What Clients Say vs. What They Mean
If you put 5 UX’s in a bag and you take two UX’s out, how many do you have left? UX might top the list of technology terms with so many different explanations and perspectives.
The ✝ ️Bible says, “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”. The power of words affect your emotions and actions and are well demonstrated in science. When I conduct interviews as part of my UX research I always start by aligning understandings and meaning around the topic we will be talking about; How would you explain X to your mother? It is important to know what we are talking about.
Per Axbom has put down a great definition of UX Design.
To gain a better understanding of UX and how it is being used nowadays I’d like to elaborate on what clients say versus what they actually mean and need.
Can you do an UX review on our application?
What they mean
We have strong indications and signals that the usability and interaction on our application suck
What they need
Someone that is going to tell them they should do more testing upfront
We need to improve the UX
What they mean
We’ve been working hard on building a lot of features an now it doesn’t work together that well
What they need
Someone that is going to tell them they oughta know what the user really needs
The UX doesn’t feel that good
What they mean
The quality of the visual and interaction design isn’t what we foresaw and what we hoped it would be
What they need
A rock-solid visual and iX designer that is going to explain them why they ask a high hourly rate
We need to test the UX
What they mean
We’ve created a bunch of features in a waterfall manner and now we want to see how it performs in terms of usability
What they need
Someone that is going to tell them they need to work on their design process and explain the benefit of prototyping and qualitative research
We want a better UX to improve our sales
What they mean
We are not yet that mature that we see that an immediate focus on conversion will only work in the short run and we should be focusing on the entire customer journey. We want you to do your magic and make sure we reach our sales targets and get our end-of-year bonuses.
What they need
A lot of time! To start.. somebody at a C-level to convince their bosses that their salary and bonus structure will lead to a disruption where they will be beaten by the competition.
Do you have any? Let me know and I’ll add them to the list!
