Crafting UX Research in Enterprise
Lessons on overcoming the challenges of conducting enterprise UX research
“Sorry, but we don’t have time to conduct research.”
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard this directly or indirectly from product teams.
Conducting user research is still a mystery to a lot of companies. Some companies may not have the luxury to conduct user research. A lot of companies, especially enterprise, have the misconception that it takes too much time and effort to run a user research study. Instead of hiring a dedicated user researcher, many companies or teams just run their own “research” which is mainly having a few conversations with their users.
Having worked at an enterprise company for almost 4 years, I’ve learned so much through collaborating with talented product teams, working on complex (yet cool) problems, and, of course, by making plenty of mistakes. Here, I’ve listed a few key insights I wish a younger me could’ve known going back in time. I hope this list will help others such as fellow researchers, designers, product managers, or engineers to conduct their own UX research in enterprise.
Recruiting Enterprise Users
Recruiting users can be the top challenge for UX researchers, especially when there’s no recruiting team or assistant to help. Recruiting for enterprise can be even more challenging, as target users are not typically people you can find at your local Starbucks or friends and family. Enterprise users are groups of users with their specialized domain knowledge and expertise in doing certain tasks.
Another major difference between recruiting enterprise users and recruiting consumer users is the need to differentiate end users from those with the buying power. People who purchase the product can be different from those who are actually using the product on a day-to-day basis. While many consumer products can be downloaded from an app store for free or at a low cost, enterprise products can cost millions of dollars for an entire organization. Usually the decision maker for choosing which product to use is the CTO or manager of the company, whereas the people working within the team are those who are actually using the product.
With these few differences in mind, here are a few tips for recruiting enterprise users:
Build a good connection with the Sales or Account Team
This is particularly important and effective when it comes to recruiting enterprise users. If you reach out to enterprise users directly, there’s a high chance that you won’t hear anything back. But if you first reach out to the sales or the account manager and ask them for referrals, they might recommend customers they know based on interest or relevancy. Sales and account teams usually already have a pretty good understanding about customers, in terms of who they are, what tools they use, and what their pain points are. Talking to your sales or account team and building a good relationship will make recruiting a lot easier.
Create a strategic research panel from previous research participants
Once you talk to a few users, mark those who fit into your study well and who are good at providing valuable feedback. Add them to your own database so you have their contact information at hand for future studies. Having a strategic research panel not only saves you time from recruiting but also helps you avoid talking to the same customers too often or having any customers be left out.
Close the loop with your customers after the research studies
At the end of the day, we are trying to improve our product. We do this by talking to users, hearing their challenges, designing by addressing those issues, and thinking about alternatives to improve the product’s user experiences. Building a longitudinal relationship with customers means you can validate your assumptions or solutions at each of these steps. Be sure to circle back with customers and follow up on updated solutions. Customers in turn will feel their voices have actually been heard and their feedback incorporated into the product.
Thinking Out of the Box When Selecting Research Methodologies
Conducting research for enterprise is much more than just doing usability studies or interviews. There are many places where we can think out of the box and be a little bit more creative. Of course, no matter which methodology we choose, the research should be grounded in clear goals we want to achieve by taking business values and technical constraints into consideration. Injecting some creative elements enjoy a few benefits:
Interact with users in a more engaging and fun manner
When talking to enterprise users, people may have the preconception that most of the conversations happen in a small conference room. The tone is low and the conversation is usually dull. Think about how can you make the conversation more fun and engaging. Instead of conducting 1:1 interviews or usability studies, think about what else we can do to prompt a more engaging activity or conversation. For example, one of the research activities the UX team at VMware has conducted is the “Buy a feature game” where we worked with customers to prioritize a list of features. The key question here is “If you have a hundred dollars, which of these features would you like to buy?” By using the VMware virtual money the team created, customers looked more engaged when participating in this activity and provided richer and more surprising insights.
Solicit user feedback more effectively
Usually, traditional research methods generate predictable answers or the same insights we’ve been hearing again and again. Trying something different either in terms of format of the study or the testing materials can make people think more and speak up more. As an example, our team tried to use the Storytelling method when conducting concept testing studies. Storytelling presents the team’s assumptions about our user, the product, and the context of use in a visually appealing manner. It is a very effective way to communicate the research topic to customers and help them provide more concrete and accurate feedback.
Tailor research reports to your audience
Research reports should be tailored based on different stakeholders’ interests. A good research report presents data in different formats, such as audio, video recording, pictures, quotes, design feedback etc. Coming up with creative ways to share research findings not only helps people remember your takeaways but also helps to build empathy among people who have never talked to users in person. To find out more about research format, take a look at this post by Caitria O’Neill where she shares a few tips on creating a great research report.
Evangelizing Research By Speaking up More (and More)!
So when is research complete? In my opinion, research is never complete until the user feedback has been incorporated into the product. However, sometimes due to product direction shift or reprioritization, upon completion the research results may not be as relevant or useful as it intended to be. Rather than leaving the research work behind and letting it gather dust, we could think about how to make the most out of research even after it’s done.
Share research in both meetings and casual conversations
As a user researcher, we are representing users’ voices in terms of who they are, what they need, and where they struggle when using our products. With the completion of each research project, we attain more insights from users, which help us understand them more. Other than the formal presentations we give to the stakeholders, a researcher should be invited to the design review meetings or any scoping meetings and be able to speak up in these meetings to make sure we are not missing any user insights as we create more designs or prioritize the product features. Furthermore, in our lunch time or daily casual conversations with other stakeholders, we can also fill in the conversations with little stories from a research trip or quotes from customers we think are interesting or outstanding. Don’t overlook those quick chat opportunities; people do remember things and what you bring up could actually make a difference.
Host lunch sharing sessions to share user stories and insights
There is simply no better way to build empathy for users than to keep sharing what you learn with others, by all means. The same as the presentation we give to the stakeholders after each research study, we can also schedule a lunch sharing session on a monthly or bi-monthly basis with a broader audience. Think about inviting people who you don’t work with on a day-to-day basis, such as people from marketing, engineering, QA, support, or designers or researchers working on other products. Since it’s at lunch time, there’s no need to worry about taking too much time from others or interrupting working sessions. In fact, your colleagues will appreciate it a lot if there’s someone willing to take the time to share more user insights.
Conclusion
Conducting research doesn’t necessarily require spending lots of money or time. In fact, user research can save the company more money and time by steering teams in the right direction based on customer feedback. User research is an invaluable process that can have a major impact on product success. I’d be happy to hear other tricks or tips from your experience — please comment below!
