All this is about setting very clear expectations before any design work is undertaken. It ensures the business knows why we’re taking a UCD approach, how long it will take and what it will cost.

Okay, it’s just a spreadsheet. And it doesn’t even have any macros. But we find it very, very useful. It just lays out the cost in time and money for each of the UCD methods.

The columns are as follows:

• Method
• Source: Who’s involved in the test. This can be:
  • Internal: We do it with internal Rightmove staff
  • In-house: We do the research in-house but with real users
  • Agency: We let an agency do the work for us
• Users: Number of users covered by the cost
• Cost: Includes things like the monetary incentive for users (well, vouchers)
• Days: Number of human-days involved including preparation, administration, facilitation, evaluation, and analysis
• Duration: How long it will take from beginning to end (recruiting to analysis)

Note:  All prices are in GBP. And some pricings are guesstimates but it’s enough to start a conversation.

How do we use it?

When we have two recommendations and know which UCD methods we want to use for a project (using our UCD recommendation engine), we refer to this spreadsheet to work out what the costs will be. For example, say we decide we’ll need to do some paper prototyping with external users. The spreadsheet tells us this will cost:

• £300 in incentives
• 6 days of work
• over the course of 4 weeks

Download

• Costs of UCD methods (16KB Excel doc)

What next?

Given the recommendations and the costs involved we can then create our UCD estimates at the beginning of a project and start setting expectations with the project owner.

The UCD recommendation engine. Okay, so the name is horrible. It conjures up images of enormous computational machines with punchcards and geeks in white labcoats.It was one of those cases where the first name given to it stuck.

It’s much, much simpler than that though. It’s three simple questions to make sure we include users in the right way for any given project. As with so much in the UX field, a lot of this is just common sense.

UCD Recommendation Engine (click to embiggen)

How do I use it?

So, the basic questions with respect the upcoming project, are:

1. Do we understand our users’ needs?

   Hint: Unless you’ve done reasonably extensive user research earlier, the answer will be ‘non’. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing – it means you have the opportunity to get out and talk to your users.

2. Does the functionality exist already?

   This can be your own product, a competitor’s, or something from an unrelated industry. For example: A login flow – you can test working version of your own login, Amazon’s, Facebook’s or any other sites that users of your product would likely encounter.

3. Are there multiple, or complicated, solutions?

   This time the answer will most likely be yes. But it’s good to ask so you know you’re focussing your (likely scarce) user involvement resources.

Answering each of these questions we choose from the menu of UCD methods listed below it. You’ll notice the recommendations part is broken into two:

• Recommendation A are the preferred methods to use; 
• Recommendation B are the bare minimum.

Choosing between them we ask ‘How important is this project to the business?’ – the answer should determine how much resource (time and money) you’re willing to use.

Earlier versions

Of course, this diagram also went through a few iterations. You can see these here (click to embiggen).

What next?

When we’ve decided which methods we want to use, we look look up the costs of these UCD methods.