User eXperience.

Essentially a vastly undervalued profession, someone who talks to people who actually use systems being developed and finds out what they want, how they work, what their workflow is and how to align systems to match that; and whether a ‘save’ icon needs to look like a floppy disk, a baseball catcher or Odie from the Garfield cartoons.

I mention the latter as an example because that actually happened.

@tj –

now UX is definitely worth the while (when done well). In the the physical realm it might be ‘Product Design’ perhaps.

I think it’s basically “making things user friendly”, whether on an app, a mobile phone, a website etc. You’d use a combination of graphic design, user testing, statistics, find out what people want to do, and how you might make that process as smooth and simple as possible.

Good UX design should be almost invisible. A bit like the cockpit of a car, I guess (though that’s fairly well established now) – ideally you won’t really notice the indicator stalk, unless it’s in the wrong place in which case it would be infuriating. But someone still had to design it, think about it, make sure it felt right.

From what I understand here this is the sort of situation albeit in a very small way that a BA should be able to avoid

Yes spot on TJ, if they know the area and are any good (and more importantly have actually been listened to rather than concerns about viability ignored by management)

UX, in plain English is how a person uses something. They are supposed to be able to make sure a site meets its primary purpose and be as easy to use and initiative for the user, not piss the user off, improving the conversion rate (in ecom that’s sales per hit or things like reducing abandoned baskets)

This forum could do with some UX…..

Now I do get a bit muddled between UX and UD – I think they are basically the same thing with people getting ever more specialist in smaller and small bits of work (which isn’t useful in a small company imo). I’m told quite firmly (by the UD and UX folks) they are very different and very critical roles….

I suppose liken it to trades we often discuss on here. Getting your bathroom done, you can get a pretty good allrounder to do the whole thing, or you can go as specialist as getting in a guy who just does the siliconing. It’ll probably be a better finish, but it’ll be a bugger to orchestrate all the trades, cost more and take longer. I’d go with the good allrounder and get a satisfactory finish sooner and cheaper…of course on massive projects, specialists do work out to be more efficient

This forum could do with some UX…..

Late entry for understatement of the year right here.

Our UX person has been invaluable and – apart from talking to actual users – the main benefit has been turning ideas and requirements into wireframes that the developers and designer can use to build the actual product.

Essentially a vastly undervalued profession, someone who talks to people who actually use systems being developed and finds out what they want, how they work, what their workflow is and how to align systems to match that

This could also be an excellent explanation of what a BA does.

FWIW, as a BA I’ve worked very closely with UXrs on a number of projects. Like BAs, good ones are worth their weight in gold, bad ones just make everything difficult.

Broad-brush wise, BAs tend to focus on what the thing needs to do, UXrs tend to focus on how the person will use the thing. Clearly the two areas need to be aligned, which is why BAs and UXrs often work alongside each other.

People who are besmirching the need for BAs tend to be the kind of people who think “it’s just computers”. It’s not quite as simple as that.

Essentially a vastly undervalued profession, someone who talks to people who actually use systems being developed and finds out what they want, how they work, what their workflow is and how to align systems to match that; and whether a ‘save’ icon needs to look like a floppy disk, a baseball catcher or Odie from the Garfield cartoons.

WANTS? FFS!

WANTS? FFS!

What they want isn’t what they’re going to get, but it’s polite to humour them 😉

aka don’t ask users what they want – watch what they do

An oldie but a goodie

Tree swing analogy

I was waiting for that to appear

Dare I ask wht UX is?

https://www.google.com/search?q=ux

Sometimes you just need a BA to help you find information, even when it is freely available…

I’m a Business Analyst and I don’t have a fancy laptop 🙁

Whomever said that mostly good BA’s are contractors, and poor ones permanent, I’ve found the opposite. The worst one’s I’ve worked with were all contractors.

The best BA I worked with was a contractor.

The worst BA I worked with was a contractor.

I am not sure what this observation tells us.

Actually can I retract that? ‘Best’ and ‘worst’ distinction entirely biased, subjective, meaningless and unfair on my part.

Whomever said that mostly good BA’s are contractors, and poor ones permanent,

That was me

The best BA I worked with was a contractor.

Me too

The worst BA I worked with was a contractor.

Me too

I am not sure what this observation tells us.

There’s bloody tonnes of contract BAs. Like me 🙂

‘Best’ and ‘worst’ distinction entirely biased, subjective, meaningless and unfair on my part.

In my defence, the one I rate as the best was (and is) universally acknowledged by anyone she works with as being brilliant. And the one I rate as worst was universally acknowledged by anyone he worked with as being utterly and literally effing useless.

This forum could do with some UX…..

It’s coming. Soon.

It’s coming. Soon.

You could be an Account Manager.

Or a developer.

I knew I’d be met with ‘hilarious’ cynicism when I posted that. I don’t know why I bother sometimes.

I don’t really think contract BA’s are a great idea….unless they come with specialist knowledge of new domain or tech for the business (or you have no choice and capacity issues)

Contractor BAs tend to not have the depth of specific business knowledge needed to be really useful, nor the key working relationships with the right people.

If its something like replacing an ERP system which is a (hopefully) one off type investment, yes contractors work, but most of our stuff is quite unique and ongoing. Contractors won’t have the knowledge, or worse letting them skill up, then bugger off taking all the knowledge with them.

Most of the contractor BA’s (and PM’s) I have had the pleasure of dealing with are mostly about the same as (motivated) perms but without the intimate business knowledge. Definitely the worse BA’s and PM’s I have worked with have been contractors who were complete con artists seeing how long they could spin a gig out before they were busted.

(in my experience of managing teams of BA’s and PM’s and spending a couple of years rebuilding a perm capability)

My understanding so far from this thread….

Good BA vs Bad BA:

Customer – I want a boat

Bad BA – What kind of boat?

Good BA – Why?

I can do that, where is my £40k a year?

add UX to BA title

Easy done, now where is my £80k?

Apply for a job then. Seriously – it’s a low barrier for entry!

WANTS? FFS!

Customer is not always right, in IT. What they think they want isn’t what they really need. See Brexit for an example (sorry).

Customer is not always right, in IT. What they think they want isn’t what they really need.

Someone please tell my colleagues this?

Customer is not always right, in IT. What they think they want isn’t what they really need.

There’s a kernel of truth in that, however there’s also an overriding culture of smug we-know-better-than-you-ness among software devs, which is very often misplaced – with the product sometimes being delivered in a form that simply makes their lives easier.

See the “tail wagging the dog” comment on a previous page.

What they think they want isn’t what they really need.

there’s also an overriding culture of smug we-know-better-than-you-ness among software devs, which is very often misplaced

If only there was someone who could bridge the gap between these two viewpoints…

I can do that, where is my £40k a year?

£40k. How sweet 😉

What IHN said!

Customer is not always right, devs are not always right. Although I would say that if you ignore protests from devs, you end up forcing requirements that can’t be met on the team, which means you’ll get corners cut, rushed jobs, mistakes, and then when you complain the devs will say ‘we bloody tried to tell you and you wouldn’t listen!’

Listen to the devs, respect the devs. They may not be able to express the problem clearly but they usually aren’t lazy and they usually understand the problems. It’s not a good idea to dictate terms on something you don’t really understand…

and

Listen to the business, respect the business. They may not be able to express the problem clearly but they usually aren’t lazy and they usually understand the problems. It’s not a good idea to dictate terms on something you don’t really understand…

A good BA can talk both languages, business and dev, and gains the trust of both ‘ends’ to represent them and their concerns to the other. If I say to the business that something they want is really hard technically, so they may want to reconsider it, they know it’s not ‘IT’ trying to fob them off. If I say to the devs that although something is hard technically, it is really important, then they know it’s not the business asking for pointless bells and whistles.

As a BA, I want everyone to have a common understanding of what we’re trying to achieve so we can deliver the right stuff.

This is generally achieved by asking loads of questions, not necessarily caring about all the answers, but using those to ensure everyone has a common understanding. This typically involves business reps, software engineers, design folk (HCD, business architects etc) and testers all working together to solve problems. I’ll be involved right the way through a project, doing whatever I can to maximise the amount of work not done – why build the whizzy expensive system when you can get 80% of the value for 20% of the effort?

Experience of the subject matter is important, but sometimes too much experience can be a bad thing, as bad BAs can rely on that instead of getting the answers from others.

add UX to BA title

Easy done, now where is my £80k?

80K? How sweet.

Love the idea of rocking up and saying you’re a “BA-UX”. Come to think of it, there’s one agency I know of in particular that would snap you up.

Apparently.

add UX to BA title

Easy done, now where is my £80k?

80K? How sweet.

Wait till IR35 comes in..

£35k, how sweet.

Of course, any BA worth their day rate will already have reimagined themselves as a full stack (obvs) Product Manager.

What do BAs do?  They pity the fool

What don’t they do? Get on no damn plane fool

Is there a particular reason the BA’s seem to be referred to here exclusively in the IT project domain?

By me, it’s cos I work in IT so those are the only kind I know 🙂

I thought it was the typical STW stereotype?

In my place we used to have ‘business’ BAs, and IT BAs, but now the lines are blurred somewhat as we move towards Agile delivery – albeit at a glacial pace overall.

Is there a particular reason the BA’s seem to be referred to here exclusively in the IT project domain?

Because it is mainly an IT role. The old waterfall model for software development had four phases – requirements, design, build, test. The BAs we responsible for the requirements bit. It’s often a bit more complicated than that these days, but it’s still a BA’s job to figure out what a business really needs, as opposed to what they are asking for.

It tends to pay a bit better than testing, but less well than development or design and architecture.

As a BA, I want everyone to have a common understanding of what we’re trying to achieve so we can deliver the right stuff.

I see what you did there! 😃