I was given the task to develop a complex report once. It had all the funky layout and lots of data pulled from various business objects across the system.Project plan showed a 60 man days of costly effort.Development started and finished in time.It was shown a green flag after a couple of user acceptance testing rounds and sent to the battle field (Production server).
There were no issues reported for the report an year and one day it was told that the end users are no longer using the report because it does not fit their needs. It contains a lot of extra information and it is difficult to use. What went wrong ? The report passed the UAT. so what ? there are a lot of softwares in the market which pass it.What is missing here is user experience testing.Although the users accepted the software initially because they were new to it.
Its like you test drive the car and then you decide to buy it , and only after a month of driving experience you come to know about the true problems of the car. Even the big brands have failed products apart from being of high quality.
Hence there is a need for a framework or a software methodology for merging the user experience testing (UET) to be a part of software development.UET is all about measuring the feelings of the end users while they experience the software over a period of time.
I have been hearing the term "Minimize User Clicks" over a period of time and the development teams take it as a misnomer for a successful UET. But does it really help in having a good software experience , absolutely not. I am sure there are methodologies and testing frameworks for this but its who uses them effectively makes the difference and since PLM is about the product , hence , the PLM system as a software should have a good UET framework , as well as the PLM software itself should have a module to measure the experience of the end users.
As an example this is what i could think of in FlexPLM. Suppose, we create a product called 1234 in season FW 2011 . And the carry over of 1234 to season FW2012 should depend of the UET results of 1234 for season FW 2011.But before making a conclusion , i would like to ask this question - What is the basis of carrying over a product from one season to another ? Anyone ?
If user didnt want the report how business got the idea to create such report ? Infact such testing should be there before even development starts.
ReplyDeleteThis article makes lot of sense to me as why UET is so important in any PLM system. I can think couple of points for the basis of carryover products - 1) In case a product has exceeded the market expectation and oversold. 2) Product designers would want to use most of the same info as that of previous season product with a slight changes in design and new materials. 3) There a future demand for a BIG event like Olympics, Soccer World cup etc..
ReplyDeleteProduct Carry Overs : Different companies use carry over of Products/Styles for different reasons. To add to Prashant’s thoughts, Some companies sell the Classic/Original product lines for years. Over the years prices changes, might be having new colors(colorways) etc. For the same model they will have different styles(colorways) added in the new season. These styles also may sell in new seasons. FlexPLM will allow this scenario and gives the flexibility to maintain the information at season level.
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