Have you ever has trouble figuring out what good user experience is when starting a project? Did a client ask you to create a “good user experience”? Do they want something just because they heard it was cool to have? Are you adding features but you don’t really know why or how to track the impact these changes have on the project and the overall business goals? Down the line you will have people questioning why something was done. Some will not be happy with their “user experience” because no one could agree on the goals. Before you know it the project is a mess and no one is happy.

So before you implement anything you need to know what those business goals are. This will help document content and feature requirements and essentially reduce scope. The problem is a lot of requests are not specific, measurable, actionable, relevant or trackable – S.M.A.R.T and they should be. If you follow this you will have a lower risk of the project getting out of hand and you will actually come up with that “Good User Experience” your client and the customer is looking for.

Specific

The first term stresses the need for a specific goal over and against a more general one. This means the goal is clear. To make goals specific, you must tell a team exactly what is expected, why is it important, who’s involved, where is it going to happen and which attributes are important.

A specific goal will usually answer the five “W” questions:

What: What do I want to accomplish?
Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
Who: Who is involved?
Where: Identify a location.
Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

Measurable

The second term stresses the need for concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal. The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. Measuring progress is supposed to help a team stay on track, reach its target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs it on to continued effort required to reach the ultimate goal.

A measurable goal will usually answer questions such as:

How much?
How many?
How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable

The third term stresses the importance of goals that are realistic and attainable. While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal is not extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless. When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. The theory states that an attainable goal may cause goal-setters to identify previously overlooked opportunities to bring themselves closer to the achievement of their goals.

An attainable goal will usually answer the question:

How: How can the goal be accomplished?

Relevant

The fourth term stresses the importance of making goals relevant. A relevant goal must represent an objective that the goal-setter is willing and able to work towards. This does not mean the goal cannot be high. A goal is probably relevant if the goal-setter believes that it can be accomplished. If the goal-setter has accomplished anything similar in the past they may have identified a relevant goal.

A relevant goal will usually answer the question:

Does this seem worthwhile?

While I-SITE did not come up with this philosophy as it’s been around since the early 1980’s we do our best to follow this and the magical triangle to keep all projects on target. Following these make for a happier client and a happier project team.

Time-Bound

The fifth term stresses the importance of grounding goals within a time frame; giving them a target date. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This part of the S.M.A.R.T goal criteria is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.

A time-bound goal will usually answer the question:

When?
What can I do 6 months from now?
What can I do 6 weeks from now?
What can I do today?

At I-SITE we like to follow this, the magic triangle and our own I-QUO® philosophies to get project done. It works for us so maybe it will work for you. Nothing makes a client and team happier then all being on the same page.