Applying Usability to Improve Value and Reduce Risk
Presentation Abstract
Bonitasoft provides a leading open source BPM process-based application development platform – one that we want to be the best fit for our very wide array of customers. Our flagship product, Bonita BPM, has strong graphical UI components, on-line documentation, training materials, and a javadoc. All require information compiled and applied to create the best user experience.
Multiple departments are involved in the collection of users’ needs that include those generic to all customers, and also those specific to individual users such as the technical environment, their vertical business domain, and current situation in the application development cycle. These departments include Pre-Sales, Sales, Expertise Delivery, Customer Success, Product Managers, Marketing, and of course Engineering.
In Engineering, our goal is to reduce the risk of not delivering the right product to the target users, to bring them their expected business value: to move faster, take better action, overcome a problem.
This talk will focus on usability practices and techniques to:
– Gather users’ needs and expectations at the use case level
– Translate them into clear feature specifications for the whole product
– Insure the expected value is met
With an example from my experience as Bonitasoft’s usability specialist, you will hear about our cultural change from technical-centric to user-centered, directing and influencing the R&D team, and about “non-negotiable usability”: our own, ad-hoc concept.
What can attendees expect to learn?
Attendees will:
– hear about a real life case study, with examples of how usability is applied to documentation, product UI, and training in software development
– understand the techniques used to train / coach the team on “non-negotiable usability criteria” to guide developers to apply usability as they are creating software (with examples of success)
– learn about the tools used for breaking silos and improving communication, and the agile tools used to put the user in the middle of the specification phase
Meet the Presenter
Nathalie Cotté has worked 12 years as a usability consultant on various types of user interfaces (from automotive cockpits to voice user interfaces), and has always been motivated by the challenge of pulling a development teams’ point of view towards their users.
As the in-house usability specialist at Bonitasoft for more than 3 years, she has been a part of the transformation of the company’s culture, on its journey from feature to value.”