User Experience + Functional Analysis: Serving People Without Overlooking the Business
If you’ve ever wondered what a functional analyst or a UX designer does or why it’s useful to count on these roles, I want you to know that I wrote this article with you in mind. I’ll attempt to describe, from my experience, what these roles do. I’ll narrate two experiences at a time, since I’ll not only convey my view but also Agustina “Pochi” García Orsi’s, the first UX designer I worked with, who pitched in this article by bringing in her viewpoint during long talks with coffee and cookies.
What Does a UX Designer Do?
This was the first question I asked when I started working at Flux IT. I had read the definition, but it still wasn’t tangible for me, I didn’t understand it. Pochi (my UX colleague in the project) smiled with a mischievous look as one smiles when answering the same question for the millionth time, and she told me that UX designers gather information from the client and carry out research to provide a good user experience (in other words, that it is intuitive and easy to use) and that to achieve it they not only apply patterns and methodologies but also perform tests with users that are not related to the client’s business areas, getting a fresh look and a true measurement of how intuitive the product is.
What Does a Functional Analyst Do?
Since we were talking about our roles, Pochi asked me about mine because it was also the first time she worked with a functional analyst. I told her that we also gather information, but from another perspective.
We gather information focusing on the business. We record requirements, identify new needs based on them, spot risks, add suggestions from our experience with previous clients and we are the ones who interact with the development team to ensure the understanding of each feature’s expected behavior.
That’s All Well and Good, but Can It Actually Be Applied in the Real World?
Something that usually happens with development teams or clients that have never worked with these roles is that they view the practical value of these roles within a project with skepticism. That is to say, they think it’s all well and good in theory, but they don’t think it can be suitable for real life.
This is a logical, natural and understandable perception, since those who have never applied it have nothing to compare the results with. Moreover, they are usually annoyed by the typical detours that stem from not having these roles (which have an impact on timing), and they don’t see when they would intervene. However, providing support and seeing the before-and-after change in terms of results for those clients who try to incorporate UX designers and functional analysts to their projects is very rewarding
Oh, so Is What They Do Similar?
It’s super similar and different at the same time. They are two sides of the same coin. Both roles gather information, do research and polish how a system should behave: UX designers focus on user needs and functional analysts focus on business needs.
I should highlight that the moment when these roles join the project is not unimportant: the most convenient thing is to include them from the beginning and for both to work aligned to take better advantage of their skills. If they join the project at different times, there’s a risk that they’ll work out of sync and it will take longer to strike a balance between both roles’ goals.
In our case, fortunately, we started working together at the immersion phase of one of the projects that Flux IT was developing with Federación Patronal, a top market share insurance company from Argentina. Thanks to our talk about our roles we were aligned, understanding that by supporting our work in the initial phase we could help broadly define the product’s features.
Something I found amazing was the opportunity to gather information together, according to our roles. This helped us empathize with our work mutually, being able to clarify the doubts that came up or checking whether we had misunderstood any concept. In addition, it served to optimize our stakeholders’ times (which is important in a business context), since at every meeting both of us got what we needed.
The major bonus was that the client perceived how aligned we were and that created a different bond of trust, knowing that if one of us asked a question, made a suggestion or pointed out a risk, it was because that had already been talked about and agreed.
Playmobil Figures: An Example of UX Designers and Functional Analysts in Action
We started early to seize the day and we walked into the big meeting room. There were many of the most important members of the client’s main areas: Management, IT and Business. It should be mentioned that Federación Patronal is an organization with a more traditional structure. Suddenly, Pochi rolled out a huge poster board on the table and she brought out a lot of markers and Playmobil figures (yes, the little dolls!). When they saw that, our hosts’ faces were priceless: a mix of amazement and curiosity, but with a completely open attitude.
At that point, we told them that we were going to develop an actors map: it’s a technique to identify the actors that each involved area has in the client’s requirements and how they are interrelated.
Each of our hosts took a figure and started allocating duties and drawing arrows to show how they were related. I was astonished, since this was a super useful tool for my work and completely unknown to me at that time. It was also a pleasant experience for the client, since having a doll made them not only think about the area or the duty but also put a name to it. That was truly valuable to me because the names of the stakeholders I had to interview came up naturally and I even got definitions as the map was being drawn.
It was extremely useful and funny at the same time: inside the room they were focused and serious, looking at a poster board with Playmobil figures as if it was a board game; and since it was a glass room (and it was on the way to another area), the rest of the staff passed by and saw the IT Deputy General Manager playing with Playmobil figures! There were plenty of surprised or shocked faces and giggles.
From that moment on, the client took the requirement workshops quite seriously and I dare to say they looked forward to them. Those workshops became a break from routine, a more fun moment than traditional meetings (which also took place), where we sought to make the most out of the guests’ time.
If They Are so Similar, Why Do You Need Both?
Based on my experience working with many UX designers several times, I believe counting on both roles is the most profitable for a project, since it enables us to strike a balance between business and end-user expectations. This is highly beneficial to the project, since it encompasses a 360° view of it.
What is more, as regards development and UI, the team can rely on UX when it comes to navigation, information architecture, and the style of the product that reaches the client (quite formal, colloquial, friendly, etc.) and it can rely on functional analysis to understand how a feature should behave or to clear doubts over the business in presence of grey areas.
It’s often the case that the development area raises a concern about the product behavior which provides a fresh and untainted view, and it may even make us reconsider a UX or FA decision, improving the final product substantially by covering a view related to usability, the functional or the technical side. Ideally, this support for the development team should be carried out throughout the project.
Although it’s true that the FA or UX designers are sometimes disregarded when building a team (often because of cultural matters, lack of knowledge or maybe due to the budget), I’d advise against it, since many of the most recurring issues and detours in projects stem from the weak spots in definitions and in the understanding of the client’s need. Honestly, after having worked hand in hand with UX designers and seeing the final result of several products, I can’t imagine a project without both roles. The synergy produced among the team is amazing and it allows everyone to focus on their tasks, always supported by the other roles.
