engaging users in design
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TRANSCRIPT
Engaging Users in Design… Early & Often.
Natalia A. FramilLeader of Design, IBM Smarter Workforce
Director of User Experience, IBM
SummaryThe Whys
Why do designers need frequent access to users, and what are common barriers?
The DosWhat can you do to ensure that the voice of the user is heard loud, clear, and often?
The Don’tsWhat are some things that don’t help when trying to set up a user engagement program?
The WhysWhy do designers need frequent access
to users, and what are common barriers?
It’s a no brainer – engaging users in design
leads to:
Increased Usability
Increased Adoption
Increased Productivity
Uncovered Opportunities
Lowered Costs
We also know how we can engage with users
Contextual Inquiry
Usability Testing
Participatory Design
Card Sorting
Diary Studies
“Pay attention
to what users do, not what
they say.”
Jakob Nielsen
… but when did you actually do user research
last?• This week• Last week• Last month• Last year• (Never?)
“Know Thy User”
It’s easy to acknowledge the need to really understand ”the other” in a movie… but how about in real life?
How often do we hear:
“As a user, I’d want to do X”
“Our market research shows what our users want”
“They’ll be trained to use this”
“Our users are experts and will get it”
“I like this too! Looks easy enough”
“If we go to users, they’ll ask too much”
“Amazon <Apple, etc.> does it like this”
Designing for yourself
Assuming you know your users
Relying on “help” or “training”
Designing by committee
Overestimating their ability / attention
Fear of “opening a can of worms”
Relying on “best practices”Implicit Avoidance
And how about:
“We don’t have the time to do user research”
“Our budget doesn’t allow for user testing”
“I am not sure how useful this would be”
“The sample size is small, I can’t trust the findings”
“I already showed it to customers, they like it”
“It’s hard to find participants”
“We don’t have the skillset on our team”
Research time > time to fix bad design
Cost of testing > cost of bad design
Questioning qualitative value
Using “what do you think” approach with buyers
Questioning the size of research
Assuming too expensive to train
Assuming the customer / user isn’t interested in participating
Explicit Rejection
The DosWhat can you do to ensure that the
voice of the user is heard loud, clear, and often?
Find and engage with your internal stakeholders
Product Management
Client Services
Sales
Training
Customer Support
Find out who has access to clients in your organization, and can
connect you with the client stakeholders.
1
Have a ready-to-use overview of UX goals for user engagement
Develop simple, actionable templates that you can use to
recruit for user engagement initiatives.
2
Develop a customer board & cultivate it continuously
Build up a pool of customers / users so you can reach out to
them quickly to observe, collaborate,
and validate designs.
USER RESEARCH
USABILITY TESTING
BETA USERS
FOCUS GROUPS
3
Share your success stories with other teams & departments to increase
adoption
“Much better, very clean and organized.”
“I'd take this in black and white if I could have it today!”
“I like it, it looks nice and clean. I really like the map view.”
150%
4
Better yet, adopt a design way of thinking. IBM Design Thinking.
5
Better yet, adopt a design way of thinking. IBM Design Thinking.
5
The Don’tsWhat are some things that don’t help
when trying to set up a user engagement program?
Don’t confuse market research with behavioral user research
1
GOAL
FOCUS
SAMPLE
METHOD
Understand what users do & how they do it
Behavior
Small (4-12 per role)
Observation-based(contextual inquiry, field research…)
Inform design
Qualitative
PURPOSE
TYPE
Understand what customers want
Opinions
Large (500+ per segment)
Opinion-based(surveys, focus groups…)
Inform opportunity
Quantitative
Market Research Behavioral User Research
Don’t create overwhelmingly long, wordy research findings
2
Personas & Mental Models
Story Telling
Video Reel
Don’t limit research sessions to researchers and designers
3
… but don’t overcrowd users either.
Don’t separate research from design 4
Introduce design concepts to users early and often, sketch!
Don’t believe that engaging users in design is luxury!
5
Thank You