Refactoring the user experience

Scaffold MatrixI'm starting a new project in the new year. I'm really excited about it. I can't talk about any specifics but it is a long term project in which me and my colleagues are working to integrate two large entreprise applications with disparate user experiences.

From my previous life as a programmer, I know that integrating two disparate applications is really difficult. However, I have a good idea of how I'd go about it. Refactoring here is the tool of choice. Refactoring is a challenging and rewarding practice that, when done right, improves the software significantly and safely. So naturally, I tried to find the equivalent on the user experience side.

Asking Google gave me a couple of articles. Most of which were making the case for it but none discussed what it would really look like. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if you can refactor the user experience. By definition, code refactoring is "a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior".

Code refactoring is a technique that works because it is based on a strict set of rules. For example:

  • Test profusely
  • Think globally, act locally
  • You can't change external behaviour
  • Don't add new functionality while refactoring
  • Don't repeat yourself (don't copy-paste, always cut-paste)
  • and much more...

What would refactoring the user experience look like? What would the rules be?

Off the top of my head, here's a first kick at possible rules:

  • Test profusely (before and after refactoring)
  • Set a big picture goal. Always move towards that goal with each change
  • You can't change the user's mental model (unless testing tells you it was wrong before)
  • Adding new features is not refactoring.
  • Jump at the opportunity to remove/hide/displace an unused feature when possible

So maybe it is possible to refactor a user experience. If it is, maybe there is a set of reusable rules that can be written down in a recipe book. I'll keep my eyes opened for things that I can see and my ears opened for any suggestions you might have.