UX and business analysis – achieving the benefits of a close relationship Many UX professionals cross paths with business analysts in the course of delivering projects. Both professions define and apply requirements, though typically one leans toward user requirements and the other toward business requirements. However these worlds often converge, especially as more organisations realise the business value of focusing on customers through user research and user-centred design. It is perhaps inevitable that these two professions, increasingly valued for customer-oriented projects, occasionally have overlapping remits which may lead to either internal friction or positive outcomes. In this session we explore the areas of similarity, difference and potential collaboration in the respective fields of user experience and business analysis. We will co-present the briefing with Sarah Williams, a senior business analyst and UX practitioner with leading law firm Linklaters who has successfully integrated the fields and evangelised the UX and service design approach for many internal and client-facing projects. Sarah and Chris Rourke from User Vision will discuss the goals and perspectives of the two fields and where the greatest opportunities are for knowledge transfer and co-operation for successful project delivery. The talk will be especially of interest for UX professionals working alongside BAs, Business Analysts wanting to know more about user experience and service design, or anyone managing teams that have either or both of these important roles.

1. How can User Experience and Business
Analysis work well together?
Chris Rourke, Sarah Williams
March 2021
1
Breakfast Briefing – March 2021 @uservision

2. A little about Chris & Sarah
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Chris Rourke
@crourke
Sarah photo
Sarah Williams
@forcallingsez

3. Outline
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„ The challenge of common ground
„ What are BA & UX
„ The evolving worlds of UA & BA
„ Ways of working together

4. The battle to find common ground
UX/User-centric
Business objectives/Functional
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5. The Gulf of Execution
User’s
Mental
Model
Dev /
Designers
Business
Gulf of Execution – Why we need the UCD process
We need to use this architecture
Lets use this new cool technology
Its easier if we build it this way
We sell our products this way
Our business is structured like this
We need a mobile app!
I want to buy products this way
These are the tasks I want to do
I’m not comfortable sharing this info
User Research and
UX Design
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6. What are Business Analysis (BA) and
User Experience (UX)?
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7. Role of a BA
What does a BA do?
„To understand the business change needs and assess the impact of those changes. This
may involve:
• Development of new or existing systems/solutions
• Improving processes
• Strategy planning
• Organisational change
„The Analyst is often the conduit between IT and the Business, facilitating and
translating business requirements into a language understood, with no ambiguity, to
the wider audience including the delivery & test team(s).

8. Key external considerations for defining requirements
8
Political Economic Social
Technological Legal Environmental

9. Credible
Useful
Desirable
Valuable
Findable
Usable
Accessible
USEFUL
ENGAGING
USABLE
Source: Peter Morville
What is User Experience?
User Experience:
The overall experience and satisfaction a
user has from the use and/or anticipated
use of a product or system
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10. 10
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11. Why usability analysis benefits the end product
11
Having a faster, higher
uptake and adoption of
new features and tools
Time and cost savings
with tasks completed
more efficiently
Reduced training,
support effort and
therefore cost
Ensuring the interface
is accessible by the all
users
Reducing likelihood of
physical issues such as
RSI occurring
Having users returning
time and time again

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13. The evolving worlds of UX & BA
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14. Usability - The degree to which a system can be used by
specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness,
efficiency and satisfaction in a specific context of use. (ISO
9241 standard)
How our worlds collide
User experience – n. the overall
experience and satisfaction a user
has when using a product or service
Web accessibility – The inclusive practice of removing
barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to websites
and apps by people with disabilities.
Business Analysis - An internal consultancy role that has the
responsibility for investigating business systems and
bridging the needs of the business with the use of IT
Usability
analysis
Accessibility
Business
Analysis
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15. Breakfast Briefing – March 2021 @uservision https://hbr.org/2009/06/a-framework-for-building-custo.html
Changing approach to design
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16. Breakfast Briefing – March 2021 @uservision https://hbr.org/2009/06/a-framework-for-building-custo.html
What about the professions?
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Traditional role of UX
Traditional role of BA
Expanded role of BA
Expanded role of UX

17. How we can fit
together
Business Analysis ensures
that we have the
functionality and processes
we need in a solution to help
us perform tasks/do our jobs
Usability / UX Analysis
looks at the ability to use the
functionality in that solution
and the way(s) we need to
use it, to help us perform
tasks/do our jobs.
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18. Understand and specify the context of use
•User environment
•User artefacts and set-up
•Insights into the
unconscious actions
users perform
Observation
•Carefully constructed
questions (not leading)
•Look for behaviours,
drivers and blockers in
their responses
(Contextual) Interviews
Recruitment and
moderation are key
Focus groups
•Quantitative rather than
qualitative
•Consider the userbase
and how you can
effectively get the most
accurate responses out
of them when shaping
your questions
Surveys
•Users can complete on
their own time
•Need regular prompting
to ensure consistent
contributions
•Apps which can support
this
Diary studies
Learn about the users, their goals, tasks and contexts

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User centred design lifecycle vs. a standardised project lifecycle
Understand and
specify the
context of use
Specify the user
requirements
Produce design
solutions to meet
user
requirements
Evaluate the
designs against
user
requirements
Designed
solution
meets user
requirements
Plan the
human-centred
design process
Go-live support
Testing Preparation & Support
Solution Validation & Change
Control
Requirements Validation &
Prioritisation
Requirements elicitation
Scoping
ISO 9241-210:2010 (Ergonomics of Human
System Interaction)
Iterate until user
requirements are
met

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Touch points in the project lifecycle
Scoping
•Understand business
objectives/goal [BA&UA]
•Understand customer
drivers/goals [UA]
•If some solution already
exists then determine
customer issues/challenges
(user testing/survey etc)
[BA&UA]
• ID stakeholders [BA&UA]
• Conduct user research and
produce personas [UA]
• Identify Risks [BA&UA]
• Understand high level
capabilities [BA]
• Mock up ideas [UA]
• Vendor demos [BA&UA]
Requirements
elicitation
• Documentation of
requirements [BA]
•Understand what the
solution needs to do
(usually from BA
requirements) [UA]
• Produce materials to
present BA artefacts [BA]
•Map process flow to
identify touch points [UA]
• Use case capture [BA]
• Define user requirements
[UA]
•Propose means for how the
customers can interact with
the solution to achieve
desired goals [UA]
Requirements
Validation &
Prioritisation
•Run through proposed
design (wireframes) with
key stakeholders validating
flow, Information
Architecture, language etc
[UA]
•Work with Design &
Development team to
define an MVP if applicable
[UA&BA]
•Validate the requirements
[BA]
•Prioritise requirements [BA]
•Define & agree success
criteria [BA]
•Define configuration
criteria (using UA
recommendations) [BA]
Solution Validation
& Change Control
•Interactive wireframes to
validate interactions and
design for the solution [UA]
•User testing of the solution
to polish off for formal
software testing [UA]
•Trace delivery of functional
requirements [BA]
•Manage change control
[BA]
•MVP review [BA]
Testing Preparation
& Support
•Isolated “expert review”
[UA]
•Input into UX acceptance
criteria [UA]
•Feedback usability issues to
dev with proposed
improvements [UA]
• Review test scripts [BA&UA]
• Defect review and action
[BA&UA]
Go-live support
•Call out areas which will
require additional training
support [BA&UA]
•Call out areas which
Support & Transition teams
will need to be aware of
[BA&UA]
•Review support calls to
assess where an
improvement to UX could
be made [UA]
• User guides [BA&UA]
• Update diagrams [BA&UA]
• Traceability with testing
and solution [BA]
• Summary document for BAs
[BA]
• Training support [BA&UA]

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Understand and
specify the
context of use
Specify the user
requirements
Produce design
solutions to meet
user
requirements
Evaluate the
designs against
user
requirements
Designed
solution
meets user
requirements
Plan the
human-centred
design process
Iterate until user
requirements are
met
Understand the user &
task needs
What does this
mean for the
design solution?

22. Research
Design the Solution
Requirements for the solution
User Needs – from analysing research data
Who are users & their tasks,
environment and systems /
technology used to perform tasks ?
What do users need to do or decide
to perform tasks?
User requirements
System requirements
Interaction with the
system
Technical system
Contains
Basis for
Basis for
1. Research - Interviews, observation and other ways to
identify user needs
Basis for
2. Understand User Needs - What do users need to do
or decide? What information do they need?
3. How could the solution support this? - User
requirements help inform technologies to achieve this.
4. Design the solutions - Based on these research-
based requirements, propose innovative solutions to be
prototyped and evaluated.

23. Different stakeholder requirements & system requirements
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User requirements of using
the system
User requirements of system output
Organisation requirements
Market requirements
Legal / regulatory requirements
Stakeholders:
Stakeholder
requirements:
Indirect users
Management of
organisations
Buyer / purchase
decision maker
Direct users
Legislator
System Requirements

24. Ways of working together
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25. How can BAs and UX teams work better together?
The best teams will enable and encourage close collaboration between BA and UX
through activities and outputs
• Current Status - Do an inventory of your BA & UX resources, responsibilities and roles -
who is responsible for what at a high level. Overlaps?
• Activity & Output analysis - Look at activities and deliverables of your BAs and UX. Are
there redundancies? Could they do it in a more unified way?
• Meet & Exchange - Have BA and UX teams do ‘show and tell’ on their projects and skills. Do
some skill share and cross-training between teams.
• Collaborate - Find a simple small trial project to have them work together.
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26. Activities, Models, Deliverables and Outputs
Get the BAs and UX team to work together on relevant deliverables.
• Personas
• Mental models
• Use cases & scenarios (current or future)
• Activity / workflow diagrams
• Use case diagrams
• Event storming
• Swimlane diagrams
• Entity relationship diagrams
• User stories
• Customer journey maps
• Service blueprints
• User story maps
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27. Service Blueprints
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Service blueprints help show the business and user interaction

28. User Story Mapping
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Stages of the customer journey
Tasks customer completes for each Backlog work items
Schedule
Credit: https://www.easyagile.com/

29. Another way to look at it

30. Summary
The skills of UX and Business Analysis are often intersecting
• A good UX is increasingly expected by end users and therefore the business
• You have higher chance of project success with user-centred design (UCD)
• BAs should consider user requirements as a key part of the requirements
catalogue to deliver a successful product
• Consider your organisation:
• Has the business analyst’s role changed with regard to end users?
• How can UX and BA actively and effectively collaborate in your organisation?
• How can UX effectively demonstrate the business value of the user requirements?
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31. Thank you!
Chris Rourke
Sarah Williams
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chris@uservision.co.uk
sarah.williams@linklaters.com
Upcoming events
• Navigation, Findability & Information
Architecture – 25 March
• Prototyping with Axure RP – 29, 30 March
• Usability & UX - Foundation Certification
(CPUX-F) 21-23 April
• Web accessibility for Designers – 22 April
https://uservision.co.uk/training
Next Free Briefing – April 29th
Applying user requirements for innovative
products - Thomas Geis
How to create innovative solutions with systematic user needs
and user requirements analysis
Woodland Trust:
https://bit.ly/2O
Nf8Ed