Learnings from Strategic UX Roundtable Discussion

On 1st of August, Somia CX held a roundtable discussion with 3 panelists to discuss the recent buzzword in the industry: Strategic UX. The 3 panelists were: Yoel Sumitro, Senior Director of Delivery Hero; Larissa Rena, Global Senior Inclusive Design Researcher at IKEA; and our own Ketut Sulistyawati, the Director of Somia Customer Experience. Me myself was moderating the session. For approximately 2 hours we discussed many things, from debunking what exactly Strategic UX is, to how to be ‘strategic’ as UX practitioners in this uncertain time. Here are several takeaways from the discussion:

All research in UX by nature is supposed to be strategic. Foundational / exploratory and tactical research tackle different problems at hand, but both are equally important for the business.

• Strategic research usually covers the realm of the “unknown unknown” — exploring new topics such as safety for drivers or exploring white space for new business opportunities. While tactical research seeks to find the answer of the “known unknown” such as usability or product usage.
• Both types of research are equally important. Whatever kind of research we do, what matters is whether our research can contribute to the objective and help with the problem context faced at hand.
• What’s more important is to know what is needed by the team / business / organization and the capability to formulate and execute the right approach to answer it.

International research vs research in Indonesia

• There is no significant difference in the researchers’ quality or the methods used. But researchers who have done international research usually have more experience in the logistics of running cross-country research (eg., translation) and how to run research in different cultures.
• In international organization, decisions need to be made whether insights that come from a few countries can be implemented for products for the worldwide market, or whether certain customization is needed at country or local level.

On the value of research

• Research is a way to minimize risk, eg. to help companies avoid launching a wrong product to the market.
• Understanding the business goals is crucial so researchers can relate how research can contribute to those goals. For example, avoiding cost of lawsuits, increasing revenue, or reducing cost.
• Knowing the business numbers or working with other experts who can come up with them can help make the research case more tangible for the business.
• But the minimum value of research is at least it should help the stakeholders make an informed decision based on the result of the research.

Other than from delivering good deep insight, foundational or exploratory research needs to be actionable to be valuable for the organization

• To be actionable and valuable, research insights need to be delivered to the right stakeholders, at the right time, to make the right decisions.
• Unfortunately, many good insights are lost in translations, not understood, and then sitting on a shelf because the “users” of the research don’t know what to do with it. Researchers might be needed to translate the insights into the language that the stakeholders understand and facilitate discussions to guide them exploring the possibilities and implications based on the insights.
• Another way is through collaborative engagement with stakeholders during the research process, rather than working in silo and only delivering the insights when the research is completed.

To deliver utmost value to what we do, we as UX practitioners not only need to master UX related activities, but also how to navigate within the system of our organization.

• Just like we do research to get to know our customers, we researchers need to understand our stakeholders as well to make sure the research result is fruitful
• Understanding the business or business acumen is needed, to make sure that we understand what actually the organization needs.
• Stakeholders management is crucial to make sure the result of our work can be understood by the stakeholders and implemented.
• Try to communicate the value of the UX in terms of what benefit or loss the business would get by doing it, speaking the result more on their ‘language’.

Apart from the discussion covered in the session, we also learned several things to be improve on how we run the session, nothing is perfect:

Biggest learning: managing expectations

From the start we intended the session to be a panel talk / round table discussion. Initially we would like to carry out the session to be more structured with clear blocks of topics to be covered. During the coordination with the panelists, we felt that the audience would benefit more from a dynamic conversation since our field is constantly growing. But it seems the intent was not properly conveyed.

• The publication did not clearly say that the session would be a fireside chat with multiple points of views and more fluid discussions from the panelist, that we would have a rich debate rather than speakers explaining their own slides.
• As a result, the session attracted mixed audiences with mixed expectations. The free flow of conversation was confusing for those expected to learn about the topic in a more structured manner. The open debate was unsettling for those who are hoping to get conclusive answers.

Really thankful with backstage team in supporting me as moderator

In order to create engaging conversation, we had a backstage team to monitor our Slido & Zoom chat to find interesting questions, since from the registration we expected there would be hundreds of people joining the event. To be honest, some of the comments we got were rather hurtful, so I am really thankful for the team that has to bear it so I could focus on moderating the session. We also learn we can not satisfy everybody, we have to accept that we can not make everybody happy.

Thank you for joining the session all!

We hope you all can learn something from the panel discussion, thank you for your support and the feedback! Feel free to reach out to us if you would like to discuss more about the topic.

See you in our next events!