I am a user experience advocate for Oracle Corporation. So, ask me about usability then....

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Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 16, 2012, 5:48:40 AM1/16/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Yep, I am that user experience advocate. I’ve been in Oracle for 16
years, first with Oracle E-Business Suite globalization development
and now in the Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience (Apps-UX)
team. Apps-UX enables applications developers and implementors to meet
business objectives by providing usability guidance, best practices,
and advice about making really usable apps.

I engage with developers of ADF apps to get a conversation going about
enterprise apps usability, enabling users to be more efficient,
effective, and satisfied when they use those ADF apps in work.

Usability is a business requirement. The benefits for enterprise apps
like you are productive users, faster adoption of apps, less support
and training required, great feedback, requests for more of the same,
and less grief. If a user of your apps comes up to you after
deployment and says “But all I wanted was…”, then we need to talk
about showing some ROI instead.

I can explain more about usability—in plain language—and what guidance
Apps-UX can provide, as well as try and answer any questions you might
have. I am also interested in knowing if, or how, you incorporated
usability into ADF development before.

As a taster, check out the following:

New User Experience Enhancements Improve Oracle E-Business Suite
12.1.3 Software: http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/successStories/101206_EBS.html

Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development--Made Simple: Review and
Opportunity: http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/oracle_adf_enterprise_application_development

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Ultan

-------------------

Ultan Ó Broin | Director Global User Experience | Applications User
Experience | +353 1 803-1905 (IE) | +353 87 240-8272 (Cell).

Chris Muir

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Jan 17, 2012, 7:11:43 AM1/17/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
Hi Ultan, thanks for posting to the group and welcome!

So I have a few questions to start this thread off. Let's start from
the beginning.

1) I must admit until last year I hadn�t even heard of user experience
(UX) and I mistakenly thought it was the same as UI design. I know
better now, but I�m sure it�s a common mistake. How do you go about
differentiating the role?

2) How does somebody even get into the area of user experience?

CM.


On 16/01/12 6:48 PM, Ultan � Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)
wrote:
> Yep, I am that user experience advocate. I�ve been in Oracle for 16


> years, first with Oracle E-Business Suite globalization development
> and now in the Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience (Apps-UX)
> team. Apps-UX enables applications developers and implementors to meet
> business objectives by providing usability guidance, best practices,
> and advice about making really usable apps.
>
> I engage with developers of ADF apps to get a conversation going about
> enterprise apps usability, enabling users to be more efficient,
> effective, and satisfied when they use those ADF apps in work.
>
> Usability is a business requirement. The benefits for enterprise apps
> like you are productive users, faster adoption of apps, less support
> and training required, great feedback, requests for more of the same,
> and less grief. If a user of your apps comes up to you after

> deployment and says �But all I wanted was��, then we need to talk


> about showing some ROI instead.
>

> I can explain more about usability�in plain language�and what guidance


> Apps-UX can provide, as well as try and answer any questions you might
> have. I am also interested in knowing if, or how, you incorporated
> usability into ADF development before.
>
> As a taster, check out the following:
>
> New User Experience Enhancements Improve Oracle E-Business Suite
> 12.1.3 Software: http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/successStories/101206_EBS.html
>
> Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development--Made Simple: Review and
> Opportunity: http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/oracle_adf_enterprise_application_development
>
> Looking forward to hearing from you.
>
> Ultan
>
> -------------------
>

> Ultan � Broin | Director Global User Experience | Applications User

Jean-Marc Desvaux

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Jan 17, 2012, 8:28:36 AM1/17/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
Ultan,

I am also new to UX and to me it seems the same as UI design which also include things like Consistency in the interface to ease user intuition and simplify understanding of each new interface the user has to face and learn.

Is UI Design more the artistic aspect of interface development and UX practices is dealing with other ergonomics aspects (physical, cognitive, ...) ? Or are they the same ?
Is there specific disciplines (scientific or not) on which UX practices are based on ? If yes what are they ?
At what stage/phase of an application design/development does UX practices take place : early stage (prototyping,etc..), finishing stage (once completed improvements are brought in) or both ?

Jean-Marc

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 17, 2012, 9:16:56 AM1/17/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
The key word to remember there is "user", Chris.
UI Design I would consider to be the act of architecting the UI
layout, how the components are laid out, the order of completion of
fields, navigation, the look and feel, and so on. That's can be done
outside of the dev environment using tools like Visio or Balsamiq or
the more graphical PhotoShop to decide how the UI should look. Using
requirements gathered from talking with users about their
requirements, these UIs are done by designers with expertise in
graphics and how humans interact with computers. There are a bunch of
best practices for how the UIs and humans should interact, the most
famous being Jakob Nielsen's 10 heuristics (http://www.useit.com/
papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html). That's as good a place to start
as any to understand the practice. Inside Oracle designers of Fusion
Apps reply on patterns:
http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/Fusion/whitepaper_pdf/Oracle-Fusion-Design-Patterns_latest_draft_October_2011.pdf

ADF is ideal as UI widgets are component-based and come with UI
guidelines to match (http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/middleware/
richclient/index.html)

The designs are transfered to the dev tool, implemented and usability
tested. There may be several prototypes involved before that of
course. If you're skilled enough you can prototype and design using
the IDE which may expedite the process, particularly in the agile
world.

User experience (UX) is a broader concept, takes into account UI
design and the general principles, but is about understanding how real
users work, what they'd like to do with the apps, any pain points, and
how they feel about using the apps. We'd consider the context of apps
use, understand the different types of users, their tasks, their
goals, and motivations as well as expertise, tools and people they
work work, and even what influences them generally in the technology
space (for example, social media, collaboration, using mobile apps and
so on). In the case of Fusion Apps for example, the team in Oracle
spent over 1500 hours talking with real users. Based on that we can
consider design. It's all about making users efficient, effective, but
also (the more subjective notion) satisfied with the apps. It's all
about achieving real business objectives natch - productivity, faster
adoption, less downtime and so on

So, the UX team has more that designers - includes social researchers,
usability scientists (stats, ugh), technologists, cognitive
psychologists, behaviouralists, and so on.

For ADF developers, don't expect anyone to rush out and sign up for
PhDs in UX: Finding an end user, asking them what they do, and would
want to do, watching them work, finding the pain points, and putting
that into the design and development mix is a great start. Testing
with those users completes the process. Users, users, users.


On Jan 17, 12:11 pm, Chris Muir <chriscm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Ultan, thanks for posting to the group and welcome!
>
> So I have a few questions to start this thread off.  Let's start from
> the beginning.
>
> 1) I must admit until last year I hadn t even heard of user experience
> (UX) and I mistakenly thought it was the same as UI design.  I know
> better now, but I m sure it s a common mistake.  How do you go about
> differentiating the role?
>
> 2) How does somebody even get into the area of user experience?
>
> CM.
>
> On 16/01/12 6:48 PM, Ultan Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Yep, I am that user experience advocate. I ve been in Oracle for 16
> > years, first with Oracle E-Business Suite globalization development
> > and now in the Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience (Apps-UX)
> > team. Apps-UX enables applications developers and implementors to meet
> > business objectives by providing usability guidance, best practices,
> > and advice about making really usable apps.
>
> > I engage with developers of ADF apps to get a conversation going about
> > enterprise apps usability, enabling users to be more efficient,
> > effective, and satisfied when they use those ADF apps in work.
>
> > Usability is a business requirement. The benefits for enterprise apps
> > like you are productive users, faster adoption of apps, less support
> > and training required, great feedback, requests for more of the same,
> > and less grief. If a user of your apps comes up to you after
> > deployment and says But all I wanted was , then we need to talk
> > about showing some ROI instead.
>
> > I can explain more about usability in plain language and what guidance
> > Apps-UX can provide, as well as try and answer any questions you might
> > have. I am also interested in knowing if, or how, you incorporated
> > usability into ADF development before.
>
> > As a taster, check out the following:
>
> > New User Experience Enhancements Improve Oracle E-Business Suite
> > 12.1.3 Software:  http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/successStories/101206...
>
> > Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development--Made Simple: Review and
> > Opportunity:http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/oracle_adf_enterprise_ap...
>
> > Looking forward to hearing from you.
>
> > Ultan
>
> > -------------------
>
> > Ultan Broin | Director Global User Experience | Applications User

Jean-Marc Desvaux

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Jan 17, 2012, 10:15:34 AM1/17/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
I'm reading a few interesting posts on the User Assistance blog ( http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/oracle_adf_enterprise_application_development).

A few thoughts from what I am reading : 

In Oracle Fusion Financial UX paper (http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/Fusion/whitepaper_pdf/The-Oracle-Fusion-Financials-User-Experience-latest_draft_September_2011.pdf ) I saw that eye-tracking systems were used to analyse and optimize user experience and could not resist of thinking of users with cross-eyed problems interference on the eye-tracking process... :O) . And to think more seriously that improving experience for common users can lead to make the interface for disabled users much harder.

On another one (http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/where_have_all_the_ugly), Ultan says :- Some (no names) consider those old clunker forms, with the myriad rows of fields, to be super-productive for data clerks. 
I was part of the "no names" in a many cases and must agree that having done a few ADF apps where clerical entries are made, I can say I am still in the "no names" for a few cases only (not many as before).
In those cases desktop integration is not always a solution and one of the grounds for UX improvements in ADF remains at the Tables component data entries level.

-Jean-Marc

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 17, 2012, 9:24:55 AM1/17/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Jean Marc, you got it. UX involves range of disciplines - social
scientists, scientific analytical types, GUI designers, usability
engineering (testing) is involved. UI Design is part of all that. So
are the techies - no point in designing something that cannot be
implemented. So, for example, in Fusion Apps, the design patterns we
use are largely based on ADF, so UX needs to know what the framework
is capable of doing.

UX is an an end-to-end process. Begins with research into users at
work, goes through the prototyping and design phase, the
implementation, and actua usage. It's an iterative process. Users are
engaged throughout the process: the deployed apps are also usability
tested to see how users are performing

U

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 17, 2012, 1:37:11 PM1/17/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Jean Marc, I looked up a list of backgrounds that we have internally
in the Apps-UX team, you may be interested..

* Ethnographers, cognitive psychologists, and behavioral research
scientists
* PhDs in social anthropology, human factors, cognitive psychology,
information science
* UX strategy and architects
* Experts in human-computer interaction, usability engineering,
product engineering
* Product designers, graphic artists
* World-class visual and interaction designers
* UI developers & designers
* Usability engineers

Useful phrase: It's not just about how you click, but how you
work...:)

Or

"Oracle’s User Experience: It’s not just the user interface, but the
seamless integration of functionality and user interface that enables
users to produce creative insights, empowers them to make timely
decisions and allows them to complete their work accurately and
efficiently."

On Jan 17, 1:28 pm, Jean-Marc Desvaux <jm.desv...@gcc.mu> wrote:

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 17, 2012, 1:50:52 PM1/17/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
I've been trained in the use of our Tobii eye-tracking system.It works
pretty much on the same calibration system as a digital camera and it
would still track where your eyes are looking and for how long, and so
on, but can't say we noticed any cross-eyed interference..:) . We
collect LOTs of data. (Works with glasses/spectacles too)

More on the subject here: http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/customerInput/090318_eyetracking.html

Accessibility considerations actually improve apps life for everybody
- logical wayout of data in tables, clearly written content, properly
labelled links (not that 'click here' stuff), keyboard-based
navigation that boosts productivity (throw away that mouse, please). I
have a paper somewhere on the leverage points between accessibility
and localization too...

Ah, that other blog entry is a plea for design around tasks and not
the data schema,logical order and disclosure of information. At some
point I must organize a test of some of those old clunky forms I've
seen against a redesign based on user-centred design principles. Might
be an interesting competition to run with ADF EMG at some point
actually.

U


On Jan 17, 3:15 pm, Jean-Marc Desvaux <jm.desv...@gcc.mu> wrote:
> I'm reading a few interesting posts on the User Assistance blog (http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/oracle_adf_enterprise_ap...
> ).
>
> A few thoughts from what I am reading :
>
> In Oracle Fusion Financial UX paper
> (http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/Fusion/whitepaper_pdf...

Chris Muir

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Jan 17, 2012, 8:04:49 PM1/17/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
Wow. I go to bed with the discussion just starting and I come back to
find a huge amount of information. What sorely impresses me is the
amount of work behind the scenes for Fusion Apps. From a customer
perspective (and a fortunate one who has attended a number of Oracle
related conferences with Fusion Apps content) I still don't think it's
conveyed how much work Oracle has put in behind the scenes on this new
suite of products. It's not just been an exercising in writing code.
Awesome stuff and thanks for sharing.

It's interesting once you started to describe the role of the UX
engineer, I moved away from comparing the role to UI designers, and more
to the system/business analyst side. In reality the UX engineer covers
all of those roles, more holistically, from the beginning to the end of
the project.

Now unfortunately most of the members of this group don't have access to
an unlimited talent pool of UX engineers at cheap rates. In turn
(relatively speaking) many of the ADF systems worked on will be much
much smaller then Fusion Apps where there might be a few developers and
an analyst no more. With this in mind, would you have some
recommendations on:

a) How small teams can start learning more about UX

b) What material the Oracle UX team have put out in the public space for
specifically ADF developers to make use of (I know this is a recap of
some of your points already, but to summarize please)

c) If there's one UX goal any team should take on board now, what should
it be?


Finally regarding "Ah, that other blog entry is a plea for design around

tasks and not the data schema,logical order and disclosure of

information." Hallelujah! A big bug bear of mine in developing ADF
systems on top of existing databases is the existing data model drives
the design. Just yesterday I was chatting to a friend in the insurance
industry who was saying his company has no hope of better satisfying
their customer because all their systems are based around a central
entity "policy" rather than "customer". Of course it wasn't just the
database design that was skewed, in turn the business analysts, the
management and even the users couldn't break themselves out of the
"policy" box when trying to design new systems, making change very
difficult indeed.

CM.


On 18/01/12 2:50 AM, Ultan � Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)
wrote:

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 18, 2012, 7:03:10 AM1/18/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
"Bed"? What is this "bed" thing?

To answer your questions:

A. Finding Out More:
1. We (Apps-UX) do a lot of outreach through conferences (user groups
and customer and partner events). Take a look at where Apps-UX is
coming to soon: http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/events/index.html.
We do try and cover ADF (and the Applications Core components and FWM)
as much as we can within the context of UX.
2. There are other great resources on that usableapps site too,
including OBIEE design patterns and so on.
3. We are working on making more "how to" and "example" usability
information available to developers and implementors later this year
(date tba). This includes design patterns for apps, guidelines, but
also process-related guidelines and information about usability that
you can apply easily in your work. This is largely driven through the
UX Direct program mentioned in my blog. This program is all about
taking apps to a higher level of efficiency, effectiveness and
satisfaction, measuring ROI and keeping developers and implementors
out of the VP's cross-hairs after implementation. The pitch here is
not to make everyone a UX Guru, but to provide directly applicable and
easy-learnable information about usability that can be applied without
hiring extra resources or huge ramp-up time. We'll talk about
different levels of tailoring apps too (personalization,
customization, extension, and so on).
4. Watch out for upcoming information from product teams about
usability too. There is one coming from EBS shortly - watch for the
notice in Steven Chan's blog or on the apps UX events section (I know
this is about more than ADF but the information is great):
http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/. 16-Feb 2012, I believe.

B. The one thing to do?

Treat usability as a business requirement. It's happening, but we need
to socialize that message more. Great books like Sten's really help
too. In practical terms, begin by 1) finding an end user, 2) finding
out what they do, want to do, and pain points with their tasks when
using apps, 3) keep them engaged throughout the development process
and rollout.

Worth pointing out that the end user is not the only stakeholder in
the process, but lets deal with that later.

a) Where can you find end users? HR, labour unions or staff
associations, training rosters, managers, internal forums.

(Just reading on Twitter about an order entry system with 60 column
database for customer information. Nice).


b) Observe their work, ask them to think aloud as they do tasks. Watch
for the signs - cannot remember how something was used after coming
back from vacation, tons of postits stuck on the screen, help desk on
speed dial, print outs from the web about how to do things. Find out
if a) they can complete the task unassisted, b) how long it takes them
to complete something, c) ask them if they're satisfied with their
current app or new implementation. Pain pointers in enterprise apps
(IMO) worth focusing on:

- Extended navigation. How many pages or screens do they have to do
through before they can even enter data? Simplify and streamline.
Personalize their view or customize it upon sign-in time. How about a
landing page or quick links section?
- Data entry effort. Entering tons of data? Clicking and scrolling all
over the place? Can the layout use logical groups of data instead? Can
required data only be identified and fields be removed or hidden and
completed later? Can you eliminate duplicate data entry through
population of data? Can searching for existing information
(performance dependent) be improved?
- Data accuracy. Eliminating error potential rather than fixing later
is way to go. Data accuracy is critical for enterprise apps and a
productivity killer if you have to fix stuff later. What validation
and conversion components can help you here? What about spreadsheet
uploads/export potential for eliminating data entry and errors in the
first place.
- Task analysis versus data schema. Was that app designed to reflect
the user task flow or the database schema? Use the task-based approach
and organize your UIs that way.
- Labels - are the tab and field labels clear? Are fields named so
that they are action oriented and users know what to do? Do page and
tab names reflect the steps in the task?
- Error messages. Don't start me...:) Make them helpful, useful
information, what to do next. No geek speak.

c) Get user input on new designs and on rollouts. Have a sandbox they
can evaluate implementations in. Ask them to perform real tasks as
they normally would and measure the result.

Lots of possibilities, which is why UX Direct is coming soon...

U
> > More on the subject here:http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/customerInput/090318_...

Chris Muir

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Jan 18, 2012, 8:52:32 AM1/18/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
"Bed?" Oh that's right, it's a Southern Hemisphere thing. Disregard my last email.

Another resource I've found useful is UX Magazine:  http://bit.ly/A5LCL0

CM.
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John Flack

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Jan 18, 2012, 9:01:31 AM1/18/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
True enough, Chris, data model shouldn't drive design, tasks should
drive both. I would argue that if your data model properly stores and
retrieves the data that the user needs to accomplish his/her tasks, then
design won't have to fight the data model to do its job.

There is one problem, however, that a data model that works for user A,
might not work for user B. My classic example is a purchase
request/purchase order system where user A requests items for his/her
office, which manager B must approve, and purchasing officer C must
order from vendors. C will get a stream of approved requests, but may
want to disassemble and recombine the requests into purchase orders.
Two requests for five pencils might best be combined into an order for a
box of ten. One vendor might have better prices for chairs, while
another better prices for desks, yet a single request is for a chair and
a desk. And when the items arrive, they have to be distributed back to
the original requestors. Managers may have needs to summarize purchases
in ways that are not related to individual requests or orders.

Compromises must be made to come up with a data model that works well
enough for everyone. Then you do the best you can to do a good design
for each user's tasks.

----

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 18, 2012, 1:25:39 PM1/18/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Good point - remember that end users aren't the only stakeholders -
others, including the IT people, business policy folks, dept managers
and so on need to be involved. End users are completing tasks sure,
but big pictures of flexibility, how they interact with other users
and departments, and so on need to be in the mix. Watch out for some
training from us (Oracle Apps-UX) on participative design,
communicating change and facilitating adoptiontoo. Balancing
priorties, resolved conflicts, setting expectations and keeping people
informed and so on are really critical: change management skills can
make or break a successful rollout. No surprises.

U

Andreas Koop

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Jan 18, 2012, 12:28:34 PM1/18/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
>> So, ask me about usability then....

OK, let's go for it. In some of my decent discussions about UX Design
we struggled with the following concrete ui pattern

i) panelSplitter: From my experience most users don't like it.
Especially business users which have few experience in UI Design / PC
Newbies.
i.1) Those users are struggling to hit the right area. Sometimes there
are users that just started moving a mouse input device;) Further: Try
to move splitter position through a touch device ;)
i.2) The default collapse icon is to small. Same here: Try to collapse
through a touch device.
i.3) Most users which a fixed layout. If more space is needed, there
should be a (touchable) navigation link (or button kinda "<<") to
collapse and ">>" to open again. On the plus side: this UX Design is
"touch device friendly".

Do we actually need panel splitter components now and in future?
What is your advice to make the business users happy concerning the
above mentioned points (with current ADF Version)?

What I would like to see in future ADF Version: af:collapsiblePanel

Thx,
Andreas Koop

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

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Jan 18, 2012, 5:29:58 PM1/18/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Some more useful usability references

General:

1. Check out what Jakob Nielsen has to say - sign up for his alerts
at

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

Jakob is pretty much Mr Usability Heuristics and the father of
Discount Usability methods that we can all use (in fact launched the
heuristics by way of a competition in the Danish "Computerworld"
magazine and published the research based on that in 1990.

Note, some of Jakob's declarations need nuancing for the enterprise
space (for example, no longer masking passwords on mobile apps), but
he has great content, delivered in a no-nonsense plain language style.
Mostly web sites and web-based delivery, but more recently lots on
mobile usability too.

2. If you like using Twitter, then follow @lukew (Luke Wroblewski -
web form design, mobile UX, and more focused tweets )

3. Also on Twitter, @jmspool (Jared Spool - pretender to Jakob's crown
and major thought leader on usability too, but the stream can be a bit
noisy).

Oracle-related and operated

4. Usable Apps - all about Oracle apps usability:
http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/index.html

5. Misha Vaughan's VOX - Voice of UX - great content too -
http://blogs.oracle.com/VOX/

6. My main blog is at http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/ sure,
but I also run the global UX-focused on at : http://blogs.oracle.com/translation/

Want a book?

Try Usabiltiy Engineering by Jakob Nielsen, the Design of Sites by
Douglas Van Duyne et al (http://www.designofsites.com/home/) - Douglas
was a consultant to the Fusion Apps design patterns. Hipsters amongst
you can try 37 Signal's Getting Real (http://gettingreal.
37signals.com/)

U


On Jan 18, 1:52 pm, Chris Muir <chriscm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Bed?" Oh that's right, it's a Southern Hemisphere thing. Disregard my last
> email.
>
> Another resource I've found useful is UX Magazine:  http://bit.ly/A5LCL0
>
> CM.
>

fnimphiu

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Jan 18, 2012, 7:48:11 PM1/18/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Andreas,

I think your question is a bit closet to an implementation specific
observation than UX methodic. Anyway,

On Jan 18, 6:28 pm, Andreas Koop <a.koop...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Do we actually need panel splitter components now and in future?

fnimphiu: If you look at the UI Shell Dynamic Tab template you
recognize that though it is a great desktop experience (and will be
even a better one in 12c as I can tell), when working on editing data
you would wish to hide information you don't currently need to give
more real estate to the area you actually work in. This is where panel
splitter IMO make sense.So it seems that it is how and where panel
splitters are used that makes a difference.

> What is your advice to make the business users happy concerning the
> above mentioned points (with current ADF Version)?

fnimphiu: Skinning, skinning, skinning, skinning, skinning .... did I
mention skinning?

> What I would like to see in future ADF Version: af:collapsiblePanel
>

JDeveloper 11.1.1.6 has optimized ADF Faces component rendering for
tablet PC iPad. Here everything is a bit bigger so a thumb fits in.

> Andreas Koop

fnimphiu

unread,
Jan 18, 2012, 7:52:06 PM1/18/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Ultan,

if a project doesn't have time or resources for UX analysis (I know
should not be), what would be your Top 10 recommended practices that
should be considered no matter what for RIA application UI and
navigation?

Frank

Amr Gawish

unread,
Jan 18, 2012, 7:10:07 PM1/18/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
First of all, I would like first to say WOW!
It's like when Ultan came with his hyper links, I discovered a new place in oracle website, some place where I didn't even think it exist...A beautiful place indeed, even the UI is better and more smooth!

Second if possible, I would like to direct a discussion a bit to a place where UX is tightly related to...Localization.

Here in middle-east Arabic is the dominant language, with its RTL nature, it become troublesome to create a clean UX design for any application, even some ADF UI doesn't support RTL (like Gantt chart for instance), I may hear people tell me that localization is about providing properties files to replace the label and that's it, but I believe that there is more into that, I believe UX is about more of a culture not just labels in forms or even direction.

My question is in Middle East, pretty much all users don't know what they need, they kinda got stuck with the English RTL version of the website, so they don't really know what they want, or how to represent it in words...How to approach that, How to be able to make a sophisticated UX design that changes culture when UI change language?

Hope I made myself clear... :)

Best Regards,
Amr Gawish
Senior Oracle Middleware Consultant
     

Andreas Koop

unread,
Jan 19, 2012, 3:42:39 AM1/19/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Thx, I know. Sorry for getting to implementation specific. I should
avoid any mentions of ADF.

My actual intention was to state my experience with end users and that
specific ui pattern, no matter it is desktop or web based application.
Most end users (at least in germany) do not like so much flexibility
in self layouting.

Anyway, maybe such specific UIX questions should be discussed
somewhere else: uxmovement, uxmatters, etc...

ak

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

unread,
Jan 19, 2012, 9:46:43 AM1/19/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Localization is probably worth a thread on its own, but here goes...
(Note: *Localizations* can mean something else in the Oracle
Financials, HCM and others world - i.e., additional functionality,
products, or consulting solutions that provide support for statutory,
legal, reporting requirements).

RTL (for those who do not know) stands for Right-to-Left. We refer to
languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu and so on as bidirectional
languages - or BiDi for short (there are also vertically read
languages, but lets not go there). Those ranges read and write numbers
from left-to-right and read and write text from right-to-left (hence
bidrectional).

ADF components do support bidi by way of Start and End properties
instead of Left and Right, but there may be components on the
rendering side as you say that do not (send me an email - ultan.obroin
at oracle dot com) and I will find out more for you if you have issues
with specific components). In the case of Arabic, the entire UI needs
to "flip" in the browser for users who select that language. Unicode
conventions (UTF-8 usually) and fonts now takes are of much of the
problems with the entry and printing of Arabic characters,
automatically supporting the correct shaping of ligatures and user
interaction (for example when editing combined Arabic and English text
and so on). Icons of course, require particular attention as any icon
you design that might have an arrow or pointer indicating direction
must have an equivalent version for RTL that is switched in when the
Arabic language choice of the user is detected.

Agreed, localization is about way more than externalizing text into
resource bundles for ease of translation and deployment. XLIFF - an
industry-accepted XML container for localizing (translating) text is
now supported in ADF of course and ADF using the JDev IDE can
automatically create translation packages, check for hard-coded
strings and the rest. ADF also supports the different date/time
formats used by different regions and countries and so on which
facilitates multilingual apps (the ability to switch UIs or enter data
and print data in your language of choice regardless of UI language
shown).

For enterprise applications, what you need to do is avoid developing
separate language UIs but internationalize the product so that
localization is facilitated and one UI design works for all while
leveraging the multilingual capability of the Oracle database. Here's
a quick list:

1. Write clear unambiguous text properly in the source language
2. Avoid designs that concatenate fragments of strings together - they
probably won't make sense at run-time. Write a full string or rely on
concatenating whole strings divided by a separator instead (for
headers or breadcrumbs for example).
3. Avoid composite constructions of text and UI components (Examples
here: http://download.oracle.com/tech/blaf/specs/ssnls.html)
4. If using tokens to substitute values from text make sure the values
come from a multilingual source and are correctly switched in
depending on the language. Dates and numbers are ideal for this, text
is a little trickier so take care the run-time string makes sense when
the token value is added.
5. Icons - avoid parts of body, cultural, national symbols (flags to
indicate language for example), puns, humor. Keeping text off the icon
and choosing one that works for all saves effort in localization and
deployment. Make sure BiDi language icons have RTL versions available
when a BiDi language is selected or detected.
6. Don't skin for small fonts - 10 point size or less can be a problem
for Asian languages. Use Unicode fonts.
7.Allow for text expansion in UI (30% for longer strings, at least
100% for shorter ones) . Text length increases when translated from
English. (related point ensure your database columns can accommodate
the storage too)
8. Allow text to wrap and flow naturally (no /t, /n and so on).
9. White space works for everybody,
10. Don't hard-code or force alignments or layout (using BR and PRE
and so on).
11. Use Start and End and not Left and Right properties on components.
12. Allow for automatic language sorting of data based on DB
collation, XSL, and so on - don't hardcode sort orders.
13. Don't organize UI widgets alphabetically on grounds it will be
faster to work with - the order goes when transalted and you need a
new UI.
14. Don't hard-code date/time formats, calendars and so on. Allow the
O/S to switch those in and out depending on user selection or country/
region detection.
15. Check with local users about name, address fields, what format
they need.
16. Allow for additional fields to be added for local compliance or
customs - VAT, Sales Tax calculation and so on, what information you
can and cannot collect for data privacy reasons, and so on.

Bet you're sorry you asked...:) But glad you did as enterprise apps
need to take into account global deployment. ADF facilitates that.

More Information::

(Note: I do not know of any one book that sufficiently covers these
areas. If you feel there is a need for UX guidance in this area I can
look into externalizing some guidelines on the matter in H2 of this
year.)

* Good resource for now: BLAF Internationalization:
http://download.oracle.com/tech/blaf/specs/ssnls.html

Some of my blogs on the subject:

* Internationalizing Designs and Usability Testing for Enterprise
Apps: Points to Consider http://blogs.oracle.com/translation/entry/internationalizing_designs_and_usability_testing
* What's in a Name: Global Considerations for Apps:
http://blogs.oracle.com/translation/entry/what_s_in_a_name
* Designing Global Graphics in Enterprise Apps: Points to Consider:
http://blogs.oracle.com/translation/entry/designing_global_graphics_points_to_consider

U

On Jan 19, 12:10 am, Amr Gawish <amr.gaw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> First of all, I would like first to say WOW!
> It's like when Ultan came with his hyper links, I discovered a new place in
> oracle website, some place where I didn't even think it exist...A beautiful
> place indeed, even the UI is better and more smooth!
>
> Second if possible, I would like to direct a discussion a bit to a place
> where UX is tightly related to...Localization.
>
> Here in middle-east Arabic is the dominant language, with its RTL nature,
> it become troublesome to create a clean UX design for any application, even
> some ADF UI doesn't support RTL (like Gantt chart for instance), I may hear
> people tell me that localization is about providing properties files to
> replace the label and that's it, but I believe that there is more into
> that, I believe UX is about more of a culture not just labels in forms or
> even direction.
>
> My question is in Middle East, pretty much all users don't know what they
> need, they kinda got stuck with the English RTL version of the website, so
> they don't really know what they want, or how to represent it in
> words...How to approach that, How to be able to make a sophisticated UX
> design that changes culture when UI change language?
>
> Hope I made myself clear... :)
>
> Best Regards,
> Amr Gawish
> Senior Oracle Middleware Consultant
> <http://www.amr-gawish.com>  <http://blog.amr-gawish.com>
> <http://www.twitter.com/agawish>
>   <http://www.linkedin.com/in/agawish>
> <https://plus.google.com/113754637895846356137/about>
>   <http://www.facebook.com/agawish>
> ...
>
> read more »

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience)

unread,
Jan 19, 2012, 10:03:39 AM1/19/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
I don't know if skinning can remove a component...:) I think of
skinning as the packaging of a CSS and icons for look and feel (well
covered by Sten's book).

To answer your question on splitters - ask the end users - if they're
causing problems in task completion, time on task, and satisfaction
explore the cost/benefit of removing them. You raise a great question
as we must consider why they were implemented in the first place. End
users are not the only stakeholder - perhaps a global deployment was
needed to accommodate different screens, resolutions, devices or
whatever and this was a way of doing so.

As a general rule I don't favor anything that seriously obstructs
users, but don't they just have to resize once? panelSplitter is
supported by the ADF Persistence Framework, so users can personalize:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E15523_01/web.1111/b31974/ad_persist.htm.
One quick win on the UX front is explaining to users what
personalization options they have, and if they can make changes
themselves, great, no IT.

For example: Implicit personalization on table columns or calendar
views (see the ADF Persistence Framework component support), explicit
personalizations - such as saved searches (query), use of page
composer if the role has expertise and access, and so on.

Re: Mobile Usage

- The user experience is different as the context (and roles) are
different from the desktop world. In general, the UI needs to be
simpler, clearer, allow for rapid entry of data, accommodate
disruption (implicit save?), flatter navigation, and so on.

See: http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/successStories/071115_mobileExperience.html

Hope this helps.

U

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience [Apps Usability])

unread,
Jan 19, 2012, 10:32:06 AM1/19/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Good question Frank.

On the subject of 10 basics, here is a nice explanation of the famous
10 usability heuristics that should get everyone thinking:
http://www.whatwasithinking.co.uk/2009/02/27/explaining-usability-heuristics-a-quick-guide/

Bear in mind a lot of what you read on the web is not nuanced for
enterprise apps, but I still think it adds some value. And bringing
your own experience of apps you like and dislike into the design
process helps too once you validate them with users. So the top 10 -
assuming you have your end user to talk to - I would say (the order is
not necessarily prioritized here):

1. Navigational effort and structure - streamline it so the user can
get working right away and is not scrolling and jumping around apps
and pages a lot. Quick links, start pages on sign-in, personalize the
experience. Make navigation logical and reflect the tasks and not the
database schema...:)
2. Data entry - sanitize the effort involved - Data accuracy is
critical to enterprises .But is all data entry necessary? What is the
required data? Is there duplicate entry? Can autocomplete or
prepopulation be used? Can users be allowed enter date their way and
the application convert it to the required format. Hide/show anything
as needed.
3. UI Layout - make sure layout is logical, fields are in groups that
make sense and allow for order of completion that suits the user.
4. Error messages - ones that help - one of the major complaints we
have is about these - write clearly actionable ones in plain language
so the user can proceed on their own. Don't tell users to contact the
system administrator if the user cannot recover raise an incident
automatically and tell the user what to do next.
5. Errors and delays prevention - use instructional text or warnings
in context. Provide in-context help in the UI - for example the ADF
validator and converter hints. Research shows that users very often
affirmation that what they are about to it is correct so let them know
in advance.
6. Be consistent across the UI with placement of components, their
naming, how they work. and so on. Aids recognition over recall. ADF
skinning helps.
7. Write that UI in language that the user understands. Make it
actionable, clear.
8. Explain personalization options to give users control over their
own experience. Bind user preference decisions to input and output
(for example, date time format). Rely on the persistence framework.
Allow short-cuts for power-users.
9, Simplify, simplify, simplify. Keep it as simple as you can. If you
think it looks clunky, then it will be when you use it...:).
10. Don't write tons of doc to explain the UI or just because you can.
Redesign the UI. If your FAQ doc is growing exponentially and nothing
is ever removed, then you've a very good indicator about usability...


U

Jean-Marc Desvaux

unread,
Jan 19, 2012, 11:20:16 AM1/19/12
to adf-met...@googlegroups.com
Interesting posts and links. Plenty great content to read...
I think I have to blame Chris & Ultan for having diverted my time to an addictive subject that was not in my diary.  :O) Thanks for that.

I 100% agree with Amr : What is usable and "smart" for one culture can have the opposite effect on another culture. Making it not easy when you have many culture in the same organisation.
In Mauritius there is a mix of Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Africans and Europeans and each has their own culture and it is easily visible at all level from Houses design to UI design....
I would say that it's the organisation/enterprise culture that has to prevail, end-users help shape that culture but come & go, the organisation stays.
The great thing with a component based Framework like ADF (and the UX efforts that comes with it) is that it brings a good foundation for organisation to design consistently.


-Jean-Marc



Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience [Apps Usability])

unread,
Jan 19, 2012, 5:20:06 PM1/19/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Yes, that's true, though bear in mind the only way you can ascertain
that it really impacts the user is to engage with them. When gathering
user requirements watch out for cultural nuances, accessibility
issues, other factors. Users are also bringing other influences into
the workplace too - internet, personal technology, games, the
influence of their kids' technology choices. Many organizations are
now treating usability as a business requirement and run their own
tests and evaluations before they'll make a decision to buy software
or deploy it. Way too much to cover here, but if you want a really
straightforward user requirements gathering document then take a look
at this:

Common Industry Specification for Usability - Requirements
http://zing.ncsl.nist.gov/iusr/documents/CISU-R-IR7432.pdf

Don't sweat the detail - jump right to the appendices and check out
level 1 compliance (p 27). If you use that kind of simple template
that specifies context of use, usability criteria, and some evaluation
method you'll be light years ahead of many and well on the way to
getting more out of your enterprise apps. Members of Oracle Apps-UX
(and other teams) contributed to the document.

U

Jan Vervecken

unread,
Jan 21, 2012, 5:27:12 AM1/21/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
hi Ultan

Thank you for the insights.

Has your Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience (Apps-UX) team
also been involved with "The New My Oracle Support User
Interface" [1]?
Or can you share any insights about how user experience has evolved
there (from the old Metalink to Flash to ADF)?

- [1] https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1385682.1

regards
Jan Vervecken

On Jan 16, 11:48 am, Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User
Experience) <ultan....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yep, I am that user experience advocate. I’ve been in Oracle for 16
> years, first with Oracle E-Business Suite globalization development
> and now in the Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience (Apps-UX)
> team. Apps-UX enables applications developers and implementors to meet
> business objectives by providing usability guidance, best practices,
> and advice about making really usable apps.
>
> I engage with developers of ADF apps to get a conversation going about
> enterprise apps usability, enabling users to be more efficient,
> effective, and satisfied when they use those ADF apps in work.
>
> Usability is a business requirement. The benefits for enterprise apps
> like you are productive users, faster adoption of apps, less support
> and training required, great feedback, requests for more of the same,
> and less grief. If a user of your apps comes up to you after
> deployment and says “But all I wanted was…”, then we need to talk
> about showing some ROI instead.
>
> I can explain more about usability—in plain language—and what guidance
> Apps-UX can provide, as well as try and answer any questions you might
> have. I am also interested in knowing if, or how, you incorporated
> usability into ADF development before.
>
> As a taster, check out the following:
>
> New User Experience Enhancements Improve Oracle E-Business Suite
> 12.1.3 Software:  http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/successStories/101206...
>
> Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development--Made Simple: Review and
> Opportunity:http://blogs.oracle.com/userassistance/entry/oracle_adf_enterprise_ap...

Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience [Apps Usability])

unread,
Jan 21, 2012, 9:29:45 AM1/21/12
to ADF Enterprise Methodology Group
Hi Jan, that one didn't cross my radar, no. I will try and find out if
there is any information on it.

U

On Jan 21, 10:27 am, Jan Vervecken <verv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi Ultan
>
> Thank you for the insights.
>
> Has your Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience (Apps-UX) team
> also been involved with "The New My Oracle Support User
> Interface" [1]?
> Or can you share any insights about how user experience has evolved
> there (from the old Metalink to Flash to ADF)?
>
> - [1]https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1385...
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