Evangelising User Research — the Never-ending story
“I don’t care about User Research”.
“I already know what our users want”.
“When I use our product…”
If you’re in UX, these words, or similar variations, will pop up from time to time in your workplace. As the person accountable for the user experience of our products and services, you might think I’d be within my rights to blow my top. For me though, those few words provide insight and opportunity, and are a timely reminder that evangelising the benefits of a user-centred approach to product design never ends.
A consistent theme at this year’s Leading the Product Conference, was the acknowledgement that a significant barrier to delivering amazing products is a lack of appreciation by project teams of how their users think and work. Most UX Designers understand this and embrace user-centricity as a core pillar of their design process. It is not, however, a familiar concept for all members of our project teams and if one person in the organisation is honest enough to express their apathy about User Research, you can be damn sure there are others who are thinking the same thing. Much better to know this apathy exists and have the opportunity to address it, than to proceed blindly ahead in the mistaken belief that everyone is on the same page.
In my opinion, User Experience design without research does not exist. To design for user needs, we need to understand user behaviours, goals, motivations and needs clearly. Through research methods such as interviewing, observation and evaluation, we can better understand our users and reduce the uncertainty involved in the design process.
“We tend to project our own rationalisations and beliefs onto the actions and beliefs of others.” Don Norman
User Research describes any number of investigative techniques used to add context and insight to the design process. It’s also used to combat the natural tendency to design for ourselves (or our stakeholders) rather than designing for our target audience. Or as Don Norman, UX guru and author of The Design of Everyday Things, phrases it — “We tend to project our own rationalisations and beliefs onto the actions and beliefs of others.” The assumption is that users will approach and solve problems in the same way as the designers and developers of an interactive solution — without design research we tend towards a self–serving, uninformed design process.
In order to gain an understanding of the end users of the product, it is not enough to be simply handed a report generated by someone else… team members must at least participate in (if not lead) user interviews. If a project team is truly immersed in the user research, it will be much easier (and faster) for them to make good decisions that ensure their product meets the needs of the users rather than themselves.
Having facilitated and observed thousands of research sessions over many years, it is ingrained in my being that irrespective of the product, I am not the user. I am no longer typical of our user base, I’m tainted by my proximity to our products. Project teams need solid user research to guide their decisions about the product’s interaction framework, feature set, and overall appropriateness for the users.
Every single day, we’re making decisions that impact our users. Every single day, multiple times a day. It seems obvious to me, but bears repeating — if you’re not conducting research, how can you know the people you’re building products for, and what the hell are you building?
