Making the World a Better Place Through User Experience

Overcoming Misconceptions About the Role of User Experience in a Product-Centric Organization

“This question touches on two issues,” replies Jordan. “Businesses’

• general misconceptions about user experience
• misconceptions about the role of User Experience within a product-centric organization

“For most businesses, user experience is a vague industry term like the term creative. It means vastly different things to different people. The only way we’ll change the general perception of User Experience is to continue our efforts to make our industry more accessible. We need to share our ideas and spread the word about what UX professionals really do.

“Similarly, when an organization isn’t utilizing its UX team in the right way, education is the only way to initiate organizational change. That said, if a company has a product-strategy process that doesn’t involve User Experience, there’s something fundamentally wrong with that company. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not worth trying to change organizations that aren’t ready to change. There are many organizations that do place a high value on User Experience. So my advice is to find the organizations that really value what you have to contribute and avoid the ones that don’t.

“However, if you’re not in a position to leave a company that doesn’t value your role, you can try driving some organizational change by taking two relatively simple steps:

1. Communicate value.
2. Measure results.

“It’s not enough just to ask to be part of product strategy. First, you have to help your product team understand what you bring to the table. Then, once you’re part of product strategy, you must demonstrate your value. To do this effectively, you must measure the results. Compare your results with those of product releases that didn’t include the UX team as an integral part of product strategy. Ultimately, you need to make a business case that shows how much value User Experience adds. Recommend optimizations to the business process that leverage the UX team to its full potential.”

“Demonstrating meaningful change may sound easy, but it can be hard work,” remarks Ben. “Track key metrics before and after your projects so you can show that your work has made a real, positive impact. Set a baseline before you begin, using key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter to your organization. Then, continue to track those metrics regularly to ensure you’re moving forward. Demonstrating real change through metrics is a great way to prove the worth of your work and the value of User Experience.”

Focusing on Business Goals

“This may sound negative, but we need to eschew the reasons we came into the field of User Experience and instead focus on what we want to achieve within our organizations,” responds Baruch. “Helping people and making the world a better place are noble aspirations. However, most companies have a more immediate goal: to become profitable or maintain profitability.

“But good user experience is good business. Better designed products make more money or save money. To create a better-designed product, you’re going to need more than pretty. You’re going to need more than a design system. You’re going to need more than pixel-perfect wireframes that conform to the latest cool designs that are out there. What you need is a deep understanding and appreciation of the business goals your organization has, as well as its strategic initiatives. This business focus is what most UX folks have historically lacked. But this is changing and must continue to change rapidly for User Experience to be part of product strategy. In short, make sure all design decisions map to business goals, not only to design goals.”

“To prevent or overcome the misconception that UX design is just bells and whistles, it is essential that you apply the craft of User Experience in alignment with the overall product strategy,” replies Mark. “If you focus only on the user interface or aesthetics, you aren’t doing UX design properly. Instead, ensure your work has a robust, user-centered design foundation that is based on the evaluation and synthesis of user-research findings. This will enable you to impact a product or service in ways that truly benefit users.”

User-Centered Product Strategy

“For User Experience to be integral to product strategy, the practices and skills UX professionals provide and the role we play on a project must be seen as important—by both ourselves and others,” answer Dan and Jo. “Devising a product strategy as part of a business strategy implies a team’s having an understanding of who the business is serving or selling to; having a definition of who the customer is. We often see teams who want to forge ahead and create solutions, who get carried away with technology, without any real understanding of the people for whom they are designing a product, their underlying needs and motivations, and the problems they may face. For us, understanding people is a critical component of business strategy—part of the design and product-development process. User research supports continuous learning to help us see how people use a product, the frustrations they face, and improvements that we can consider making over time.

“User Experience, as a practice, can play an important facilitation role on product teams. In our facilitation role, we can invite other team members to observe user research and ensure they can make sense of their observations. We leverage our understanding of customers’ and prospective customers’ needs in determining the right design direction and to understand what design changes we must make.

“If we can agree, in principle, that it’s the role of User Experience to ensure product teams’ understand the impacts that current and future business directions will have on customers, it becomes clear that User Experience and its various practice disciplines play an integral role in product strategy.

“Who else plays an integral role in product strategy and why? What could we learn from people in those other roles?”

Delivering Practical Results

“When people ask me why I came into the field of User Experience, I think back to the time when I was a lab tech at UCSF, doing brainwave research on alcoholics and AIDS and Alzheimer’s patients,” said Gavin. “After a session with a 21-year-old AIDS patient, he shook my hand so enthusiastically that it gave me pause. He said, ‘I really hope this goes toward finding a cure!’ I smiled back in agreement. But, after he left, I felt depressed. Whether his brainwave activity differed from that of an alcoholic patient when he heard a boop or a beep might not result in a cure for him. This was in the early 1990s, so he might not live past 30 with AIDS.

“Fast forward to a time when, as a UX professional, I was testing a new device for administering drugs. A woman gives me a hug after our session. (This was the first time anyone had given me a hug after a usability-test session.) Seeing my puzzled expression, she said, ‘You don’t get it? You are trying to make this product easy to use for people like me. Between measuring and syringing, it used to take 30 minutes. It was so complicated that I used to have to do it at the kitchen table. Well, with this device, I can walk into the bathroom to take my miracle drug and be back in a few minutes! You are trying to design a device that I can use correctly the first time! Even more than that, you’re changing the way my 5-year-old daughter looks at her mother! She doesn’t have to watch her mom struggle to take the medicine that will keep me alive. This is why I thank you.’”

I came to User Experience from the world of academic computer science—where I was surrounded by cutting-edge research and saw exciting results every day. Nevertheless, I felt frustrated that these academic achievements had no impact on the lives of people they could potentially help. There was such a gulf between these amazing technological achievements and their application to the technology that most people use every day. So I felt driven to build a bridge between the two. How? By learning to speak in the language of business.

The first time I heard the statement “a business exists to make a profit,” I felt heartbroken. In my mind, I questioned whether businesses want to make the world a better place, too. In reality, the answer is: some do and some don’t. All companies—no matter how noble their mission statement—must be profitable to survive. If a UX design solution does not drive profitability, it is not relevant to the business.

Is this a sad truth? It might be if you maintain the perspective of a frustrated UX designer for whom an ideal design solution is all that matters. But, if you pivot and realize that you can help many people in their daily lives by creating an easier to use and more effective product and, at the same time, increase your company’s profitability, this can become a win-win situation. Your willingness to focus on business success means you can help more people.

UX designers who have the rigid mindset that this design must be the best possible design ever must realize that they are part of a larger organization that is bringing a product to market. They must adopt the strategic goals of that organization. All of the roles that make up a product team must work together to achieve the organization’s goals and meet the needs of the user. Only if UX designs achieve results that are important to the business and add value to the business can the business survive to provide value to customers.