Most organizations test their products and services as part of their UX design process, but many of them dismiss the most impactful results. Project teams often lack the flexibility to deal with test results, and decision-makers don't believe that those results need to be dealt with. This introduces unnecessary risk to the user experience and success of any product or service. This slidedeck exemplifies this risk and shows how to get project teams and decision-makers on board with test results.

1. STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT Seminar Alten | 3 maart 2016 | Hester Bruikman

2. UX and its consequence
Coffee is a universal example of user experience and its consequences.

3. Ease of use
Call customer support
If a product, such as a coffee machine, is not easy to use, we call customer support.

4. Ease of use
Lower satisfaction
https://www.b2binternational.com/publications/customer-satisfaction-survey/
Or we keep our mouth shut and move on dissatisfied.
Like after this plastic lid made me spill coffee before going into a meeting.

5. Usefulness
Non-use
If a product doesn’t seem useful to us, like decaffeinated espresso, we might not use
it at all.

6. Leaving
Pleasure
And if we try a product and don’t like it, like coffee from the machine in our office, we
might decide to leave.

7. Risk
Meaning
If we don’t understand the meaning of notifications, like warnings on a coffee cup, we
might be happy now, but at risk for the future.

8. I’m a UX researcher, I study what makes a product easy to use, useful, pleasurable
and meaningful for different people in a given context.

9. The value of impactful changes
We’ve learned in the past that UX research makes a difference; If we implement the
results.

10. Solution:
“You do not need to create an account to make purchases on
our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make
your future purchases even faster, you can create an account
during checkout.”
Jared Spool, 2009
Usability finding:
“I’m Not Here To Be In a Relationship”
https://articles.uie.com/three_hund_million_button/?utm_source=visitorcentric
Amazon gained $300,000,000/year and satisfied customers.

11. Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew. 2005. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA.
Their #1 tip:
“Start the UI design before you build the product. An early
focus on user experience meant that McAfee included users
at a very early stage in product development.”
McAfee reduced customer support calls and thereby customer care costs by 90%.

12. Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew. 2005. Cost-Justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA.
Change:
“As a result of usability testing and other techniques, the
user interface for the feature was adjusted. In the next
release, support calls ‘dropped dramatically’; Microsoft
recognized ‘significant cost savings’ ”
Microsoft no longer needs 45 min to explain its print merge feature.

13. Usability finding:
“I’m being tested” & “It’s just that you
guys are here, otherwise I would have
stopped after 5 minutes”
Change:
Refrained from using ‘Test’ and a ‘test-result’ interaction
flow.
ING saved unnecessary development costs and the risk of people not using a service
with significant business value.

14. What happened:
The company released a product with know issues.
Rabobank likely had customers leave the brand.

15. Are we convinced about the need for
impactful changes?

16. Steve Krug asked researchers:
Out of a response rate of 146 researchers, 131 indicated
that it had happend to them that after a usability test or
expert review, the client/stakeholder/team agreed to
an important change, but the change never got made.Steve Krug
Usability guru
http://www.slideshare.net/SteveKrug/upa-lightbulb?qid=28e5daae-c9e0-4426-a627-131b06e99c8a&v=&b=&from_search=5
Until we have to
implement themYes, unless we have to implement them.

17. Why are we not implementing them?

18. http://www.slideshare.net/SteveKrug/upa-lightbulb?qid=28e5daae-c9e0-4426-a627-131b06e99c8a&v=&b=&from_search=5
1. Capacity
2. Politics
1. Project teams lack the resources, 2. We’re not convinced enough.

19. Here’s what we can do about this:

20. Problem Solution Interaction Final
✓ Planning
- Recruitment
- Script
- Prototype
- Execute
- Analyse
- Follow-up
Include testing into the
projectplanning You are here
By integrating research into the projectplan we manage expectations of changes to
come.

21. Keep a shared list of research
questions
✓ Planning
- Recruitment
- Script
- Prototype
- Execute
- Analyse
- Follow-up
Research questions can come from anyone in the project team. By combining them
we can get the most out of research sessions.

22. ✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
- Execute
- Analyse
- Follow-up
Prepare together
http://itsourresear.ch/
By preparing together we prevent the ‘not invented here’ syndrome, and improve
the quality of research.

23. Take part in the execution
http://itsourresear.ch/
✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
✓ Execute
- Analyse
- Follow-up
http://itsourresear.ch/
Observation: Rainbow diagram
Observation: Went well/did not go well
Moderation: collaborative interviewing
If we conduct the study together, the results become more accurate, and we are more
likely to agree on them.

24. Good things come to those
who wait
✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
✓ Execute
✓ Analyse
- Follow-up
Analysis is a researcher’s job, but the project team can contribute by giving this
exercise the required time.

25. Bring issues to life!
✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
✓ Execute
✓ Analyse
✓ Follow-up
http://itsourresear.ch/
The outcome is a lot more usable: if it’s not a plain report. Use videos, posters, and
stories.

26. Prioritize in terms of time
✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
✓ Execute
✓ Analyse
✓ Follow-up
The outcome is a lot more usable: if we prioritize on a timeline (now, next sprint,
next quarter) rather than only on severity level (low, medium, high).

27. Schedule a testing
debrief before a (sprint)
planning meeting
✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
✓ Execute
✓ Analyse
✓ Follow-up
The outcome is a lot more usable: if we bring that timeline into the sprintplanning.
Usability issues should make it onto the product backlog.

28. Keep monitoring
reported issues
✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
✓ Execute
✓ Analyse
✓ Follow-up
http://itsourresear.ch/
We can’t fix everything at once, but we can monitor the necessity.

29. Think small
✓ Planning
✓ Recruitment
✓ Script
✓ Prototype
✓ Execute
✓ Analyse
✓ Follow-up
http://itsourresear.ch/
And some things we can fix at once, if we consider small solutions as learning
opportunities.

30. “If a study has run, without no one around to hear about it, did it still happen?”
Tomer Sharon | It’s our research

31. Thank you.
Please share your stories and feedback:
hester@hesterbruikman.com