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