Category: user experience     Posted by: cornelius     Discuss: view comments     Views: 2982

Over the past month, some encouraging developments took place on the Government of Canada User Experience (UX) landscape. By far the most important (in my opinion) is the creation of a permanent UX working group (UXWG for the purpose of this article) made up entirely of UX professionals, as part of an interdepartmental web governance structure.

Its original lineup includes the likes of @ResultsJunkie, @sagecram, @spydergrrl, @krisaston, @mjmclean, @patlaj, @jmacerve and @hilittle, all of whom have been actively raising awareness about the importance of positioning and conducting high-quality UX work within the Public Service. I'm not someone who is known for throwing superlatives at the Federal Government, but seeing the internal UX community finally step out of the shadows is truly a huge step forward towards improving the customer experience of every Canadian, regardless of which side of the firewall they are on.

Sadly (for me :O), details of the web managers council UX discussions have not been publicly shared to the outside world, so I've decided to write this post and share my own thoughts on the possible evolution of this encouraging endeavour.

Promote Well-Rounded Skillsets

In my opinion, the hardest skill to master for a modern UX practitioner is becoming a persuasive communicator, and consequently, being good at it. These days, UX technical skills are relatively easy to acquire as the internet is full of tutorials, deliverable examples and tools related to everything from end-user research, information architecture, interaction design, prototyping, usability testing, etc. But the most persistent objection that I've encountered when I discussed UX with Public Service employees is that (generally) members of higher bureaucracy levels do not particularly care about the subject and therefore are not willing to promote, support or spend money on UX initiatives. Well, do not despair, even those of us outside of the PS encounter bureaucratic environments at various client sites, and more often than not we have to fight our own visibility and traction battles. Knowing how to deal with the human obstacles will unlock a lot of avenues for higher quality GoC experiences.

Search for UX Champions

I think of user experience (and the related user-centered design paradigm) as not simply justifying the users' point of view to the various players involved (business, IT, communications) but also selling the inherited benefits to anyone and everyone within the organization. Let's face it, other than those directly involved, very few people in the GoC know what UX is, nevermind its short-term and long-term benefits. More often than not, the educational aspect related to promoting UX to various groups has to be accompanied with a hard sell to the organization, a difficult task without senior management / executive support. So one of the things that UX practitioners should do (if they haven't done this already) is find someone at a senior level in the organization willing to lend an ear to what they have to say. Having an EX officially assume the title of 'UX Champion' is always nice leverage when it comes to boosting the credibility of the practice. Also, because the PS is such a huge organization, I would have to say that one of the core purposes of the UXWG should be helping new UX personnel progressively undertake the role of UX evangelists within their own departmental organization.

Define a UX Strategy and a Roadmap

I also believe that the purpose of the UXWG should be much broader than sharing UX best practices and deliverables. When it comes to deciding exactly what activities the group should undertake, the first steps should be creating a GoC UX strategy and roadmap for its implementation. Everyone involved should make suggestions on what is needed to move the practice forward, from better ways to working with business/IT teams to creating rotating leadership position(s) that mandate and support the creation of those efforts. Roadmaps should cover at least the next two fiscal years and should be reviewed at least every 4 months. That way, the UXWG is working towards its own milestones (goals) and is not diluting its presence by only supporting the common endeavors of individual practitioners. On a quick sidenote, one activity that should introduced on any web-based project in the GoC is assessing readiness. I hear so much about having limited resources and the fact that people did the best they could, well, those factors could have been caught on a readiness assessment done at the beginning of the project and the project could have either been delayed or the necessary resources could've been made available. This assessment could be done by the UX team as they will have to interface with the business, IT and communications team during the project anyway.

Make the UXWG a True Community

While participating in #w2p events is a great cross-functional informal gathering place, the UXWG will also need a professional community that will share and support its members during the ups and downs of its lifeline. A monthly/bi-monthly meeting of PS UX professionals will prove invaluable in the long run. Sharing ideas, successes, lessons learned, etc. will give everyone an opportunity to learn from each other and will make them better practitioners. I also imagine that being able to vent in an environment when people understand your frustrations can also be a significant benefit to the long term sanity of the group.

Conduct Ongoing UX Training

In order to effectively propagate the effort of the UXWG community, new UX recruits will need direct visibility to the group's activities. The best way of doing this is to combine the presentation of what your group does with specific traning. Get involved with the HR teams responsible for creating onboarding documentation and add UX training to the curricullum of every new UX recruit. Promoting and conducting a UX trainig curricullum for GoC (as far as I am aware, basic UX training has already been created and conducted) on a regular basis (every 3-4 months) would be a huge step forward in maintaining, connecting and renewing the community on an ongoing basis. In addition, existing (interface) design standards and templates for all projects and products (which the GoC is doing through CLF) should explicitly describe the role of the UX practitioner and should provide links to the UXWG community for additional help and/or information.

Make UX Part of the GoC Culture

Another important initiative is working slowly at making user experience part of your organizational culture. Working formally and informally with managers and practitioners from the IT, business and communications teams is always an opportunity to place UX at the heart of every public channel of your organization. UX should be hierarchically positioned on the same level (not below, and not above) as the IT team, the business team and the communications team. Traditionally in a GoC department, UX resources are part of either the IT team or the communications team, an archaic model that places UX resources in a hierarchically inferior position with respect to those that are expected to be influenced by the UX work they are supervising. This is not a problem when the management of those particular teams in on board with institutionalizing UX, but when that is not the case, not having an equal voice is detrimental to the visibility and success of the UX initiatives.

Become Active Externally

Another way to promote your organization and acquire new skills is to get involved in UX events outside of the GoC community. Social media and local practitioner group (such as CapCHI) events are a great way to connect with other local UX professionals, share ideas and promote the public service as a UX employer of choice. This may also potentially help with ongoing recruiting efforts as well as researching and connecting informally with potential UX subcontracting partners who are also active on the local UX scene.

So that's my quick and dirty rant about the evolution of UX within GoC without knowing much about the current state of affairs... A lot of it is high-level, but since there is no public data that I can use in terms of numbers, reach, and existing infrastructure/deliverable standards, these are just some ideas that may be of help in the long run. Do you guys agree? Or is this another Vicodin-infused outside dream of an internal GoC UX Nirvana?

Tags: community, marketplace, public sector, GoC CLF

khaleem (19.04.2010 15:14:55) wrote:
No matter how well the PS UX community is organizing itself, let's not forget one very important fact: citizens out there will always judge the end result, not the process. I'm looking forward to seeing more websites similar to the ones on the Best list that Cornelius published in his previous article, and I'm also looking forward to some true PS innovation. The PS is sending the right message, but I want to see some results not just strategic chatter.

Diana (19.04.2010 16:34:51) wrote:
It's not that easy. You spent too much time in the private sector and completely lost track on how things work in the Government.

Steve Buell (19.04.2010 17:08:26) wrote:
Cornelius, your comments are actually more encouraging than a "rant."
Why do I say this? I was sitting at the table when our friend Laura put forward the proposition for the UX working group.
Laura brought forward a well thought out proposal, communicated it very well, and brought an established, talented, community with her.
The web managers council recognized right away that this was a piece that had been missing from the cadre of the Tech, QA, and Access working groups.
Why am I so positive? I work for a great boss who recognizes the opportunities as they arise and enables individuals to do what they do best.
Will things be perfect when they are first implemented? No, probably not.
Will everyone be in agreement with the initial offerings? No, probably not.
Will the ground work be there for incremental, continuous improvement? I certainly anticipate this will be so.
I wouldn't dare say "trust me" and as @khaleem intimates, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating."
Well, I'm looking forward to the new recipe.

P.S. I'm glad to say I had some small part to play in one of your Top 5 sites.

cornelius (19.04.2010 17:42:55) wrote:
@Steve: I did pick up on your enthusiasm when I read the original tweet and immediately thougth that this is a huge step forward for our profession (it's at least 5 years too late, but hey it's GoC right? :O) I was in the middle of writing a negative post, and then I changed my stance because of a couple of tweets from you and Laura.
This is important not just because a UX working group has been created, but also because the web managers council finally recognized that there is a lot of value they can get out of working with UX resources going foward. Keep up the good work :O)

Steve Buell (19.04.2010 19:11:27) wrote:
Thanks so much. We're really happy to have finally been able to formally engage the UX community. Credit goes to the GC leadership we currently have in place.
This is not your father's CLF team.

spydergrrl (19.04.2010 21:29:47) wrote:
So excited about this development. There's so much opportunity and those of us championing this effort are completely energized by it! {insert UX geek comment here}

I know it's going to be somewhat closed for now in terms of process, but don't worry, we look outside on a regular basis and are bringing those ideas to the table.

Thanks for your support!

cornelius (20.04.2010 01:18:01) wrote:
@spydergrrl: well, ok, so maybe I still worry a little bit (mostly because there's a lot of hoops you guys need to jump through to get things by the dinos :O), but it's a lot less than I worried before UXWG was formed. Having a forum for bouncing ideas about the evolution of UX within GoC was due for a long time, so it's nice to see it coming along. Looking forward to see new developments in the near future.

Laura (20.04.2010 06:40:42) wrote:
Thanks for the, um, encouragement. This is a positive development indeed. I'm happy to say that we don't just have one UX champion at the EX level - we have many! The real achievement here is demonstration that the culture is shifting to be more collaborative - working across all sorts of boundaries, including hierarchical and functional. Not doing so more often and on more issues has been our greatest downfall, in my opinion.

Although we are still struggling with what this means externally, I would argue that a lot of people have taken the risk to be as public as possible, while still remaining true to the Code of Conduct to which we have all agreed. To some extent the line is blurring between employee and citizen, though not without raising some very difficult questions and opening ourselves up to some level of risk.

Which brings me to question of what you have in mind re: "becoming active externally"? As far as the UX Working Group (UXWG) is concerned, it was tweeted before the meeting was over! We haven't even had a meeting yet and you're complaining that "details of the web managers council UX discussions have not been publicly shared"? Woah cowboy! Retreat! ;)

I will correct one assumption though - the UXWG is not "made up entirely of UX professionals" it is made up entirely of professionals who believe in and work with user-centred design principles. It's a multi-disciplinary team of public sector specialists, some of whom work in web, on applications, in performance measurement (like me) and some who bring completely different skills to the table. Some people have a lot of experience, but those with less are also welcome to join, which I'm hoping will have the same effect as some of your suggestions above. Some members work in IT shops, and some in Comms, as there are not yet that many UX shops, but I'm not sure that's really what is needed. What we need, as I've mentioned, is to work across these boundaries, and futhermore, to set-up governance structures that include cross-functional decision-making bodies, and as you've noted, to communicate persuasively. To that end, one of our goals will be to support the CLF update, in particular, by communicating *why* we need consistency, flexibility and accessibility on government websites.

Besides reading & commenting here with you we're engaged in a number of other public forums if you're looking - we're active on twitter (#uxgc), some of us are part of a UX book club that meets monthly'ish and we have a group on LinkedIn called UXGov (which is still young but has proven effective when it comes time to mobilize). There are lots of gov employees active at other meet-ups as well: Social Media Breakfast and Third Tuesdays to name but two places where smart and interesting people from all sectors tend to congregate. Maybe you've been out of town too long to make sweeping generalizations. Aren't we starting to sway your views? ;)

I've also been blogging about this topic (as well as service improvement and performance measurement), based on nearly 10 years inside the bureaucracy. I won't repeat myself, but you can see some of my conclusions about why we are still struggling to have client-centric sites here, where I also point out some positive improvements in a couple of places: http://usability4government...

In fact, it was the comments on that post that started me questioning what we could do to integrate user-centred design principles into various policies, not just CLF. In my day job, I work on service improvement across all channels, not just web, and the need exists to apply these ideals in other areas as well. Luckily there are lots of great people who recognize this is an opportune moment and are able to commit to working towards change rather than complaining or criticizing. And luckily, like Steve, "I work for a great boss who recognizes the opportunities as they arise and enables individuals to do what they do best." That more and more of us can say that means the culture shift is becoming pervasive. Interesting times ahead for sure!

As usual you have some interesting ideas and I enjoyed reading them. Gotta run - I've got a date later today in Chigaco with Jakob Neilsen et al. Still have more to learn and Usability Week seems like the perfect place to do so!

cornelius (20.04.2010 16:37:45) wrote:
@laura: By being active externally, I mean having members identify themselves as part of the UXWG at informal gatherings like CapCHI, the UX Book club, etc... It will raise the profile of the group and of the GoC and will let people know that if they choose a career in GoC they won't be siloed and abandoned by their professional peers...

So you're not a UX professional?? You actually believe that someone who is doing usability in GoC presentations, is attending UX Week, is doing UT, and is founding member of a UX working group is not a UX professional? All of the things that I've read about you doing are things any UX professional has done at some point in their career. You may have another specialization as well, but you are (at least in part) a UX professional. My background is computer science, does that make me a programmer? Academic background is irrelevant, where your passion lies dictates who you truly are. And you seem to be pretty passionate about this UX thing :O) And UX is a multidisciplinary profession. I'm sure you have seem many presentations showing what UX covers and you know as well as I do that chances are that there is not one person out there who is great at all of them. We all have a our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to UX, and my opinion has always been that sometimes it's better to become really good at a few things that you do rather than being average at everything. And i'm sure most people in the UXWG would at least consider themselves good at some of the UX activities.

I have read most of your blog posts, and I agree with most of the issues / solutions you're bringing up. However you still defend a lot of the bad decisions that the GoC was/is making via the usual 'we don't have time, we don't have money, there is too much bureaucracy' argument which I will continue to refuse to accept. The creation of the UXWG is one thing that shows that if likeminded people spend the time to tackle a problem, there are always workable solutions.

And I also still disagree in principle with UX professionals working under the tutelage of IT or communications teams. When push comes to shove over budgets, priorities, etc., guess who will the argument by default if IT or communications team leaders who are not particularly fond of UX make the decisions? You and Steve are hopefully two of many lucky ones who work for great bosses, but try telling that to the people whose managers told the to stay away from GCpedia. Do you think they would get any mangement support if they wanted to help with the GCpedia initiative? And the same applies to social media use, web design, etc.

And I do agree that the improvement of Government services has to be across channels. That is the reason why I often refer to 'Customer' experience rather than mentioning the web channel, although I am more often than not involved in strategizing cross-channel, and managing and implementing mostly within the web channel.

Anyway, this is getting rather long so I'll stop here, thank you very much for the comment, enjoy Chicago, and say 'Hi' to papa Nielsen for me :O)

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