Call Their Baby Ugly and 4 Other Tips for Designing with CEO’s

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

CEO’s can be a tough group to design for – after all, it’s their vision with which you are now entrusted. I’ve been fortunate enough throughout my career to work closely with several CEO’s. From fledgling ideas to high-growth companies like TheLadders (where I’m the Director of User Experience), I’ve whiteboarded, wireframed and prototyped my way through a wide array of exciting ideas side by side with the minds who created them. Along the way I’ve picked up a few tips and tricks that can make your next startup design gig that much more successful.

Without further ado:

  1. Call their baby ugly – Yes, it’s their idea. Yes, it’s their hope for their future. Yes, it’s their dream. But if it’s a bad idea or the product strategy seems wrong, tell them. If their minimum viable product is, well, not so viable, tell them. If the first designer they teamed up with sold them a sack of hammers, tell them. You’ll be doing them a favor and earning credibility. Telling it like it is makes it clear that you are not placating them simply because they have an idea and a term sheet.
  2. Get to know the industry – Whether it’s online dating or concert tickets, the CEO knows the space. They live and breathe it and if you want to understand your audience, build targeted experiences and convince your CEO these solutions will work you must understand the domain. Check out the competition. Read the stats. Understand who the big players are and who just got funded. If you can contextualize your design not just within good interaction design criteria but within your industry, you’ll succeed far more often at promoting your best thoughts.
  3. Drop some knowledge (do the kids still say that?) – CEO’s tend to know a lot about a lot of things, including design. However, they’re rarely design experts. This is where you experience can shine. Facing a challenging workflow? Call upon a similar challenge from a previous engagement. Analyze how a successful experience got it right and what you can “borrow” from them. You’re the expert. Show it.
  4. Speak their language – It’s critical to understand how your CEO consumes information. Several of the ones I’ve worked with feast on data. If that’s the case for you, embrace it. Gather the data and show how it proves your case. If that’s not available use that to drive home the need for qualitative and quantitative testing. Making grandiose artistic arguments for your design will most likely not resonate with a CEO. Get to the point in a language they understand.
  5. Work quickly – This is a startup after all. Spending time pitching and then executing months and months of user research, persona creation, deep user analysis and competitive analyses only delays getting software in front of customers. I’m not suggesting there’s no value in these activities. What I am suggesting is that you execute repeated abbreviated versions of these tasks. Work quickly and get software in front of customers. Get feedback. Fold it into your existing research and iterate again.

These tactics are not unique to designing with CEO’s in a startup environment. They’ll work in many environments but if you’re lucky enough to be working closely with the CEO employ these tactics to maximize your success and the success of the product.

[Jeff]

Posted in career path, design, startups, ux team, work ethic | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Experiencing the Experience: The Case for Prototyping

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

I realized this week that in a traditional web app design scenario there end up being three review cycles:

  1. Wireframe review – ensuring all the elements are on the page, hierarchically correct and flowing logically from screen to screen. Confirming that the right data is being captured and then presented back to the user in meaningful ways that encourage the correct actions.
  2. Visual design review – once the wireframes are approved, the visual design transforms that skeletal frame into a living, breathing, beautiful work of art business solution. Colors, branding, typography, white space et al are all examined to ensure alignment and aesthetic quality.
  3. Interaction review – this is when the actual code is put through its paces and stakeholders, for the first time get to play with their creation. All of the assumptions “approved” in the first two reviews are now put to the test to see if, in reality, they behave the way they were represented in the wireframes and visual mockups.

This last (and third!) review cycle, the interaction review, is the first time the experience being designed is actually, well, experienced. Any changes, tweaks, complete re-works and realizations are only now surfaced. The code has to be updated and, in most shops, the documentation leading up to that code will also have to be updated. This is wasted effort.

Prototyping gets the experience out in front of stakeholders, users and the execution teams early and often. The proposed end-state can be evaluated and estimated. Workflow challenges and nuances are far more readily exposed and solved – all without having to update ANY documentation (because none exists). Prototyping shows your executives where you’re heading. It shows your dev team what they should be building and how it should behave. And it shows your customers how you’re solving their problems  — before any major code is written.

As the experience is validated each time the prototype is presented, a finer layer of polish can be applied to the design – this includes interaction design tweaks, visual design and, if your code is good enough, code tweaks. Even if the prototype produces throw-away code (or no code at all) it is still far more effective at getting you to working software faster by experiencing the experience early and often.

Save yourself time. Prototype first.

[Jeff]

Posted in agile, design, Productivity, prototyping | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Battle of Phase 2 vs The Shiny Object

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

Image courtesy of: http://bit.ly/aW8G1P

“We’ll take care of it in Phase 2.”

Famous last words. This is the cry of compromise. It’s a phrase that echoes the silenced screaming of a thousand designers agreeing to less than 100% of the approved design being launched. It’s the tortured souls of disembodied drop-shadows, rounded corners, gradients and animated transitions roaming the nether regions of cyberspace — somewhere between a PSD and a hosted pixel.

But it’s not just designers who fear that phrase. Developer, too, tremble at the thought of hacks, workarounds and generally sloppy code making out to production with the never-to-come promise of future paying down of this technical debt.

And why does Phase 2 wreak such havoc in the minds of those who make web sites? Because Phase 2 rarely stands a chance in the shadow of The Shiny Object.

The Shiny Object is the next thing. It’s new. It’s young. It’s sexy. It begs to be worked on. It’s the future and it’s WAY more interesting than the “thing we JUST finished.” In a waterfall world, there’s almost no standing the way of The Shiny Object. It has the gravitational pull of a black hole sucking any notion of iterating on the feature set just released into its cold, dark center. However, in Agile environments, The Shiny Object stands a greater chance of being defeated because it is Phase 2 (and it’s siblings, Phase 3, 4 and N) that make short, iterative product development cycles possible and palatable to designers and developers.

Phase 2 holds the promise of taking the minimally viable product just released to your customers and making it that much better. That extra layer of data that makes the core experience that much more valuable? Let’s get it in there now. That extra design polish that wasn’t deemed “minimal enough” now gets its turn in the sun.  Yet The Shiny Object looms large even in the Agile workplace yet it is imperative we resist its siren song.

Image courtesy of: http://bit.ly/9ovbm5

Ignoring the need for Phase 2 destroys the promise of rapid, iterative design and development. The team inevitably gets that “half-assed” feeling for their work if, at the end of the iteration, it becomes apparent that Phase 2 will not come. In fact, The Shiny Object that has replaced Phase 2 also starts to look less shiny since, as we know, there won’t be enough time to get it truly shiny with The Shinier Object just around the bend.

Phase 2 is crucial to success. You must plan for it. Your Agile workplace depends on it. The expectations must be set early with every stakeholder that multiple phases will be needed to complete this work and that moving on to The Shiny Object will only happen when the team reaches consensus that a minimally desirable product has been developed.

Stay strong my friends.

[Jeff]

Posted in agile, work ethic | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Cigarettes, Wine and Design: a reflection on Euro IA 2010

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

September 24-25, 2010 found me in Paris, France attending the 6th installation of the Euro IA summit. I hadn’t been to a design conference in a while and it had been nearly 5 years since I’d been to a professional event in Europe (last one was the ERA World Design Congress of 2005 in Gothenberg and Copenhagen).  The biggest difference this time around was that I was presenting at this conference.

I have to admit I was nervous. I was the only American on the bill and was curious how my presentation on Lean IA would be received. In addition, I was curious as to the state of IA thinking in Europe. I have a lot of exposure to US-based practitioners but was less clear where things stood in Europe. Would my ideas be way behind the times? Are designers across the pond already practicing these techniques? Would my talk be perceived as pedantic?

But, first things first, drinks. Thursday evening before the conference saw us meeting at Le Chambertin in the Bercy area of Paris to reunite, introduce and get to know each other. I was thrilled to finally meet Eric Reiss, the conference chairperson, in person along with James Kalbach and Andrea Resmini. The informal vibe of the conference started becoming very clear to me.  This was a good thing in my opinion. The ideas, theories and practice were taken seriously but the event was meant to share these ideas and reunite “the family”, as Eric called it.

Friday’s sessions started off with Oliver Reichenstein’s keynote asking if information could indeed be architected. I found his talk a bit arrogant and empty during his prepared remarks. He focused primarily on how he and his company work with their clients and the success of their software products. However, the question and answer sessions that followed proved far more insightful. Day 1 continued with a talk from Grant Campbell (a Canadian, as he made sure we knew) about metaphors and clarity in IA structures – frankly, I got a bit lost in the abstract nature of the talk. Perhaps, it’s just me but the practical application of ideas is the real “meat” of a conference and what I seek out as an attendee and student.

Matt Roadnight and Jane Austin did a fantastic job discussing their experiences in the trenches of IA and Agile – a very relevant topic for me these days. I enjoyed Martin Belam’s talk about how he gets his IA work done at The Guardian as the lone IA in an archaic setting. Impressive and inspiring.

Day 1’s highlight for me was was Koen Claes’ talk about “Why We Should Not Focus on UX.” His core message was that people make decisions based on memories of experiences, not the actual experiences themselves. Design should focus on those memories. James Kelway mentions in his blog post that this talk, while interesting, was a tough sell to the CEO. I sold it to mine in one tweet. :-)

Day 2 kicked off with an entertaining presentation on mobile usability testing. Belen Barros Pena showed an array of techniques, construction gear and inspiration in getting insight into how people user their mobile phones.

And then it was my turn. Presenting my Lean IA idea for the first time to a European audience went even better than I’d hoped. I believe strongly in the concepts I presented and it seems like they resonated well with the audience. The Q&A session following my talk showed the audience was engaged and intrigued. It all hit home for me when, immediately following my conclusion, Eric Reiss described Lean IA as “the future of IA.”

Day 2 closed strong with Johanna Kollmann and Franco Papeschi describing interesting new ways to co-design with teams, stakeholders and customers at Vodafone. The keynote with Paul Kahn was rather dry but the post-conference drinks ensured we didn’t end up with cottonmouth :-) . Naturally other sessions were held which I did not attend and several other blog posts cover them in more detail.

I should mention that the food at the conference was phenomenal (this was Paris, after all) and the wine flowed before, during and after the conference. Again, this is Paris. The only downside of the host city (and perhaps this is true in most of Europe) the smoking is out of hand. Seriously Europe, that shit’ll kill ya.

Overall I was thrilled to be a part of Euro IA 2010 and to be inducted into “the family.” I met many folks I interact with on Twitter and grew my network well into Western and Eastern Europe. I felt welcomed and enjoyed the debates, conversations and friendliness of the hosts and attendees. Congratulations to the organizers on a successful conference. I look forward to seeing everyone in Prague next year.

[Jeff]

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The Secret Weapon of UX: Copywriting

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf
The power of words

Image credit: http://cdn.hip2save.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/words.jpg

I recently finished reading Influence by Robert Cialdini. It’s a 20+ year old book that details core tenets of persuasion in human psychology, how they work, why they work and how to “defend” against them. It was a fascinating read and one that made me completely rethink the way I design experiences and even approach my work. While Cialdini speaks of how these experiences manifest in physical space, they can easily be translated into online experiences as well. He speaks of the nature of face-to-face interactions and how those affect the “target’s” behavior but most importantly he speaks about the power of messaging.

A message’s structure is made up of two components: sequence and word choice.

Nuanced changes in either one of those components profoundly affect the success or failure of that message. The words we choose and the order we place them in (the sequence of our requests to our customers) determine the efficacy of that message.

It’s these messages that we include in our online marketing and product experiences that ultimately determine whether our target audience “hears” and complies with our requests. This is the power of copywriting and I am now a complete believer in the awesome power that skill holds. That’s not to say I didn’t respect copywriting in the past but, after reading and digesting Influence, I’ve become convinced that good design with poor copy is a poor experience (or worse, an unsuccessful one).

While I don’t want to recap the entire book here (you should really go read it) I do want to point to one experiment that I’ve been running since reading the book to see if just simply changing the words on a page can affect conversion dynamics on a signup flow. I chose to use the principle of consistency because it works well in the job search space. (Full disclosure, I work at TheLadders.com.)

The principle of consistency generally states that if you have decided and declared (to yourself, to your friends, family, etc) that you are going to do something or believe in something, when faced with a situation where you can deviate from that decision you will most likely continue down the path you’ve already decided and declared. In my example, I’ve assumed that customers coming to TheLadders web site have decided and declared that they are looking for a new job. We are a subscription service and, as such, require our customers to sign up and pay for access. We offer two levels of membership – a free membership and a premium paid membership.

Our current labeling for these membership levels simply reads “Basic (free) membership” and “Premium Membership.” There are price points listed to illustrate that the premium membership costs money but that’s about it.

To put the power of consistency to work here, the only thing I changed on the page were the membership type labels. They were changed to “I’m just looking around” for the free membership and “I’m serious about my job search” for the premium membership. That’s it. No other changes to any part of the page. The thinking was that if someone had declared themselves “job hunting” then asking them whether they were truly serious about that declaration would lead to more sign-ups.

The results were interesting and very encouraging. Just by changing the words we saw a DROP in free membership sign-ups of nearly 16% but we saw an increase of paid sign-ups of nearly 30%. All we did was change the words!

This was just one little experiment but if the power of words and copywriting can affect conversion dynamics so significantly, think about what words can do for progressing customers through a workflow and getting them to complete their tasks. Copywriting is the secret weapon of UX.

[Jeff]

Posted in copywriting, design, ROI | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Agile 2010

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

I just returned from a week in hot, sweaty and rainy Orlando, FL where I spent the bulk of my time at the Agile 2010 conference. It was my first time at such a specialized, non-design conference and I was doubly excited since I also presented. I went down with many questions — how are other organizations dealing with transitions into Agile? Is Design and User Experience even a consideration? What challenges and ultimately what solutions are people finding that work well for their teams?

I came down to Florida with those questions. I went home with them too. To be fair, I did get a slew of new tactics to try but the general vibe is that many folks are struggling with Agile — especially when trying to incorporate a design team (of any size, skillset or configuration). I focused my attention on sessions that dealt with the core problems with this integration as I see them — personalities and planning.

I found Lisamarie Babik‘s session on Coaching Introverts interesting and useful as it focused on pulling the quieter members of the team into the process more. I also spent time in Jean Tabaka‘s Visioning session. While it was a bit fluffy for my tastes it did give me some good ideas on how to focus the team on the things they want to achieve and not on the negative perceptions of an Agile design environment.

Jeff Patton and Desiree Sy — both UX/Agile legends at this point — provided strong tactical sessions on how to plan product design activities into the sprint timeframes. I found those sessions valuable and both individuals extremely friendly and forthcoming for conversation and differing opinions (Jeff I’d met once before but this is my first time meeting Desiree in person).

My presentation on integrating UX and Agile is embedded below. I feel like it struck a nerve with the folks who attended as it dealt directly with the failures we experienced at TheLadders as we’ve been integrating UX into Agile. But, more interestingly than that, it showed that even when good ideas fail, you can iterate, tweak and try them again — which is the essence of being agile.

Beyond Staggered Sprints: Integrating User Experience and Agile

View more presentations from Jeff Gothelf.
Ultimately, I enjoyed networking and meeting new people and those familiar to me from the Twitter but first time in meatspace (as my friend Will Evans likes to say). The entire crew from Atomic Object in Grand Rapids, MI made for engaged conversations during meals and after sessions — seems like they’re working on some interesting things.
One final note on the production of the conference — top notch. Amazing production, facilities, equipment, food, parties, vendor space — you name it. Kudos for an event well planned.
I enjoyed my time at Agile 2010 very much and, based on the reactions and connections I’ve made, I think I’ll be back in 2011.
[Jeff]

Posted in agile, Conferences, Productivity, Uncategorized, ux team, work ethic | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The 3 Secrets to Getting Hired

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

I’ve been lucky enough over the years to be able to hire many people to the various teams I’ve led. Over the course of all of these interviews I’ve discovered that there are three core components that make a candidate a desirable addition to my team. While these three traits have emerged over the course of interviews focused on User Experience and Design teams, I believe they are applicable across all disciplines, industries and positions.

And so, without further ado, the three secrets to getting hired are:

  1. Have kick-ass chops — in other words, be the best you can be at whatever it is you’re trying to getting hired to do. This means knowing the discipline, the tools and the outputs. Unless you’re applying for an entry-level position, there will be an expectation that you will know how to perform the job. The onus is on you to be the best you can be at that job. Also, your new team and manager don’t want to train you in the craft – perhaps they’ll train you in the specifics of how to perform the craft at that specific workplace but they’ll expect that you know what you’re doing.
  2. Have an opinion — when asked at an interview how you feel about a particular subject, technique, outcome, etc have an opinion on the subject — even if that opinion differs from your interviewer. Also, use the opportunity to showcase that you have opinions about your industry and discipline. On my team, I seek out new ideas, thoughts and reactions — most managers do. Your point of view matters — even if it’s different than the commonly-held opinion.
  3. Have the initiative and passion to pursue that opinion (the one in #2) — You’re good at what you do. You have definitive opinions on how things should be done and why certain techniques work and others don’t. The last ingredient is initiative. Having initiative means finding your own motivations and energies to push those opinions and drive the direction of the work you’re responsible for.  Without this last piece, your opinion is just an idea in your head. Growth companies look for team members who can move the company forward. Initiative moves your ideas forward which in turn moves the company.

I believe so firmly in these three traits that I actually tried to push through a job description (for every job on my team) with just those three things on it recently. Perhaps it’s a bit short but, to me, it says it all. Now, granted there will be corporations that may frown on some of these traits. It’s at that point where you have to ask yourself, if you have and value these traits, if that’s the place you really want to work.

Share these 3 secrets to getting hired with your networks. The more folks we get out there working in these ways, the better the output of the world’s best companies will ultimately be.

[Jeff]

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

How to Lose A Customer

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

I recently bought a car. It’s a 2007 Mustang GT. It’s metallic gray with custom wheels and I loved it the minute that I saw it on the Paramus Chevrolet dealership lot. Not too long after that serendipitous sighting I was the new owner of that car. The Mustang was perfect inside and out with three exceptions:

  1. The custom after-market stereo seemed to work but did not emit any sound
  2. It only came with one key
  3. The manual (hey, I love manuals) was missing
Hotness from the right

Hotness from the right

My salesman at Paramus Chevrolet promised that all three of these things would be taken care of after I purchased the car. We even wrote a “we owe you” slip to ensure that no one at the dealership “forgot” what was agreed on at point of sale.

I returned a week later to have an amplifier installed in the Mustang to make the radio work. Turns out that the radio was also a CD player (nice) and a navigation system (even nicer) but, although now making sound, the face plate would not retract fully making it impossible to place a CD in the player nor was it possible to switch out the West Coast navigation DVD for an East Coast one. This rendered the navigation system unusable.

Hotness from the left

Hotness from the left

So, to recap — I am now the proud owner of a beautiful sports car (the kind I dreamed of as a teenager) and yet the three things that were agreed upon for post-sale disposition have gone unresolved and have left me with an unsettling feeling about the dealership’s motivations and legitimacy. After many unresponsive email attempts and phone calls, I tracked down the sales manager. He told me that I should go to Best Buy and find out what a new version of the car stereo would cost and that they would split the cost with me — $300. Installation was another $200. So, at this point the dealership is squabbling with me over $500, a key and a manual — ALL of which was promised to be taken care after I purchased the car. I spent over $20k at their establishment only to have my purchase experience and ANY word-of-mouth praising I might do eliminated in an instant — over $500, a key and a manual.

I continued to send emails, voicemails and the occasional drive-by to see if I can get them to move on any of these items but the result is always no response or no budging on any item. So, Paramus Chevrolet, you’ve lost me as a customer. I will not tell my friends to purchase cars in your lot. Here’s why:

  • In an information-at-the-ready world where anyone can provide any product or service to anyone else the CORE differentiation is customer service. That service can only be delivered by humans and it’s those interactions with those humans that drives the perception of the experience with your dealership.
  • The best type of transaction is one that instills trust. As a used car dealer you are starting in the red. You must work extra hard to earn a level of trust from your customers that make them feel good about dropping tens of thousands of dollars in your establishment.
  • Hassle-free experience. That is your goal. That’s what you should strive for. Making it nearly impossible for me to get a hold of my salesman, his manager or anyone else to resolve this only exacerbates the issue.
  • Any sales or influence book will tell you that word-of-mouth referrals are THE MOST valuable thing you can gain from your customers. Why would you risk so much future revenue over $500? In retrospect, it makes even less sense than before.

Case in point — recently at my workplace, TheLadders.com, we reworked our refund policy so that getting your money back from us was hassle free and painless. We want to provide good service but in the event it doesn’t meet your needs or expectations we want you to leave happy as well. As soon as the changes for this policy went into effect, our customer satisfaction ratings jumped over 30%. Even customers who were not happy with our product, left happy with our service.
Losing a customer is easy. Gaining and keeping a customer is hard work but the payoff is exponential if done right. Customer service is for the long term. Thinking about the short-term gain/loss ensures that you’ll continue to work even harder to gain new customers. For me, it’s too late. Paramus Chevrolet has lost me as a future customer but perhaps the next time this happens, $500 won’t be too much to spend to keep that customer and earn their trust.
[Jeff]

Posted in brand, service design, Uncategorized, user feedback, work ethic | Tagged , | 2 Comments

11 Ways to Get Better User Feedback

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

This one goes to 11So, as all classic list-type posts must do — this one goes to 11. Understanding what your customers are saying is critical to the success of your product’s evolution. Here are 11 ways that individually provide varying perspectives on the customer’s opinion. Combined, they become powerful in providing a 360 degree view of the voice of that customer.

  1. Bring customers in to your office — this one may go without saying but it’s important to bring customers in. Show them the office and where the sausage is made and solicit their feedback via one-on-one interviews and usability testing. The insight gained here may be a bit contrived but you’ll start to get a feel for where the big boulders are in the road and what you should focus on next.
  2. Go where your customers are — classic field research techniques will provide you with the qualitative insight gained in #1 above with the addition of context. This is the customer in their natural habitat interacting with your product. In a lot of cases all you’ll need to do is observe. Don’t say a word. Just watch, take notes and pay attention to the nuances.
  3. Reach out and touch your customers — assuming you’ve forgiven the antiquated marketing slogan, the core of it is absolutely true. Call your customers – especially those that have quit your service. Typically, they’ve left for a specific reason or perception. While that perception may not actually be true it WAS true for them and defined their experience to the point of making them quit.  Call them up. They’re dying to tell you about it. Guaranteed.
  4. Ask them why they’re leaving — inevitably customers will quit your service (see #3 above). On their way out, ask them, via survey, why they left your service or product. People love to vent and if your product frustrated them they won’t hesitate to share their thoughts. This is the perfect time to solicit this information since it’s fresh in their minds and caustic enough to drive abandonment.
  5. Survey the landscape — for general, high-level, directional understanding of what your audience is feeling about or doing with your product/service nothing beats a survey. They’re easy to set up on services like Surveymonkey.com and provide solid analysis into the general segmentation trends of your audience. Pick a large sample size since completion percentages will likely be low.
  6. Look at the numbers — do you have an analytics tool on your site? No? Google Analytics is free and does some pretty amazing things for a free product. Need more power, dig into something like Omniture or Webtrends to get the deeper insight you need. Use this data directionally to get a sense of how your audience is using your site. Where are they spending time? Is something engaging them there or are they getting stuck? Are they bailing out at some point? Dig in and find out why. Did I mention this was totally FREE data available to you right now?
  7. A/B Test — think something works well? What if you tweaked the wording or changed the call-to-action? Red vs. blue? Your audience will vote with their mouse when you show them two separate options. Make sure your results are statistically significant before declaring a winner but this is an easy option for gaining quick optimization wins and understanding what type of triggers work best with your audience.
  8. Talk to your customer service folks — your CS reps are the front lines of the customer feedback loop. When something’s wrong, they hear about it — a lot. Buy them a couple of pizzas and spend your next lunch hour with them discussing their top 10 complaints for the month. Then, do that next month and the month after that. Rinse, repeat. You’ll be amazed how much knowledge of your audience is available within your organization.
  9. Talk to your sales people — on a similar note, your sales people are the leading edge of where your customers are headed. Sales people hear about current pain points, how your current offering addresses those pain points and what benefits the competition is offering. In addition, listen in on several sales calls a month. You’ll be amazed at the way your product is being sold. Your perception of the product will be forever changed.
  10. Guerillas in the mist — got a hot new idea? think it will crush the competition and reinvent your industry? Before you spend the next 4 iterations building it, get a prototype together and head to your nearest coffee shop, library, public park, wherever and show it to people. Offer them something in return for their time — movie tickets, gift cards, etc — and get their immediate feedback. Bonus: you’ll start acquiring new customers and solid word of mouth if your prototype is a hit. Even if it’s not, you’ve learned something and spent minimal dollars and time doing so.
  11. Get personal — if you’re offering a lifestyle product or a service that attempts to manage or automate a complex process that takes place over a longer period of time, consider getting some users to agree to a diary study. In essence you get a handful of customers to write down their daily activities over the course of a week or so and detail how your product/service fits into those regular activities. It’s a little bit expensive — $500/person/week is a fair price and you’ll have to call your participants daily to ensure they’re completing their diaries regularly. At the end of the process you’ll have 5 books’ worth (literally) of raw material to comb through, analyze and build patterns of use.

These 11 ways will bring you closer to customer and help you understand, quickly and cheaply, why they do the crazy things they do. Use them, love them and make them part of your regular routine. The insight they yield can help shape the future of your work.

Like these suggestions? What’s missing? Let me know in the comments.

[Jeff]

Posted in Productivity, user feedback, ux team | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Informing or Influencing?

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Jeff Gothelf

Recently, a point of view was brought to my attention that the vast majority of the contributions of user experience generally inform the product development process but don’t necessarily influence it. The differentiation was stark – informing the UX meant that the product was being shaped by others while we (UX Design) helped mold it into a more refined version of that original shape (i.e., vision). The conception, vision and ultimate rasion d’être for the product was being determined by others.

Why, then, were we not influencing the origins and motivations of that product vision?

To influence the product vision the UX team has to take a position of leadership, examine the current product vision and strategy, analyze existing usage patterns and customer pain points and then determine how an improved product experience could address the needs that arise from that analysis. When that effort is complete the team has a direction to push product strategy, take the lead and drive towards greater customer satisfaction. The serendipitous by-product of this is that this UX-led effort is now explicitly measurable. The ROI of UX, something that has long been treated as a unicorn (perhaps a unicorn ridden by Patrick Swayze?), can actually be quantified. The up-front analysis work that was done to determine where to push the product strategy yielded valuable insight into how the current product was performing – clickthroughs, revenue, task completion, time on site, page views, whatever, can all now be used to measure the newly proposed (influenced?) product direction.

Many of you will say things like “Well, the UX team doesn’t have that kind of power where I work” and “I’m lucky if I can get a product in front of a user” and to those that do, I say this, start small. Pick one aspect of your product and study it, figure out what can push its performance and influence that piece. Showcase your succes with quantifiable ROI metrics ($ works best :-) and move on to bigger pieces. Initially, the victories will be small but as you gain momentum you’ll find that your UX efforts will bear fruit in bigger and more meaningful ways.

So which will it be for you? Continue informing or start pushing forward and influence the experiences you design?

[Jeff]

Posted in Productivity, ROI, ux team | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments