No more dodging user experience, ya hear?
Sometimes you dodge, and sometimes you learn
On your quest to learn more about user experience design did you think you’d be learning about the history of the Dodge Ram? I bet you didn’t. Did you even know that it’s not a Dodge Ram any more? Apparently it hasn’t been since 2009. My husband owns a post-2009 Ram and I didn’t know that. So, yeah, I guess we’re all learning something today. So this memory I have is going to be a bit dated, but I’m (now) guessing some time before 2009 I used to see Rams with decals that said “If you can’t dodge it, ram it.” I thought that was just so clever. And it was the first thing that came to mind today when I sat down with the word prompt that inspired this article, “dodge”.
Don’t dodge it, lean into it
Beyond the name of a vehicle, it’s also a word that means to avoid, or side-step, with the idea that you’re going to not be hit by something. But I’m sorry to say, for you, that time has passed. That’s right, you are no longer dodging your user experience goals. In the last article we talked a bit about UX Maturity and today you’re ramming that journey… hmm.. maybe the Dodge Ram thing isn’t going to work the way I thought it would.
Okay, let’s try that again. Today you’re leaning into that journey and I want to help.
This might sting a bit
Working at an agency, I work with a lot of different clients, with a lot of different products. But there is one common thread. We are spending way too much time talking to owners. Now don’t get me wrong, I like you. I like being with you. But there’s a wall.
I like you. But there’s a wall.
We have a mantra in UX that says “You are not your user.” We use it to remind ourselves that user experiences are not something we create, but rather something that we discover, by talking to and observing users. But too many projects jump into a discovery and spend hours and hours talking to owners.
I’m not complaining here, there is a lot of valuable insight that can be gathered from stakeholder interviews. That’s where we learn a lot about the industry, and it’s usually one of the first places we’ll talk about your competitors, and how you want to differentiate your business. But the problem is, we also talk about user experience and how we plan to apply principles of usability and account for accessibility, and in the end we’ll deliver an incredible user experience, and then the first thing that usually gets taken off of the list is user interviews.
“We don’t have time or budget for that.”
If you’ve been in this situation, and you’ve been delivering this news to a UX designer, I imagine you’ve seen the slow tear falling down their cheek. And today I want to explain that tear, so that next time you might pause before making a decision like that.
Let’s have a family chat
Are you part of a family? Whether you were born into it or you chose one, most people end up with some sort of family, and they’re usually bonded by some shared history. They have a lot of the same stories, some similar goals maybe. They probably even attend some of the same events. And every single one of them thinks and does things exactly the same way.
Were you nodding along until that last little bit? I figured. We tend to think about users we serve as a kind of family. You started your business based on similar interests perhaps, and you’re around people that are using your product all the time. And just like you’re no longer surprised that Grandma Mille puts salad in her Jell-o, you should also not be surprised that if you sat down to watch, users are using your product in ways that you don’t expect. And that’s with you watching. Imagine what they do when you’re not watching.
As user experience designers, we will often separate ourselves from the customer when we do users interviews for this very same reason. If a user thinks we’re reporting back to their boss, they might not be completely honest. They’ll try to give the answer they think we want. We actually have strategies specifically designed to avoid introducing bias into our interviews.
So do yourself and your users a favor, when that second stakeholder interview with your UX designer comes up, dodge that meeting, and instead offer to share the names of a few users that have agreed to be interviewed. Your product will be better off for it, you’ll save yourself from one more meeting, and your UX designer will only cry happy tears.
Ah, tears, this really is a family.
This article is day 4 of a 31 day series. A mash-up of the Inktober 2023 prompt list and UX insights for business owners. Read more about the challenge here.
