"Making technology pleasurable to use"

The Need

Outcome of Software Development Process

1. Meets Explicit Requirements
2. Incurs secondary costs

Outcome of User Experience Design Process

1. Meets Both Explicit Requirements & Implicit Requirements
2. Reduces Secondary Costs 80% of the time

A normal ‘Software Development’ without ‘User Experience Design’ yields a software that is difficult to use is costly due to unnecessary technology, features and requires hiring only experienced staff to use it makes less use of what computers can do best and instead burdens people to do things like remembering, repetitive typing or calculating Ultimately it does not serve the very purpose it was built for.

“Good software is one that is reliable, meets expectations and is pleasurable to use.”

the Problem

“How to build good Software”

One of the most important outcomes one expects from building Software is to; get more work done in lesser time. It is very logical to understand that to get more work done the implicit need is that the software should be easy to use.

Software development process focuses only on basic needs of being reliable such as

1. Technical Requirement
2. Business Requirement
3. Domain Requirements

the Solution

“Satisfy the User Experience Design”

To build a good software the process should also focus on the implicit needs of making it easy to use. Therefore we need to understand what makes it easy for the person using it, and to do that we need to study a few of them to get a generic idea. Making software easy to use is a big step in satisfying the requirement for building good software, but this still does not make the product unique and pleasurable to use.

What we do

“Making technology easy and pleasurable to use”

We work with you or your vendors to define search, navigation, organization, personalization, and knowledge management systems that improve usability and findability, elevate customer satisfaction, and strengthen competitive advantage.

Following illustration shows the criteria that make technology easy and pleasurable to use. + functional + creative + attractive + credible + popular + informative + useful + usable + desirable + accessible + credible + findable

Our Software Design

We develop sitemaps, wireframes, sketches, prototypes, use cases, and functional requirements that specify the intended structure and behavior of web sites, interactive services, and information systems.

Visual Design

We create aesthetic designs for different medium such as print and web, branding, Research We conduct field research and ethnography, user and stakeholder interviews, usability tests, goal and task analysis, site and search analytics, content and metadata audits, and competitive analysis.

Workshops

We lead executive seminars and team workshops designed to communicate the core value, key concepts, and best practices of information architecture and user experience design.

Evaluations

We offer expert reviews that provide a fresh perspective on existing products and allow refinement of evolving plans and prototypes.

Special Projects

Over the years, we would like to collaborate with clients on a wide variety of creative assignments, unusual challenges, and special projects.

1. Expert Panels Assemble, coordinate, and participate on advisory boards and expert panels for special events or ongoing consultation.
2. Innovation Accelerators Facilitate workshops that leverage user research, mental models, backcasting, scenario planning, and prototyping to spur innovation.
3. Findability Audits Evaluate the findability of physical and digital products and environments. Review search, navigation, and way finding systems.

Our Skills

User Experience Design is a highly multi-disciplinary field, encompassing different skills

1. Usability Analyst – to analyze user needs
2. Information Architect – to design content for the best presentation
3. Interface Designer – to design aesthetically pleasing interfaces with standard controls
4. Interaction Designer – to design for easy interactions
5. UI Developer – to build the designed user interface

These skills incorporate aspects of psychology, anthropology, computer science, graphic design, industrial design and cognitive science.

How we do User Centered Design Process

The solution provided by ALEF ARABIA is based on a simple five step Process 

Steps Task Participants /Involvement Inputs Output / Deliverables Responsibility Methodology / Working Initial phase / study Client, Developers, UxD team, Users User research document first phase UxD team Meeting, requirement document User research Client, User, UXD team User research document first phase User personas, User scenario UXD team Interviews, Observation, Client interaction Task analysis, Information architecture User, UXD team, Developers User Personas, Scenario Storyboard / wire-frame, Flowcharts, IA UXD team, Developers Card sorting, Nomenclature&Navigation, Paper prototype, Matching system& real world. Production - Visual Design&Frontend development User, Developer, UXD team Storyboard /wireframe Visual templates /HTML Template UXD team Branding, Accessibility, Compatibility, Social-cultural Usability testing Client, User, UXD team, Developer Modules and complete application Usability report UXD team User testing on system developed Study Understanding business goals, competitive analysis and benchmarking, along with deep understanding of users, their characteristics, needs&motivations with users 

• Focus group 

• Personas 

• Scenarios Without user 

• Customer support logs 

• Stakeholder requirement Analyze Collect & plan content structures 

• Labeling 

• Hierarchy 

• Taxonomy 

• Usability 

• Accessibility 

• Internationalization Identify new areas of innovation, creative information flow and improve task flow and streamline experiences 

• Layout design 

• Interaction design Design 

We develop sitemaps, wireframes, sketches, prototypes, use cases, and functional requirements that specify the intended structure and behavior of web sites, interactive services, and information systems. 

And aesthetic visual appeal, colors & Branding 

• Visual Hierarchy 

• Visual Branding 

• Contextual Icons & Images 

Build Generic Templates for development team to use; based on finalized wire-frame designs 

• CSS 

• Images 

• Cross browser testing 

• Performance 

• Accessibility 

• Internationalization 

Test After developers complete development using the templates, all files are validated against the original templates. 

The outcome of the entire 5 step design 
process is also validated with end users.