“Think beyond UX design, and start designing for the possibilities of human connection.” – Michael Wesch

This quote is from Michael’s UX Week 2010 talk “Mediated Culture.”

1. In designing tools we are designing ways of being
2. Better connect with your customers by speaking like people, not like machines
3. Treat your audience less like a faceless user and more like a human being

“Design is underpinned by the designer’s ability to not only look, but also to see… The act of observation is not unique to design or design thinking, and design research is not the sole domain of the designer. It is in the seeing, in the sense-making, and in the questioning of what is observed that design sets itself apart.” – Steve Baty

This quote is from Steve’s Interactions Magazine article “Solving complex problems through design.”

1. The true mark of an effective designer is the ability to answer “why?”
2. Good designers have the trained ability to represent the world as others expect to see it
3. Design is a reflective practice between the designer and her design materials

“As designers and architects of the future, we have an opportunity to play a powerful role in constructing reality and improving humanity’s experience on this planet. If the focus is only on a short term profit margin or a fad or a shiny new object, it will be an opportunity lost. Design can be reactionary, responding only to current conditions, or it can be visionary, by presenting solutions to problems yet undefined.” – Venessa Miemis

Read more in Venessa’s article “How Can Futures Thinking Amplify Design Thinking?”

1. Design can help find new solutions to problems and drive innovation
2. Designers don’t actually “solve” problems. They “work through” them.
3. Design is about more than just solving problems

“If you want your product to sell you have to start with focusing on transitions, wow moments, and endings to make it stick in a customer’s mind… You are not just making a product or providing a good user experience. You are giving people a story that will plant memories, and those memories will drive their behavior in the future. Make sure they have good ones.” – Dmitry Dragilev

Read more in Dmitry’s TechCrunch article “Memory Inception: Three Keys To Creating A Great User Experience For Your Product.”

1. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences.
2. Remarkable experiences leave a mark
3. Focus on the idea of a product experience, instead of experience that only deals with the user

Often when we think of using data to influence our designs, we think of “data” in a very narrow way.  When trying to identify opportunities or support our design decisions with evidence, some gravitate solely towards web analytics or conversion data, others only to research findings in lab studies.  Some shy away from the thought of “data-driven design” (usually with the exception of qualitative research) in fear that our UX expertise can be overwritten by automated experimentation and optimization. However, data that you gather shouldn’t be treated in isolation and it doesn’t have to be seen as an opposing force to design.  When used properly, multiple data sources can be joined together to generate powerful insights that will help us make our products and services better.

Data sources that can be used to influence design

There are many different data sources that can be used to help you better understand your users and the context in which they are using your product(s):

• Market research – Your marketing partners will often have market segmentation and trend data that can help bring insight into the lives of your users.  Market research helps shed light on how your products can help address needs in a target market.
• Industry reports – Organizations such as Forrester and Gartner help provide comprehensive industry analysis whether it be from independent assessment, wide scale industry research, or survey data.  These reports can help you better understand the higher-level context in which your products reside.
• Competitive analysis – Looking at what your competitors are doing can help identify gaps and opportunities for differentiation through design, capabilities, marketing positioning, and overall experience.
• Social monitoring analysis – Use social monitoring tools to find out what your customers are saying about you. If someone’s motivated enough to share what they like or don’t like about your product, you should listen.  Identify trends that reveal points of pain and opportunity areas.
• Customer service reports – If your company has a call center or customer service line, check their issue logs to find out what issues customers have that generate phone calls. Often times this will reveal opportunities to reduce troubleshooting or issue calls by addressing or fixing the issues on your site.  You can also use this as an opportunity to improve the phone channel user experience.
• Surveys - Surveys can help you identify trends in user needs, preferences, and activities.  Surveys can be either serve as a large-scale closed response study, or can be focused more towards qualitative open-ended responses.  Surveys can help identify further points to research or to validate assumptions about your user base.
• Qualitative research - Research though observation, usability tests, interviews, or other ethnographic studies can give you insight into people’s behaviors and why they do the things that they do.
• Web analytics - Analytics can tell you what is happening on your website through clickstream and conversion data.  Analytics can be a powerful tool when segmented by source, user groups, and navigation paths.  It’s important to approach analytics with insights in mind as opposed to simply reporting on meaningless high-level data points.
• User session data – Products such as Tealeaf allow you to capture real-time page-by-page session data from your users.  This, in aggregate, can help you identify points of pain that may not be immediately evident in web analytics or from smaller scale usability testing.
• Search log analysis - Search logs can help you identify important topics your users are looking for that may need to be elevated in the design, as well as phrases that can help influence labeling and content organization.
• Experimentation - Techniques such as multivariate and A/B tests can help you optimize a design by seeing what performs better against certain goals.

If there are any other specific techniques I missed, please feel free to mention them in the comments!

The importance of a multi-faceted data approach

It’s tempting to rely on one or two sources of data that may be “easier” to get or analyze.  It may seem sufficient to interview ten users or look at high-level web analytics and generate conclusions that will be the source of your design decisions.  And in some cases, such as when you are trying to optimize a more micro-level element of a design, that may actually be sufficient.  But for most larger design/UX initiatives, especially large redesigns, relying on a small selection of data may do more harm than good.

Think of each data source as a puzzle piece. You might be able to see a pattern and general shape of a puzzle’s picture with only some of the pieces put together, but you can’t see the entire picture unless you have every piece of the puzzle.  Without every piece, there are gaps that you can only fill in by imagining or guessing what the full picture looks like, which carries with it a lot of risk. You may make incorrect assumptions about what may best solve a user need or that would optimize your site’s effectiveness from a business perspective.  The weaker your insights, the weaker your overall strategy becomes.  When put together, multiple data sources can give you powerful insights to make strategic design decisions.

Identifying patterns between multiple data sources helps to achieve insight as opposed to disconnected data points. Using data to influence your design doesn’t mean the end of creativity or that design can be whittled down to what is written in spreadsheets and displayed in graphs.  When used correctly, data from multiple sources can allow us to better identify the context in which our designs live. It can help us validate our assumptions and approach design with confidence and not subjective opinion.  This not only helps to create better design, but also helps us achieve that all-important buy-in from stakeholders.  It’s easier to defend a design when you have deep, rich insights to back it up.

How to identify which data sources to use

While a multi-faceted data approach is important, it’s unrealistic to gather data and generate deeply researched insights using every data gathering method for every design problem.  Time and resources make that simply impractical.  Instead, you should focus on one or two techniques that fall in the three primary areas:

1. Quantitative data - Who are your users, what are they doing with your product today, and where are they failing to complete tasks or accomplish business objectives?
2. Qualitative data – Why do users act the way that they do? What are their thoughts and motivations?
3. Competitive/industry data – How does your product fit among your competitors? What will differentiate your product from the rest? How does your product fit into the context of your users’ lives?

How you go about picking a technique to answer the primary areas above depends on several factors:

• What question are you trying to answer? If you’re trying to answer “what” is happening on your site, data pulled from analytics, social monitoring, experimentation, surveys, and search logs can help you cultivate a base knowledge of what activity is happening both on and in the greater context around your site.  If you’re trying to answer “why” things are happening, qualitative techniques can help identify reasons for specific behavior.  If you’re trying to answer “how does this fit within the industry?” you can look at industry reports, market reports, and conduct a competitive analysis.  Make sure the technique you choose is going to provide you with insights to answer specific research questions you have or will prove/disprove a hypothesis.
• What tools do you have at your disposal? Not everyone has access to expensive industry reports or highly technical monitoring tools.  However, that shouldn’t serve as an excuse for not taking a multi-faceted data approach.  Use Google Analytics instead of Omniture, business magazine survey results instead of Forrester reports, or informal interviews instead of formal usability lab studies.  In most cases, the free/cheap techniques for gathering data can be almost if not equally effective as more expensive methods.  Use techniques that are most suitable for your organization.
• How does your project align with previous initiatives? If your project builds off of previous projects, you can likely leverage previous research (assuming it was documented properly) as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel each time.  Once you’ve identified your product’s audience, build solid research-based personas that can be used in the future.  You can then focus your research and data gathering efforts on other facets as opposed to questioning who your users are over and over again.  Be sure to leverage this past research effectively and use it in conjunction with newly researched data that’s specific to your current initiative.
• How much time/money do you have? The techniques you choose will be highly dependent on what will best answer the questions you have in the time you have to answer those questions.  Relying on pre-existing research can save you the most time, followed by relatively quick techniques such as interviews, competitive analyses, and some web usage analysis.  Other techniques, such as detailed lab studies, complex surveys, and social monitoring can take more time and skill to do properly.  While you don’t want to sacrifice the quality of your research, it is important to be realistic in terms of what can be done in the time you have allotted.

Tying it all together

The goal with taking a multi-faceted data gathering approach is to find patterns among multiple data sources.  You should be able to tell a story that connects qualitative, quantitative, and competitive research together.  Big data reports that simply throw together dissociate data points into a big deck are meaningless other than to show off that you know how to gather data.  Looking at a variety of data sources can also help you achieve a holistic design approach that can help you identify opportunities across channels, user segments, and business units within an organization.  The user experience is not an isolated activity that can be summed up in a single data point or through a single user research study.  The best way to approach a holistic design problem is to take a holistic research approach.

User Experience Design is not data-driven, it’s insight-driven. Data is just raw material for insight… We have to be able to do both: use data to inform the fullest possible understanding of the behavior and context of potential users, as well as bring our own experience and talent to the challenge. – Andrew Hinton

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“Products were once designed for the functions they performed. But when all companies can make products that perform their functions equally well, the distinctive advantage goes to those who provide pleasure and enjoyment while maintaining the power. If functions are equated with cognition, pleasure is equated with emotion; today we want products that appeal to both cognition and emotion.” – Don Norman

Read more in Don’s Interactions Magazine article “The Transmedia Design Challenge Technology that is Pleasurable and Satisfying.”

1. Today we want products that appeal to both cognition and emotion
2. We need to build products that bring joy and excitement to people’s lives
3. Your products run for election every day

It’s that time of year again, SXSW PanelPicker voting time! I know how annoying it can be to receive endless requests for votes, so I apologize in advance for contributing to the bombardment.  The fact is, though, that with the public’s vote contributing 30% to the final speaker decision, and with 2,347 panels to choose from in the voting, posts like these help draw your attention to proposals that may get lost in the crowd.

Note that in order to vote, you will need to create an account. It only takes a few minutes.

My SXSW Presentation Proposal

This is my first time submitting a proposal to SXSW.  I decided to submit a proposal based on a recent blog post (“Challenging Conventional Assumptions about User Experience Design“). Below is a short description of the presentation. If the topic intrigues you, click on the thumb to vote, or the title to view more details.

User Experience: Making Better Products, Brands, and Companies - Catriona Cornett

User Experience Designers have long been defined by our deliverables: wireframes, site maps, usability test reports, and prototypes. However, we are now challenging organizations to think of User Experience Design as much more than the sum of our deliverables. User Experience Designers can provide a unique perspective in helping to identify opportunities that address unmet customer needs, evolve product strategy, define holistic customer experiences across all touch points, and craft experiences that effectively reach customers across various media and platforms. Come challenge your assumptions about User Experience Design and discover why User Experience is not just about an abstract focus on the customer, but rather is a proven and reliable methodology for defining and creating appropriate solutions that create demand for your brand and factor into the success or failure of products.

Other Proposals from The Archer Group

In addition to my proposal, my company submitted 5 other panel ideas this year. I’d be doing a disservice to my brilliant co-workers if I didn’t also request that you consider their panels as you vote this year.  I assure you you wouldn’t be let down by any of them! Click on the thumb to vote, or the title to view more details.

Social Networks, Friends, and Marketing: Strange Bedfellows? – Lee Mikles

New Agency Challenges: Patent Trolls to Code Ownership – Patrick Callahan

Don’t Be Ashamed to Use Word Press – Le’Rhone Walker

The New Prohibition – Social Media at Work – Justin Silva

We Tried Project Teams and Failed – Sloan Miller

Other UX Panels

I want to take the time to look through the other User Experience related panels in more depth before recommending any of those, so I may be posting additional recommendations in a future post.  There were 99 panels submitted under the “User Experience” category, so there’s certainly great UX representation!

THANK YOU for your consideration!

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“As designers of interactions broaden their perspective and take a higher level view of the problem, they simultaneously make another transition: they stop solving interaction design problems and begin solving problems with design… In this capacity designers of interactions bring their design skills to bear on truly complex, systemic problems—broad in scale and scope—and have the opportunity to affect truly profound and lasting change.” – Steve Baty

This quote is from Steve’s Core77 article “The Strategic Arc of Interaction Design: Moving Towards Holistic System Design.“

1. How can we help people begin making a change in behavior?
2. Interaction design finds ways to better connect people
3. Interaction design is about shaping our everyday life through digital artifacts

“Most people believe that User Experience is just about finding the best solution for your users — but it’s not. UX is about defining the problem that needs to be solved (the why), defining the types of people who need it to be solved (the who), and defining the way in which it should be solved to be relevant to those people (the how).” – Whitney Hess

Read more in Whitney’s great 52 Weeks of UX article “StartUXs.“

1. Delivering great user experiences plays a significant role in your company’s success
2. Designs should intice passion and make people feel engaged and energized
3. Simply using Web 2.0 technologies does not guarantee an optimal experience

There are many resources available for beginner UX designers to learn about the field on their own. In particular, Whitney Hess’ blog post series “So you wanna be a User Experience Designer” (part 1) (part 2) outlines a fantastic list of books, blogs, events, organizations, lists, workshops, conferences, and education references that can help those new to the field learn the ropes.

While being a self-starter and educating yourself is a huge step in the right direction, beginner UX Designers need support from their organizations in order to be most successful.  There are several steps organizations can take to guide and encourage those new to the field.

Consider a rotational program

Since UX is such an interdisciplinary field, and encompasses many sub-disciplines, it is important for beginners in the field to get hands-on experience in more than one role.  The best way to understand the elements of User Experience is to experience them first-hand, and the greater the immersion, the better.  Rotations can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to closer to 6-8 months.  Shorter rotations allow for a broader but shallower range of experiences, while longer rotations allow for deeper skill development while still gaining exposure to multiple roles. When I first entered this field, I was extremely lucky to be placed into a 2 year rotational program at Vanguard where I was able to experience three different UX roles across the organization (if you’re looking for information on this program, sadly, it no longer exists). I can personally vouch for the incredible value this type of program provides.

Encourage cross-disciplinary experience

If formal rotations aren’t an option, at least allow newcomers to the job to have hands-on experience in Information Architecture, Usability, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy, and overall Design Strategy.  Additionally, exposure to related fields such as Analytics can be very valuable in helping to gain an understanding of elements that feed into the design process.  This not only helps develop a broad range of UX skills, but it also helps new UX practitioners to discover their primary interests and talents so that they can specialize in one or multiple disciplines.  This ultimately results in happier and more effective employees.

Provide mentors

As with most fields, UX mentoring can be a very valuable experience.  Mentors can provide newcomers with career guidance, direction in how to approach projects or other work-related issues, and give feedback that can help skill development.  It often helps to pair newcomers with more experienced practitioners to help newcomers understand how to best approach problems and work towards solutions.  More formal mentoring outside of project work can help guide a new practioner’s career and help point them towards resources to help develop their skills.  Also, consider enrolling employees in organizations such as the IAI that provide mentoring programs that pair experienced practitioners with newcomers to the field.

Emphasize early user research observation

Nothing helps develop user-centric thinking more than watching users talk about and interact with your product.  Whenever possible, allow newcomers to observe as many usability tests as possible and/or sit in on other user research studies such as interviews, field studies, and contextual inquiries.  Not only does this help develop skills on how to best conduct and observe user research studies, but it also helps new practitioners develop empathy and understanding of the specific issues relevant to your users, which will be critical to their success in designing user experiences.

Set up informational sessions with other roles

Informational sessions with other areas of the organization can help new practitioners to understand how UX ties into the other roles such as marketing, branding, business management, project management, development, other design teams, etc.  These sessions can reveal how other areas currently perceive UX, how they influence or are driven by UX, and where opportunities exist to improve collaboration across the organization.  Early interaction with groups across the organization can encourage UX practitioners to involve other roles within the design process and reduce UX-centric tunnel-vision.

Expose practitioners to a wide variety of projects with different business and user needs

Try not to put a beginner UX designer in a single long term project engagement that is isolated in scope and focus.  How one approaches a UX project will vary depending on business requirements, target audience, timeline, and how much is unknown before the start of a project.  It’s helpful for UX practitioners to gain exposure to a variety of circumstances early in their career so that they do not develop a single approach to problem solving.

Send new UX practitioners to conferences

Conferences allow newcomers to the field to not only learn about a wide variety of topics relating to UX, but also to interact with others from the field and learn from their personal experiences.  Conferences are one of the best ways for those new to UX to learn both the breadth and depth of UX techniques, processes, applications, and principles by discussing them with a wide range of practitioners.  Workshops at many conferences allow for idea exploration and skill development often not available within organizational training.

Reward engagement in the UX community

Encourage newcomers to interact with other UX practitioners on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or other online UX communities such as the IxDA Discussion Boards or IAI Members List to network with those in the field and learn from others’ experiences.  Consider rewarding, either informally or formally, engagement in these communities to further encourage UX practitioners to expand their UX involvement outside of your organization.  This type of engagement has several benefits for your organization.  It provides visibility of your organization to the UX community, helping your organization solidify its place for UX thought leadership (attracting both prospective clients and employees).  It also helps give UX practitioners exposure to a wide range of perspectives and experiences that others have had in solving user experience problems, furthering their ability to solve problems within your own organization.

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