CUBI: A User Experience Model For Project Success - UX Magazine

26/9/2014, 1:25 AM CUBI: A User Experience Model for Project Success | UX Magazine
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CUBI: A User Experience Model for Project Success
We all want to be a part of compelling creative projectsprojects
that solve business problems and engage users through
meaningful and valuable experiences. However, given tight budgets
and timelines it's challenging to create genuinely innovative design, identify
gaps in the process, and consider the variety of factors for effective user
experience.
To solve these common challenges, I researched existing user experience
models or frameworks and found that most UX diagrams are confusing,
unorganized, complex, or antiquated, making them useless for designers and
clients. Thats why I decided to create my own model.
Henry Ford once said
"I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other
men behind whom were centuries of work Progress happens when
all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable."
This was exactly my approach. I began my work by reverse-engineering
hundreds of award-winning interactive projects* from a range of industries
and project types (marketing websites, games, apps, e-commerce,
educational, etc.), to understand and document the concepts, interactions,
and elements of the experiences.
Graphic used with permission from TheFWA.com (Favourite Website
Awards). Research included reviewing Googles Creative Sandbox,
Communication Arts, The FWA, and Behance from January-June 2014.
It was impossible for me to determine if each project was successful or not
effective design requires more than a pretty surface or whiz-bang
interactions. However, the research did help provide insights on the different
components that comprised each project.
As a result of my research, I determined most projects had a strong balance
of content and interactions. The content was engaging and easy to consume,
while the interactions supported access to more content.
When considering how these elements overlap with user goals and business
goals, I created the CUBI User Experience Model. This model helps
deconstruct the major components, which consist of:
Content
User Goals
Business Goals
Interaction
When considering the intersections on the diagram, there was the Process by
which users navigate through content through the provided interactions,
which includes communications, reactions, actions and transactions.
Another set of intersections was Experience Factors (). In order to have an
effective experience a product needs to be comprehensive, useful, usable and
branded.
The Benefits of CUBI
As I used and developed the model it began to serve multiple purposes:
1. Creativity: Creative experiences have the potential to engage users and
provide more unique brand experiences. The model provides a
framework for presenting content more creatively, through use of a
variety of techniques and methodologies.
2. Communication: When terminology and language are common
between designers and clients, it provides for greater communication
and helps keep the strategy on-track.
3. Simplification: The terminology and practices that are a part of
experience design can be vast and confusing. This model simplifies the
complex design process, and delivers it in consumable bite-sized chunks,
by outlining all the considerations that must be made throughout a
project.
4. Collaboration: When we understand the factors involved with
designing experiences we then understand the different roles, teams,
assets, and content required to execute on any given strategy. This
understanding can help create a project plan and make it easier to
delegate tasks.
5. Gaps: The model can help identify gaps within the design process. For
example, a business may have established requirements, goals, and
functionality for their marketing site, but maybe they havent developed
a content strategyor they have only marketing research, but havent
performed formal user research.
The Layers of CUBI
Content
There are five layers to consider when incorporating contentContent Types,
Models, Treatments, Methods, and Architecture.
1. Content Types: Content is more than just text. Content includes a
variety of media including photography, video, audio, data, documents,
and a whole bunch of other things you might not have even considered.
When content types are combined there are more opportunities for
creative forms of media. For example, infographics combine text, data
visualization, and illustration. It's also critical to inventory the different
types of content and how the content can become object-oriented, which
is when content is used in other contexts.
2. Content Models: Content models combine the different content types
into a more recognizable model or format. For example, a recipe is a
content model, which may include content types such as ingredients,
instructions, and photography. The content model for a movie review
may contain content types such as a movie description, ratings data, a
list of actors, and a movie trailer.
3. Content Treatments: Content can also have applied aesthetics and
treatments. For example, the visual style may include 2D illustration or
the photography may be treated with a vintage style or duotone. Text
may have a unique tone or personality based on the brand voice.
Graphics may reflect a certain company culture or personality, which
can be indicated in brand guidelines.
4. Content Methods: Content can be presented in more creative ways. It
can be vastly more interesting and engaging when methods like
storytelling, metaphors, analogy, symbolism, scenarios, challenges, or
other creative concepts are applied.
5. Content Architecture: Content architecture is the structure and
organization of information in a website or software system. It touches
all content categories including content types and models and how
content interlinks.
To summarize, Content Types are aggregated to create Content Models. The
content types and models can have an applied Content Treatment. A Content
Method can provide a narrative or framework for the content. All of these
elements are organized through Content Architecture.
User Goals
There are five layers to consider when incorporating user goals: User Types,
Needs, Motivations, Behaviors, and Outcomes.
1. User Types: Its important to understand the different user types that
will use the end product. A common practice is to create user personas
that detail their different roles, responsibilities, skill-levels,
demographics (gender, age range, languages, locations, etc.)
psychographics (personality, values, attitudes, interests, lifestyles) and
where, when and how they will use the product.
2. Needs: Once user types are identified, it is critical to understand and
define the relevant needs and aspirations that will help fulfill their goals.
Some needs may be more simple, like finding documentation, while
others are more complex more physiological or esteem needs. Additional
examples of needs may include personal progression, accomplishment,
mastery, recognition, status, belonging, expression, or a sense of
purpose.
3. Motivations: Once the user needs are identified, we need to
understand how users are motivated to fulfill those needs. This could be
a wide range of intrinsic or extrinsic rewards or motivators,
implemented with cues, design triggers, or other techniques.
4. Behaviors: Once the motivations are understood, it's important to
research the user's current behaviors and how new motivations can
potentially drive behavior change. With enough motivation and behavior
change there is a greater likelihood of developing new habits and loyalty
to a product and brand.
5. Outcomes: The combination of Needs, Motivations, and Behaviors can
then translate into meaningful and measurable outcomes for users.
To summarize, each User Type has a set of Needs they are trying to fulfill.
Users are Motivated to take action. Repeated Behaviors can produce
significant user Outcomes.
An example may be mother with a busy schedule (User Type) who Needs to
train for a 10k. She might be Motivated by daily reminders and
encouragement from friends to exercise (Behaviors) resulting in longer
distance runs (Outcome).
Business Goals
There are four layers to consider when incorporating business goals
Operations, Offerings, Outcomes, and Mission.
1. Operations: Each project has operations that support the product,
which can include people, resources, and other connected experiences.
People involved in the project can be key business stakeholders, content
contributors, subject matter experts, collaborators, administrators,
recruited users and others involved in the project. Resources may
include content data feeds, APIs, third-party tools, stock artwork, brand
guidelines, existing user research, analytics or other resources.
Connected Experiences can happen prior, during and after the
experience. First, understand how users will find the product either
through internal communications, advertising, the App Store, search
engines or through social media. This helps make the communications
consistent, congruent, professional, and focused. Then users may
interact with departments like live customer support, technical support,
human resources, or others. This understanding informs the designer
how the company has the capacity to support user inquiries.
2. Offerings: The business may offer an ecosystem of products and/or
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services. Its also important to understand how these products and
services relate to each other. To communicate these offerings, the
business should also have a value proposition, which states why a
consumer should use the product or service versus other competitors.
3. Outcomes: The offerings ultimately support meaningful metrics and
Key Performance Indicators that help support business success. KPIs
may include financial performance, customer acquisition goals,
increased customer satisfaction, employee performance metrics, call
center metrics, or other indicators.
4. Mission: A mission statement provides the core purpose of an
organization, its competitive advantages, its target audience, and the
reason the organization exists. The mission statement should guide
decisions and clearly define goals.
If customers have positive brand experiences and transactions they
provide business outcomestweet this
To summarize, the Operations support the business Offerings. If customers
have positive brand experiences and transactions they provide business
Outcomes, which help fulfill the business Mission.
Interaction
There are four layers to consider when incorporating interactionPatterns,
Systems, Devices, and Humans.
1. Pattern Interaction: Design patterns (AKA Micro Interactions) are
reusable components and interactions. Patterns include everything from
headers and menus to calendars and maps. Resource libraries for
patterns include Pattern Tap, Mobile Patterns, and pttrns.
2. System Interaction: The system can contain navigation, flows,
feedback, and notifications to help the user progress and achieve their
goals. The nature of the system can either be static, meaning that it is
unchanged or dynamic meaning there is constant change or activity
within the system. Dynamic systems can be regulated or self-regulated,
meaning there are varying degrees of permissions and actions certain
users perform based on their credentials. Systems can also be defined by
the content management system or other system software, which may
have a set of capabilities and limitations.
3. Device Interaction: When designing for an experience its key to
understand the capabilities and constraints of the targeted devices,
including screen sizes, connectivity, user interface conventions and
other factors. The experience could happen with a variety of devices
including phones, tablets, kiosks, terminals, watches, appliances or
other things. For example, modern phones can support gestures,
geolocation, accelerometers, audio recording, camera capabilities, push
notifications and other features that are native to modern phones. User
interface design considerations are also made to provide experiences
that are ergonomic and comfortable when using certain devices.
4. Human Interaction: The human interaction may be formal or
informal, personal or interpersonal, social, or some other type of human
interaction.
To summarize, a set of Patterns are provided in a System. The system can be
available on multiple Devices to encourage certain types of Human
Interaction.
Experience Factors
Effective user experience is more than just the simple usability of a product.
When creating the CUBI model, I concluded that there are at least four
primary factors for effective experiences.
1. Branded Experience: A brand experience is not simply the visual
identity. Its the tonality and totality of the entire brand experience for a
customer at any touchpoint. Any experience a user has with the business
is a brand experience, whether its reviewing product information
online, receiving live support from a call center, opening product
packaging, or learning about the product or service from friends. The
brand experience should convey to users that its credible, reliable,
reputable, and that the company delivers on their promises. Brand
communications and transactions can make or break brand loyalty.
2. Comprehensive Experience: A comprehensive experience is one
that is both comprehendible and extensive. A comprehensible
experience is understandable, clear, uncluttered, properly labeled,
scannable, organized, categorized, and lacks ambiguity. If there is an
inordinate amount of corporate lingo, jargon, slang, or the messaging is
not relatable, the experience may not resonate with users. An extensive
experience provides users with a sense of completeness. Missing content
can leave users unfulfilled. For example, if users dont have enough
information about company offerings on a homepage or within
supporting pages, people may leave the site or delete the app.
3. Useful Experience: A useful experience satisfies user needs, makes
them feel empowered or productive, and helps them efficiently achieve
their end goals. This can be measured by their changes in behaviors,
actions, and performance or by other tangible means.
4. Usable Experience: A usable experience is easy to use, intuitive,
findable, learnable, legible, consistent, and provides prompts and
feedback to communicate their progress in a system or process.
Usable experiences also:
Allow for forgiveness by allowing users to correct mistakes
Provide accessibility for those with impairments
Functionally work on the targeted devices and browsers
Process Factors
When businesses provide systems for users to interact with, there are
typically four process steps to consider.
1. Communications: The intersection between business goals and
content is communications. The branded content communicates
comprehensive messaging to engage users.
2. Reactions: Users react to these communications and quickly decide if
its something useful to them.
3. Actions: The reaction can motivate users to take action to fulfill a goal
or perform a task. This could be prompted from a call to action, trigger,
task list, dashboard or by other means.
4. Transactions: User actions then translate into business transactions.
The types of transactions may include purchases, providing ratings on
products or services, customer loyalty registration, etc.
The CUBI Outer Ring
Once the CUBI Model was developed, I made the observation that user
experience disciplines, tasks, and methods matched with the major
components on the model forming a structured outer ring. This ring helps
indicate the potential tasks and efforts required to execute on the strategy. It
doesnt have to be daunting or disorderly.
Please note that there are too many user experience disciplines and tasks to
incorporate on this diagram.
For example, content development can potentially require content strategy,
subject matter expertise, and information architecture. To identify user goals
it may require user research methods such as surveys, contextual inquiry,
interviews, and usability testing.
Conclusion
After months of research, peer reviews and study, I hope designers,
developers, and clients will find this an invaluable framework for projects to
help determine product viability and feasibility. Whether it's a mobile game,
healthcare software platform, or marketing website, engagement requires
detailed strategy and effective execution.
We welcome your thoughts and input on the CUBI UX Model. We also
encourage you to share this article with others to get their feedback. Look for
a future Nerdery webcast to further explain the model and how it can help
with your project success. Click here for more information about the CUBI
User Experience Model.

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26/9/2014, 1:25 AM CUBI: A User Experience Model for Project Success | UX Magazine

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