Teena Singh. Principal Product Manager, Oracle Applications User Experience
For three years straight, the Human Capital Management (HCM) User Experience (UX) team has run an onsite product usability lab at the OHUG (Oracle Human Resources User Group) conference. This year OHUG was held from June 14-17 at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. For 2009, our team expanded its presence at the conference with a presentation on how the UX team designs the best user experiences by working directly with customers. The presentation informed conference attendees of the many ways they can get involved with our team and influence the design of Oracle applications through the Customer Participation Program (CPP) and the Oracle Usability Advisory Board. HCM UX outlined four key ways in which customers can participate, starting with the easiest and least complex arrangement: The HCM UX team invited one of our most involved CPP Customers, The City of Las Vegas, to speak personally about their experience with user experience activities. Pat Dues, Enterprise Program Manager, and Kathleen Fauerbach, Enterprise Project Manager of the Las Vegas City Manager's Office, have engaged with our team in various ways, and helped give the audience first-hand knowledge of what it's like being an involved and contributing member of our CPP program. They also shared what they gained both personally and professionally from that experience. After the presentation, I asked Pat and Kathleen to comment on how they felt their commitment was helping Oracle design the best user experiences, and how they felt they were more enriched from this experience. Oracle: You have toured the lab, you have been involved in a customer feedback session, and you are on the Oracle Usability Advisory Board. What is the time commitment for each of those activities, and what have you gained from your involvement? Pat Dues: Each activity is unique. Regarding the labs being conducted here at OHUG, if you can still sign up, I highly recommend it. Frequently the labs run for about an hour. That is the minimal time commitment for attending a lab and giving some feedback. You are at the conference anyway. They are usually run at Oracle OpenWorld, COLLABORATE, OHUG, and the Higher Education User Group (HEUG)'s Alliance Conferences. Kathleen Fauerbach: We were asked to participate in the labs at COLLABORATE last year in Denver. The two of us participated in the employee interaction and Pat participated as a Manager. Here is how it worked: We were given a script. The engineer sat right next to us and we had to describe what we were seeing on the screen, where we were looking, what we thought we should be seeing and where we thought we should be going. They actually took notes to make it a better interaction between the user and the application. Then at Oracle OpenWorld, we tested a Web 2.0 Project Management application. Then they followed up with me the next month on a two-hour conference call, and asked me if this is what I wanted and what I liked. These engineers are serious about seeing what you need and what you want. They then take it to other customers and they get a collaborative opinion on what you need. It's not just an event; they carry through with what they are doing. That was very important to us. Pat Dues: As far as the Oracle Usability Advisory Board, there are at least three meetings face-to-face each year. And, actually if you do join this year, in December we are hosting a meeting in Las Vegas. We are going to have our own usability person speak and he has some great ideas. If you go to the City's Web site you will see that usability was at the forefront of the design of our own Web site. Usability is something we have been very interested in and focused on at the City. The meetings move around and that gives everybody the ability not to travel too much. If you have to travel a far distance one time, probably the next time the meeting will be closer and not as much travel will be required. The meetings run about two days. It just depends on what the agenda is going to be. If we are going to be able to tour a lab, then we have either a morning or afternoon to tour - I always allocate a couple of days for the meetings. We also have Working Groups that are formed within the advisory board that focus on various topics, such as mobile computing, Web 2.0, and consistency and design. All of us that are participants join up to one or more of the groups. We provide feedback, do some research, and stay involved with the Oracle people through the year. We allocate a couple of hours a month that you might be involved: either a call or working on something for your committee. It isn't a huge commitment, but it is very important that if you commit, you participate. That is the biggest thing--don't say you will do it and not do it. Oracle relies on all of our feedback and I think it's great that they are here to listen. Both Pat and Kathleen felt like they were helping Oracle design the best user experience through their commitment to various CCP activities. They also felt they were gaining valuable knowledge, networking contacts, and usability vision for their own company through their involvement. The Applications UX team encourages this kind of relationship with customer organizations. Getting involved with our team extends beyond just using Oracle software; it means becoming informed users who influence Oracle applications, ultimately impacting your own personal user experiences. 
Pat Dues and Kathleen Fauerbach of the City of Las Vegas, presenting with Aylin Uysal and Sean Rice of Oracle's Human Capital Management User Experience at OHUG, Las Vegas, June, 2009.
We do have (periodic) administrative calls, too. We just had a call about a month ago. We talked about the prospective agenda for our next meeting.
