This document discusses the importance of engaging users early and often in the design process. It provides three main sections: The Whys, which discusses why designers need frequent access to users and common barriers; The Dos, which offers suggestions on how to ensure the user's voice is heard through methods like user research and developing a customer board; and The Don'ts, which advises against practices that don't help user engagement like confusing market research with behavioral research or creating long findings documents. The overall message is that involving users directly leads to increased usability, adoption and productivity of products, but designers must work to overcome barriers to prioritizing user research.

1. Engaging Users in Design… Early & Often.
Natalia A. Framil
Leader of Design, IBM Smarter Workforce
Director of User Experience, IBM

2. Summary
The Whys
Why do designers need frequent access to users, and what
are common barriers?
The Dos
What can you do to ensure that the voice of the user is
heard loud, clear, and often?
The Don’ts
What are some things that don’t help when trying to set
up a user engagement program?

3. The Whys
Why do designers need frequent access
to users, and what are common
barriers?

4. It’s a no brainer – engaging
users in design leads to:
Increased Usability
Increased Adoption
Increased Productivity
Uncovered Opportunities
Lowered Costs

5. We also know how we can
engage with users
Contextual Inquiry
Usability Testing
Participatory Design
Card Sorting
Diary Studies

6. “Pay
attention to
what users
do, not
what they
say.”
Jakob Nielsen

7. … but when did you actually
do user research last?
• This week
• Last week
• Last month
• Last year
• (Never?)

8. “Know Thy User”
It’s easy to acknowledge the need to really
understand ”the other” in a movie… but how
about in real life?

9. How often do we hear:
“As a user, I’d want to do X”
“Our market research shows what our users want”
“They’ll be trained to use this”
“Our users are experts and will get it”
“I like this too! Looks easy enough”
“If we go to users, they’ll ask too much”
“Amazon <Apple, etc.> does it like this”
Designing for yourself
Assuming you know your users
Relying on “help” or “training”
Designing by committee
Overestimating their ability / attention
Fear of “opening a can of worms”
Relying on “best practices”
Implicit Avoidance

10. And how about:
“We don’t have the time to do user research”
“Our budget doesn’t allow for user testing”
“I am not sure how useful this would be”
“The sample size is small, I can’t trust the findings”
“I already showed it to customers, they like it”
“It’s hard to find participants”
“We don’t have the skillset on our team”
Research time > time to fix bad design
Cost of testing > cost of bad design
Questioning qualitative value
Using “what do you think” approach with buyers
Questioning the size of research
Assuming too expensive to train
ming the customer / user isn’t interested in participating
Explicit Rejection

11. The Dos
What can you do to ensure that the
voice of the user is heard loud, clear,
and often?

12. Find and engage with your internal
stakeholders
Product Management
Client Services
Sales
Training
Customer Support
Find out who has access to clients
in your organization, and can
connect you with the client
stakeholders.
1

13. Have a ready-to-use overview of UX goals
for user engagement
Develop simple, actionable
templates that you can use to
recruit for user engagement
initiatives.
2

14. Develop a customer board & cultivate it
continuously
Build up a pool of
customers / users so
you can reach out to
them quickly to
observe, collaborate,
and validate designs.
3

15. Share your success stories with other teams
& departments to increase adoption
“Much better, very
clean and organized.”
“I'd take this in black and white if I
could have it today!”
“I like it, it looks nice and clean.
I really like the map view.”
150%
4

16. Better yet, adopt a design way of thinking.
IBM Design Thinking.
5

17. Better yet, adopt a design way of thinking.
IBM Design Thinking.
5

18. The Don’ts
What are some things that don’t help
when trying to set up a user
engagement program?

19. Don’t confuse market research with
behavioral user research
1
GOAL
FOCUS
SAMPLE
METHOD
Understand what users do & how they do it
Behavior
Small
(4-12 per role)
Observation-based
(contextual inquiry, field research…)
Inform design
Qualitative
PURPOSE
TYPE
Understand what customers want
Opinions
Large
(500+ per segment)
Opinion-based
(surveys, focus groups…)
Inform opportunity
Quantitative
Market Research Behavioral User Research

20. Don’t create overwhelmingly long, wordy
research findings
2
Personas & Mental Models
Story Telling
Video Reel

21. Don’t limit research sessions to researchers
and designers
3
… but don’t overcrowd users either.

22. Don’t separate research from design
4
Introduce design
concepts to users
early and often,
sketch!

23. Don’t believe that
engaging users in design is luxury!
5

24. Thank You