delays.
From the design mockups above, it is clear a User-centred design process has been taken, there is careful consideration about creating a good experience. Unfortunately there are several issues with the design that could have been identified earlier had a balanced approach to discovery been taken with involvement of a product manager and engineers with the designer looking closely at business viability, shortest path to realisation of value, and feasibility. A collapsable menu, personalisation, branding for an internal tool, request history are all additional features that were unnecessary and led to the engineers burning a considerable amount of the fixed timeline. The reality was it would have been acceptable to have 3 buttons across a page to start with to realise value quickly, the bulk of the team’s efforts needed to be spent on creating the APIs and not the UI.
Backlogs are not sequential
Upon joining the project as a consultant, one of our first actions was to reorganise the backlog. We realised that rapid value realisation did not necessitate an elaborate UI. Since the target users were developers, they would have been satisfied with a streamlined interface resembling their existing tools. By rearranging the backlog accordingly, we could temporarily set aside the UI development and focus on the more critical API integration aspects.
While the engineering team tackled the APIs and integrations, the product manager simplified the design by removing unnecessary components and features. However, since the developers had already invested time in building a reusable UI framework based on the initial designs, some sprints were lost. A closer collaboration between product, design, and engineering during the discovery phase could have avoided these setbacks and accelerated value realisation by several weeks. For example, had the product trio aligned on the key success metric, the design team could have been stripped back, and the backlog would have been prioritised differently.
In conclusion
As an industry, we have learned the significance of exceptional design and user experiences. However, it is crucial not to lose sight of the ultimate business value we aim to create. Close collaboration between product, design, and engineering teams is essential to ensure the appropriate application of user-centred design principles, leading to the best outcomes for both users and organisations. By striking the right balance and prioritising value realisation, we can navigate product development challenges and deliver impactful solutions efficiently.
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