Case study: how 11 Questions to Start a UX Project helped me to sell, execute and over deliver
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes 26 seconds
I’ve been involved in a lot of UX projects with organizations of all sizes.
Since I created 11 Questions to Start a UX Project, all of them became more organized, predictable and straightforward.
Those experiences had shown me that to be a UX consultant, communication skills are a required skill to have in our toolbox.
At the end, the questionnaire is just one of them: it simply helps stakeholders to communicate their mindset and expectations.
How it began
The project that I’m sharing with you today is the result of a UX consultancy that I did for Zemic Europe.
For this project I worked alongside dutch-based Trusted Rebels Agency for an ambitious goal: to redesign the e-commerce for this leading company in Europe’s weighting industry.
The first thing that I made –as you probably imagine, was to send the questions for the agency to respond.
For this case, I decided not to ask for the budget and the responsible person, since we had talked about that in previous emails.
Here’s what they wrote:
And here is the transcription:
– What is the problem or need you are aiming to solve with your product or service?
For Zemic Europe we have defined there only strategy. This consists of an Online Ambition and 4 Strategic online goals.
Their main goals are: Generating Leads in New and Existing markets, Generate direct online sales (webshop , e-commerce), Loyalty build a group of returning Customer, Branding build a positive brand.
– What are the Key Performance Indicators to have in mind? How ‘success’ looks like in this project?
In the attachment is the KPI’s defined.
– What is the benchmark? What are top-of-the-line products that we can look into to inspire our work?
I will add you in our realtime board for this project in this online whiteboard is competition but also inspirational sites from other companies.
– Who are the final users?
We will create a Website/shop for B2B use. Their target groups are engineers who can use the weighing sensors they sell.
On one hand we have their current know markets. But they also have new markets they now even didn’t know there are.
– Is there any technological limitation that we have in mind when we work?
No
– In which stage of the project we are?
Online Strategy just finished next step is creating the customer journeys and a UX concept.
– When the project will be finished?
Delivery is scheduled August 2015.
– Is there any roadmap for the project?
We will create a new planning (roadmap) next week.
– Is there any particular deliverable that you are looking for?
Customer journey map and a UX concept (Wireframes, Personas etc.)
— — —
Even as the responses are somewhat chaotic and vague, I saw many clues and patterns appear.
And this gave me a perspective for their real needs. When I got that, I was able to tailor my service to something that delivered the 90% of the impact with just 10% of the investment.
A proposal that they can’t refuse
Here is what I offered:
Customer Survey: Creation of an online survey to send to the client database, to ask about their expectations and inner thoughts about the product (client must be able to send this on the first week of our work together).
Competitive Analysis: Check the state-of-the-art in the market segment to extract quick wins.
GAP Analysis: Where the current digital platform is and where should be in the future.
Analytics Analysis: Analyze the available information about users and their behavior.
Growthacking Recommendations: evaluate alternatives and propose actions that will bring 90% of the results with 10% of the effort.
Low-fi Schematics: Some example screens to illustrate the ideas, with no detail.
– The deliverable: will be presented in a Strikingly webpage.
– Estimated Time to Deliver: 3–4 weeks.
Agency was more than grateful that the plan was small and affordable, and said yes right away.
How it ended up
The project ended up with an extensive document with recommendationsto be implemented in the design and development of the new platform.
[As you may noticed, I’ve used the free platform Strikingly to create this document, which I deeply recommend.]
The UX long-term impact
I must say that this UX reference document was checked consciously thru the whole development period, and lots of the recommendations were put in practice.
After one year of the platform redesign was finished, results were quite impressive:
> Quote requests up 100%
> Company growth after implementation +12%
Here is the link for checking the final version of the site of Zemic Europe.
I wish this example help you know what to expect when you send the questionnaire… but that would be a lie!
In my experience, every person understands the questions in a radical different way.
I guess that this is part of the richness of the UX consultant practice
It’s up to you to try it and see what happens… as always.
