UX designer Ian Batterbee explains how to adopt a UX mindset and build better customer-centric products:
At this year’s BGL META conference, I had the privilege of not only representing IDO’s Digital CX team, but giving a talk on User Experience. In the talk I explained how ways of working are integral to the success of building customer-centric products.
This year, UX (and CX) was added as a new theme to META (fist pumps the air), and there was particular attention to ways of working. Since UX is such a broad area and the fact that META had a mixed audience ranging from developers to data engineers, I wanted to keep the content simple, high-level, and fun.
UX is something that most of us are familiar with and I didn’t want to teach the audience how to suck eggs. However, what I did want to do was democratise UX to the wider communities who wouldn’t normally associate themselves with the subject.
The talk was intended for anyone interested in designing and building products. You don’t have to be a UX designer or a UX researcher to appreciate the principles. In fact, the lessons apply to any discipline including product owners, business analysts, software developers, testers (and the list can go on).
Why the superhero theme?
With the abundance of superhero films that have dominated the silver screen in recent decades, there are important lessons we can learn from them. I’m not suggesting that we start wearing tight latex costumes but we can certainly understand the philosophy behind superheroes and adapt it to our ways of working.
So, how do we become a team of UX heroes anyway? I will address the superhero question later on, but first, it’s important to understand the state of play for UX in business, and particularly within BGL.
UX is a mindset, not a phase
Sadly, many organisations will take the view that UX is just a phase in the product design and development process. Some organisations will even perceive UX as someone’s job; a designer, or the guy who likes to get his/her crayons out. And unfortunately, many organisations are still blind to the potential value implementing UX tactics can bring to their business.
The good news is that BGL does take UX seriously — YAY! We already have the CX dedicated teams; the people, the tools and processes to create user-centred products (such as websites, online services and apps).
So what’s the problem? In a large organisation (like BGL), a UX strategy can still be under the misconception that it belongs exclusively to one team. When really, UX should be adopted as a mindset.
What we mean by ‘UX as a mindset’?
UX doesn’t have to sit within one team, anyone can add value to influencing a better user-centric product. Let’s imagine you work in compliance and one of your requirements is to ensure the words on a website are legally compliant. You would need to consider how the copy will affect the customer’s experience. For example, if a page is written with a lot of legal jargon then it’s likely that the customer will become confused and even frustrated by the terminology and language used.
You do not need to be super creative to solve customer problems. And this is something we always advise our digital graduates. UX isn’t always about creating nice-looking visuals, it’s about understanding user needs and behaviours and developing ideas through constant testing and iteration.
A UX mindset is a philosophy. No matter what we do, we should constantly use UX as a way of thinking. Every line of code and every single word can have an impact on the UX.
When we adopt a UX mindset we can gain a better understanding of customer problems. If you don’t have an understanding of what the problems are then how can you possibly create solutions?
A UX mindset will make us more open to learning. By committing ourselves to try new things and test ideas we can refine our solutions and create more user-centric products.
When the two benefits of understanding and being openminded to learning are combined, then we can build better and intuitive products that are not only effective and efficient, but they delight the customer.
UX Life at BGL
BGL has CX-dedicated teams in IDO, Life and Compare the Market. The disciplines and ways of working may vary in each team but the focus will always remain fixed on the customer. And in order to design and build products for real people, teams will constantly undergo a user-centred process.
Here’s a quick look at a user-centred process for the IDO Digital CX team:
- The process usually includes different stages in discovery, design, validation, and iteration.
- In the discovery stage, the problem is investigated and then defined as a problem-statement.
- The problem statement is then moved into the design stage where different potential solutions are created.
- Solutions are then moved into the validation stage where different user research studies (such as interviews and usability tests) are conducted to understand if the designs solve the problem statement.
- Then by using feedback gained from validation, the designs are tweaked until we’re confident that we’ve satisfied the problem statement. This stage is known as iteration.
The user-centred process is extremely effective for discovering and defining problems and validating solutions. However, the process often involves only those who function within CX dedicated teams. When we work with user problems from just the perspectives of designers and researchers then surely this isn’t always going to work…
So what’s the problem?
BGL has an incredible mix of disciplines, each with separate viewpoints of the product, and different critical requirements to be met; which is correct when viewed from their respective perspectives. But here’s the problem — the product development process is complex.
When there is a lack of constant collaboration between disciplines then the product becomes at risk of being modified.
A product may be tweaked or changed due to misunderstood or incomplete design requirements. Or at some stage in the development process, a team will want to make tweaks so that the product meets their needs. Through constant modification, the end product is very unlikely to satisfy the needs of our customers.
Feature creep
Google Product Director, Luke Wroblewski uses an excellent example of product design modification in his talk, Close the Customer Gap. Wroblewski uses the following customer contact form scenario to explain how different groups re-contextualise requirements from their viewpoint.
The below contact form has been designed from the perspective of a UX team. The requirements are straight forward; they include a name, contact method, message, and a submit button.
Then the Sales team hears about this contact form and view it as an opportunity for leads. So they add new requirements including a phone number, address and a subject line.
Then the Engineering team steps in and advises the teams that they cannot capture certain data such as name and address by using single fields. So they add some more fields to meet technical needs.
Now the Marketing team steps in and views the contact form as an opportunity to capture demographic information. Even more requirements including gender, date of birth, and marketing preferences are added.
The design process doesn’t stop with the Marketing team. Now enters the Legal team who suggest further requirements including user consent that users have to check and accept.
These gradually competing agendas and perspectives start creeping into the products we make — Luke Wroblewski
We can see in this example how requirements quickly escalate when the product is viewed from different perspectives, and how a simple design can become easily modified. Wroblewski identifies this common issue within organisations that grow and where decision making moves further away from end-users (or customers).
Minimum lovable product (not MVP)
When different disciplines have separate perspectives on the product, compromises are usually made. But sometimes a compromise is simply not good enough.
We often work towards achieving an MVP (minimum viable product) to help keep the project on time. But this usually involves scaling back features which have already undergone an iterative process of test and learn. When the MVP constantly changes, then so does the product. But should we be working towards an MVP or an MLP (minimum lovable product)? By using an MLP we can add the love to our ways of working to help influence the best possible UX. Surely this would lead to building products that we can be more proud of, and more importantly, satisfy the needs of our users and even delight them?
If we fail to close the gap between our product and customers then who’s going to suffer? Us (the people working on the product), the stakeholders, or the customers?
Between a rock and a hard place
The hardest part of the product development process isn’t getting the right skills nor the resources, but constant collaboration between disciplines. There is a story that was once told by Steve Jobs which perfectly explains how persistent correlation within a business can achieve greater success.
When Jobs was just a young boy growing up, he knew an old man in his 80s. One day the old man invited him into his garage where he showed him a rock tumbler. The man-made device comprised of a motor and a coffee can which were bound together. They then went outside to collect some dirty old rocks and stored them inside the tumbler. The old man added a little liquid with some grit powder, closed the lid and then turned on the motor. Jobs recalled the thing making a loud racket as the rocks spun round and round.
The old man told Jobs to return the next morning. When Jobs returned, the old man showed him some beautifully polished stones inside the rock tumbler.
The same common stones that had gone in, through rubbing against each other, creating a little friction and noise, had come out as beautiful polished rocks -teams are like these stones — Steve Jobs
We can learn from Jobs’ story that through constant collaboration and by challenging one another, we can polish our ideas and create something beautiful.
Different disciplines will have their perspectives and requirements, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work together. When teams do connect, then the right ideas will eventually come together.
No hero works alone
Back to the superhero theme.
Like all Marvel superheroes, The Avengers share one thing in common: they work together and to each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It doesn’t matter how talented each superhero is (well, except for Hawkeye — nerd joke), they all collaborate to solve problems. And just like Steve Jobs’ story about teams, The Avengers constantly challenge each other to refine ideas and solutions, and, well, save the day.
So when we look at how these heroes function as a team, we can understand that the answer to how to become a team of UX heroes is clear:
To become a team of UX heroes, we must collaborate early and often, and use UX as a mindset.
It doesn’t matter what your discipline (or superpower) is, we can all add value to influencing a better UX. But, it’s essential that we constantly collaborate from the start of the project and throughout. If we fail to connect, then the product will become at risk of being modified. However, if we unite (just like The Avengers) and challenge ideas and assumptions (just like rocks in a tumbler), then we really can work towards building better customer-centric products.
Collaboration is key — but how do we do it?
Collaboration is critical to designing and building a product that can satisfy the needs of the customer. But collaboration isn’t just about sitting in meetings and updating JIRA tickets. To understand how we can collaborate more effectively, here are key areas to consider:
1. Use creative methodologies
Let’s face it, sitting around a long table in a meeting room isn’t going to get those creative juices flowing. So this is where we need fun and creative ways of working, and Design Thinking is one of them.
Design thinking is a practical process which brings together different aspects of a business - and it’s not just for designers. The purpose of design thinking is for teams to identify the root cause of a problem and create solutions to resolve it. Usually, in just a day, a team of mixed disciplines will undergo different stages in empathy, define, ideate, prototype and test to come up with a solution. The process is extremely collaborative and it allows different skills to challenge each other’s perspectives and opinions.
The Digital CX team has been using this methodology as a great way to reach out to other areas of a business, and it was particularly used in this year’s Innovation Day. In just one day, dozens of mixed disciplined teams quickly defined and solved business and customer-related problems.
2. Observe together
Understanding customer behaviour is the only way to design solutions that will truly work for them. While we have teams of researchers and designers to go out in the field to study what makes people tick and click, you are going to gain an even bigger understanding when you involve other disciplines.
The Digital CX team has started to involve different aspects of the business in group usability review sessions and guerilla testing. And the results have been extremely positive.
In a group usability review session, different teams such as front-end UI developers, programmers and business analysts are invited to observe users interact with design prototypes. We all sit around a large TV screen and study different users provide feedback on our designs. And it’s fascinating to watch observers chip in with their ideas on why users struggle with our designs and then ideate ways to fix the problems going forward. This is where different disciplines will naturally add value.
Then there is guerilla testing. This is where we leave the office building to venture out in the wild to meet potential customers face-to-face. Admittedly, this can feel awkward and you really will be taken out of your comfort zone, but it’s extremely rewarding. Recently, our UX Research Manager, Paul Humphrey has taken members of the marketing and product teams out in the wild to interview different members of the public. This was used as an opportunity to, not only give other teams a different perspective, but to add their value to help us better understand user behaviour and perceptions.
3. Involve those who don’t understand UX
The saying ‘you can’t teach those who don’t want to learn’ is somewhat true, but it shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid people who refuse to buy into the value of UX investment and tactics.
The best way to democratise a UX mindset is to get those who don’t understand and value UX involved. Drag them into your workshops, get them to observe user studies, and even get them to map a customer journey so they can see things from a customer perspective.
Empathy maps are also a great way of getting people into a UX mindset. This research technique will put you in the shoes of the customer by considering the following areas: think, feel, say, do. By using empathy maps we can focus more on user needs as opposed to features and marketing strategies.
User studies, customer journeys and empathy maps are not only useful for adapting a UX mindset, but they are also extremely collaborative ways of working. Whether you’re venturing in the great outdoors in groups to meet people or exchanging masses of post-it notes and sketches with your colleagues, UX is a fun and creative process. It’s not intended for the individual, but teams.
Conclusion
It doesn’t matter what your discipline is, anyone can add value to creating better and intuitive products that can give our customers a better experience.
UX doesn’t have to be a phase or sit within the one team. It’s very much a mindset that we should all adopt to help achieve more intuitive and delightful products.
Finally, if you’re interested in learning more about customer behaviour and testing ideas, then get involved, get out of your comfort zone. UX isn’t just about design, it’s about collaboration and ways of working.
And remember, no hero works alone.
Originally published at https://medium.com.
