User Interface Team

Definition

User Interface Team (a.k.a., User Experience Team)

the team that is responsible for producing the user interfaces

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, user interface teams are part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Team
• Subclasses: None

Responsibilities

The typical team-specific responsibilities of a User Interface Team are to:

• Collaborate with the requirements team to engineer the usability requirements.
• Collaborate with the architecture team to architect the user interface.
• Design user interfaces that will:
  • Meet user needs.
  • Attract, engage, and retain users.
• Prototype and implement all user interfaces:
  • Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), such as websites
  • Wireless User Interfaces
  • Input Devices
  • Output Devices
  • Email and reports
• Perform usability testing.

A user interface team typically inherits the general team responsibilities from the team process component.

Roles

A user interface team typically consists of persons playing the following roles:

• User Analyst,
  who analyzes the different user organizations and types of users and who collaborates with the requirements team to engineer the usability requirements
• UI Designer,
  who designs the user interfaces:
  • GUI Designer, who designs the graphical (as well as textual and voice) user interfaces, who collaborates with the architecture team to produce the navigation diagram, and who collaborates with the digital branding team with regard to the digital branding of the interface.
  • Hardware Designer, who designs the hardware user interfaces (e.g., physical buttons, scanners).
• Content Creator,
  who collaborates with the content management team to create content for the user interface:
  • Audio Artist
  • Content Author
  • Graphic Artist
  • Video Artist
• Hardware Engineer,
  who fabricates the hardware user interfaces
• Usability Engineer,
  who programs the software user interfaces
• Test Engineer,
  who collaborates with the independent test team to develop the usability tests
• Test Monitor,
  who runs the usability tests
• Technical Writer,
  who documents the user interfaces

Tasks

A user interface team performs the following team-specific design, implementation, and testing tasks in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and time-boxed manner:

• Requirements Engineering of the User Interfaces:
  • User Analysis
  • Requirements Identification
  • Requirements Analysis
  • Requirements Specification
• Architecting of the User Interfaces:
  • Architecture Production
  • Architecture Documentation via navigation diagrams
• Design of the User Interfaces:
  • Design Production
  • Design Prototyping
  • Design Documentation
  • Design Refactoring
• Implementation of the User Interfaces:
  • Data Generation of user interface data
  • Fabrication of hardware user interfaces
  • Programming of software user interfaces
  • Debugging of user interfaces
• System Usability Testing:
  • Test Reuse
  • Test Design
  • Test Implementation
  • Test Execution
  • Test Reporting

A user interface team typically inherits the common team tasks from the team process component.

Work Products

A user experience team typically produces the following work products:

• Requirements Work Products:
  • Usability Requirements in collaboration with the requirements team
• Architecture Work Products:
  • Navigation Diagram in collaboration with the architecture team
• Design Work Products:
  • Hardware Design Document (design of hardware human interfaces)
  • Human Interface Design Document
  • Human Interface Prototype
• Implementation Work Products:
  • Data Component (User Interface Content)
  • Hardware Component (User Interface)
  • Software Component (User Interface such as a component in the presentation layer)
• Usability Test Work Products:
  • Test Scripts
  • Test Suites
  • Test Cases
  • Test Data

Guidelines

• This method component (process component class) is typically tailored via subclassing to add, modify, and remove responsibilities, roles, tasks, and work products.
• Clarify and minimize any overlap in responsibilities between the user experience team and the:
  • Digital branding team with regard to the usability of the digital brand.
  • Requirements team with regard to engineering the usability requirements.
  • Architecture team with regard to overall user interface architecture and design.
  • Content management team with regard to data component (content) production.
  • Software development team with regard to the integration of user interface software components with the other software components.
  • Independent test team with regard to usability testing.
• Some development organizations consider user experience a discipline rather than a team. Instead of constructing a user experience team, such organizations instead distribute the above roles to the above teams. This helps avoid “turf battles” between these teams.
• A user experience team typically inherits the common team guidelines from the team process component.