re-use and recycle: building sustainable relationships with your users

#UXPA2016www.uxpa2016.org

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Re-Use and Recycle: Building Sustainable Relationships with Your Users



UX Research: A Different Approach



About SolarWinds Users



UX Research Arrives ...



First Things First

» Who ARE these people who use the products?



“Show Me How You Use It” Sessions



Show Me’s

» One hour sessions over GoToMeeting» Participants take you on a tour:

• Why did you buy it?• What are the 3 most important things you do with it?• What’s working well and not working well about each thing?



“Show Me” Script Example



Putting Users in the Driver’s Seat



When Do ”Show Me Sessions” Work Best?



Using Private Groups of Expert Users



Private Groups Within a Community Site

• Get feedback on early designs (before we ran traditional feature walkthroughs and usability tests)

• Ask users to share examples of alerting-related tasks• Ask users to help the team understand concepts, terms • Provide a collaborative sharing space between all members of the product team

and 12 users



• What one thing would you tell us to fix or change?• What one thing has you the happiest or most excited (if anything)?


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Private Groups Don’t Always Work…

» When product or feature isn’t big enough to sustain interest over at least several months

» When you have too many/not enough users (magic number is ~ 12)» When you don’t have enough content to provide regular (weekly)

updates» When you don’t have actual designs (sneak peeks) to share» When you don’t have the entire team willing to engage with users



Basic Principles



People First, Then Data



Be a Bridge Builder



Value of the Method



Depth of Research



Finding Users



Impact on the Entire Brand Experience



Impact on the Entire Brand Experience

IT Manager and non-SolarWinds user, during blind research, talks about what he’s missing from his vendor and what would make him abandon the product he just spent $120,000 buying:

“If a tool was out there that . . .if the team that builds it and works on it actually saw us as an important customer and would actually want to know how we feel about their tool and what they could do to make it better—that’s the kind of relationship I would like to see.”



Thank you!

re-use and recycle: building sustainable relationships with your users

Technology