Customer and UX Researcher: Interaction Secrets

Secrets of Interaction (UX)

Whether I work as a freelancer or as an employee, I always interact with clients. After all, customers can be not only people who pay money, but also colleagues who work with you on a project.

Who can be a customer of an UX researcher:

• business (person representing it)
• product manager
• designer (if he does not conduct research on his own)
• any person who needs your help and you understand that it is your competence to help him.

1. The secret of the first meeting: arrange a kick-off meeting. Right away.

When a customer comes with a request, the best thing you can do is set up a call where you can discuss everything in detail.

Why?

1. Sometimes requests look like this: “we need a survey” / “we would ask users today, call them — 2 minutes maximum”. This is not a good request, because it is likely that the customer is mistaken. Why he may be wrong: he is not immersed in the field of research or he manipulates you into emphasizing what is needed FAST.
2. If you resolve issues in correspondence, the process will drag on indefinitely (lunches, early dinners, vacations and now your research is waiting for you under the tree).
3. If you resolve issues in correspondence, there is a high probability of misunderstanding. The process will look as if the customer is telling you about watermelons and you are telling him about melons, and all just because he does not know about research, and you are not so immersed in product tasks.

Before calling, you can prepare a brief. This is the second secret.

2. The secret of the brief for research.

After the appointment is approved, you should send the brief to the customer. Thus, you already roughly understand how you can (or cannot) help the customer, and he will collect all his thoughts into one beautiful pile. After approval, you send the template, the customer fills it out and sends it to you before the meeting. At the meeting, you understand what will be discussed in advance.

What information should the brief contain (this is a topic for a separate article, which I will definitely collect, but for now, briefly):

• origins of a project (what kind of product, why did you decide to come to the researcher, what went wrong)
• purpose of the study (why?)
• tasks (the goal is revealed in more detail)
• questions and hypotheses on the project
• stakeholders
• dates (when research start dates and completion dates approximately)
• what is planned to be done with the results.

Thus, you will discuss the most important points.

3. The secret: questions to ask the customer during the meeting.

At the meeting, the most important thing is to come to a common denominator. Understand what the customer wants from you, tell him the options for the project, and make it as transparent as possible.

What questions should definitely be asked:

• Why do we need to research?
• Do you have any hypotheses/questions?
• When would you like to receive the results? (objectively)
• What data do you want to receive?
• How will the results be used?

Finally, a few more tips:

• Deadlines: evaluate them as objectively as possible, even if the customer makes very nice eyes, this will not add hours to your day. Either consider alternative methods of research (if really urgent), or discuss other scope.
• If the client has no experience in conducting research, then advising you which method to choose is not the best idea. Explain transparently why the method chosen by him is not suitable (if so), why another one will be more useful.
• Ask for contacts of all stakeholders who can help during the research: designers, analysts, etc. Why? — Sometimes you need to check minor details in design and analytics, customers are usually very busy and you have to wait a long time for news, otherwise you will interact directly.
• Talk about intermediate results. Send news, conclusions, even memes on the topic of research. So, you involve the customer and show him that the work is in progress. And then it will be easier for you to collect the report later.
• Invite stakeholders for tests. Firstly, they may have additional questions for the respondents, and secondly, they themselves will be able to see whether the product is good or not.

I hope these tips will help you in communication with customers. Let’s interview customers!;)