This document outlines methods for creating a customer-driven culture at a large organization. It discusses 8 methods for building empathy at different stages: 1) customer panels/videos/emotional analogies to understand customers, 2) leadership interviewing customers and skills workshops to build muscle, and 3) customer immersion days for deep alignment. Each method is described and pros/cons discussed to determine fit. The goal is for empathy to become instinctual through a mix of bringing customers in, coaching skills development, and hands-on experiences over time.
More than Media Queries: Reframing Responsive UX - SXSW 2016Matt Gibson
My slides from my presentation at SXSW, Austin, Texas on 12/03/16 about going beyond the media query to deliver truly responsive experiences for people regardless of the device they're using.
You want to truly know the people you’re designing for. But how can you quickly mine a rich history chock-full of routines, worries, motivations, beliefs and needs? You need to embrace participant exercises, whether in an individual interview or as part of a focus group, whether as pre-work or during the research session, whether over WebEx, in a usability lab, or on a participant’s coffee table.
In this workshop you’ll:
Learn how to use participant exercises to get better, deeper responses and insights during research.
Get acquainted with nine exercise types and understand the basics to create and use each.
Immediately apply what you learn to a research project in order to expand your understanding.
Participant exercises empower people to explore, describe and interpret their own behavior and thoughts. These exercises create a vital bridge between design researchers and participants—extending the value of your interviews and observation.
UXPA 2013 Annual Conference July 11, 2013 7:00-9:00pm by Aaron Marcus
The workshop "UX in Sci-Fi Movies and TV" will summarize and analyze the past 100 years of user-experience (UX) design, usability, and human-computer interaction design as incorporated into science-fiction cinema and television, beginning with the advent of movies in the early 1900s (Melies' "A Trip to the Moon," which was recently referenced in the recent movie "Hugo").
For many decades movies have shown technology in advance of its commercialization (for example, video phones and wall-sized television displays, hand-gesture systems, and virtual reality displays). In some cases mistaken views about what is usable, useful, and appealing seem to be adopted, perhaps because of their cinematic benefits. In any case, these media have served as informal "test-beds" for new technologies of human-computer interaction and communication. They provide ample evidence for heuristic evaluations, ethnographic analysis, market analysis, critique of personas and use scenarios, and new approaches to conceptual and visual design.
The workshop examines UX design issues: whether movies/TV serve as use scenarios and personas, whether the UX depicted is good/bad, what is "futuristic"/misguided, gender-role differences, optimism/pessimism, and specific technology emphasis. Examples come from EU, USA, China, India, and Japan.
Participants in this workshop will learn the following: new terms, concepts, and issues to understand science-fiction media, user-centered design, personas, and use-scenarios; latest projects/trends in sci-fi media; and latest trends and challenges of user-interface design components (metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction, and appearance). Benefits of the course include: increased understanding of key issues, challenges, philosophies, and principles; increased awareness of current and cutting-edge products and services; and increased knowledge of how to use your skills, expertise, and experience, specifically in regard to science-fiction media.
Participants will be informally quizzed about their recognition of the media examples shown throughout the presentation, and their analysis of contexts, technologies, business models, user communities, and designs. Discussion with participants throughout the presentation will be encouraged.
Journey Maps with Legs! Best practices & hot tips for research, design and di...UXPA International
Based on interviews with leading client-side and independent researchers, Jeanne Turner & Julie Francis will share best practices for journey mapping. Their suggestions & stories will cover many facets, including
Kick-off and Discovery: How to structure a productive journey map kickoff
Research: Which research methodologies, questions, & activities reveal the most useful insights
The deliverable: What features make a great journey map?
Dissemination: How to maximize the impact of your journey map
These tips, stories, best practices and case studies will be drawn from expert interviews with researchers, stakeholders & designers with a focus on service design and multi-channel retail. You’ll walk away with practical things you can do to deliver great journey maps that have staying power.
Redesigning how we work - UX Alive 2016Matt Gibson
Slides from my presentation at UX Alive on 11th May 2016, about how we can foster better empathy, trust and communication with our client, through our design approach.
UX Research within an Agile Design and Development Sprint CycleUXPA International
Want to know how to deliver high-value, strategic research insights within a lean sprint process? Learn a quick, useful, and inexpensive process for incorporating user research & usability into Agile Design & Development sprint cycles. We will share a case study that demonstrates how it works and how we work together (research + UX design + dev).
Some of the topics we'll cover:
User Research on a slim budget & tight timeline
Planning research while still designing (what, when, how)
Rapid prototyping to support usability testing
The Post-Testing debrief (meeting with core team to discuss observations & agree on next steps for design and development)
Design iteration based on testing observations (not based on a lengthy expensive report)
More than Media Queries: Reframing Responsive UX - SXSW 2016Matt Gibson
My slides from my presentation at SXSW, Austin, Texas on 12/03/16 about going beyond the media query to deliver truly responsive experiences for people regardless of the device they're using.
You want to truly know the people you’re designing for. But how can you quickly mine a rich history chock-full of routines, worries, motivations, beliefs and needs? You need to embrace participant exercises, whether in an individual interview or as part of a focus group, whether as pre-work or during the research session, whether over WebEx, in a usability lab, or on a participant’s coffee table.
In this workshop you’ll:
Learn how to use participant exercises to get better, deeper responses and insights during research.
Get acquainted with nine exercise types and understand the basics to create and use each.
Immediately apply what you learn to a research project in order to expand your understanding.
Participant exercises empower people to explore, describe and interpret their own behavior and thoughts. These exercises create a vital bridge between design researchers and participants—extending the value of your interviews and observation.
UXPA 2013 Annual Conference July 11, 2013 7:00-9:00pm by Aaron Marcus
The workshop "UX in Sci-Fi Movies and TV" will summarize and analyze the past 100 years of user-experience (UX) design, usability, and human-computer interaction design as incorporated into science-fiction cinema and television, beginning with the advent of movies in the early 1900s (Melies' "A Trip to the Moon," which was recently referenced in the recent movie "Hugo").
For many decades movies have shown technology in advance of its commercialization (for example, video phones and wall-sized television displays, hand-gesture systems, and virtual reality displays). In some cases mistaken views about what is usable, useful, and appealing seem to be adopted, perhaps because of their cinematic benefits. In any case, these media have served as informal "test-beds" for new technologies of human-computer interaction and communication. They provide ample evidence for heuristic evaluations, ethnographic analysis, market analysis, critique of personas and use scenarios, and new approaches to conceptual and visual design.
The workshop examines UX design issues: whether movies/TV serve as use scenarios and personas, whether the UX depicted is good/bad, what is "futuristic"/misguided, gender-role differences, optimism/pessimism, and specific technology emphasis. Examples come from EU, USA, China, India, and Japan.
Participants in this workshop will learn the following: new terms, concepts, and issues to understand science-fiction media, user-centered design, personas, and use-scenarios; latest projects/trends in sci-fi media; and latest trends and challenges of user-interface design components (metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction, and appearance). Benefits of the course include: increased understanding of key issues, challenges, philosophies, and principles; increased awareness of current and cutting-edge products and services; and increased knowledge of how to use your skills, expertise, and experience, specifically in regard to science-fiction media.
Participants will be informally quizzed about their recognition of the media examples shown throughout the presentation, and their analysis of contexts, technologies, business models, user communities, and designs. Discussion with participants throughout the presentation will be encouraged.
Journey Maps with Legs! Best practices & hot tips for research, design and di...UXPA International
Based on interviews with leading client-side and independent researchers, Jeanne Turner & Julie Francis will share best practices for journey mapping. Their suggestions & stories will cover many facets, including
Kick-off and Discovery: How to structure a productive journey map kickoff
Research: Which research methodologies, questions, & activities reveal the most useful insights
The deliverable: What features make a great journey map?
Dissemination: How to maximize the impact of your journey map
These tips, stories, best practices and case studies will be drawn from expert interviews with researchers, stakeholders & designers with a focus on service design and multi-channel retail. You’ll walk away with practical things you can do to deliver great journey maps that have staying power.
Redesigning how we work - UX Alive 2016Matt Gibson
Slides from my presentation at UX Alive on 11th May 2016, about how we can foster better empathy, trust and communication with our client, through our design approach.
UX Research within an Agile Design and Development Sprint CycleUXPA International
Want to know how to deliver high-value, strategic research insights within a lean sprint process? Learn a quick, useful, and inexpensive process for incorporating user research & usability into Agile Design & Development sprint cycles. We will share a case study that demonstrates how it works and how we work together (research + UX design + dev).
Some of the topics we'll cover:
User Research on a slim budget & tight timeline
Planning research while still designing (what, when, how)
Rapid prototyping to support usability testing
The Post-Testing debrief (meeting with core team to discuss observations & agree on next steps for design and development)
Design iteration based on testing observations (not based on a lengthy expensive report)
IGNITE: Mobile Augmented Reality - Can It Be Made Useful? - Kevin ArthurUXPA International
Can mobile augmented reality move from gimmicks and advertising towards genuinely useful and compelling applications? I'll talk about new camera and computer vision technology that may help, and give some tips on designing for these new mobile AR experiences.
Taken from Future of Web Design (#FOWD), London 2015 Conference. http://futureofwebdesign.com/london-2015
Reports are in from Twitter, Medium, and the like; we can’t make full comps, use Photoshop, or even utter the phrase 'visual design' anymore. What’s a designer to do? Has our role evaporated? Fear not! Dan Mall will help redefine the tasks of the modern day designer in light of the multi -device world that snuck up on us.
Customer Journey Maps: Why and how UX practitioners use them or avoid themUXPA International
A panel of seasoned UX practitioners bring their individual experiences to the lively topic of customer journey mapping. Brief statements from each panelist shed light on their position, with topics including a new way to create a template for an interactive journey mapping experience, issues surrounding different parts of an organization using the same words to mean different things around visualizing customer experience, to techniques for creating this visualization technique with a co-located team, to the value of using the technique for visualizing workflows for a mobile app, and, on the flip side—why you shouldn’t do customer journey mapping, plus more! With lots of time for questions, this session will be highly interactive.
In this tutorial for experienced practitioners you will learn how to manage work and make great experiences one sprint at a time. We'll look at common Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban and what opportunities and risks are inherent for UX teams. We will look at team makeup, balancing longer-term research with production needs and strategies for making the most of design spikes. We'll also go through the pros and cons of a Sprint Zero and alternatives. We'll look at how Lean Startup practices are changing business development, and how your UX skills can be a key part in making that successful. Participants will come away with the tools they need to be successful in their Agile/Lean environment
Adapting to Responsive Web Design - Figaro DigitalMatt Gibson
These are my slides from Figaro Digital on 5th August 2015: http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/seminars.aspx?pkEventID=2e528d70-4eea-4344-b49d-57a544f5399b
Video available here: http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/Video.aspx?v=29ecfc59-8fc4-4505-86b2-5646dcef88f0
Have you ever been the lone customer advocate? We’ll share our strategy for creating a customer-first culture, the successes and failures, and tips for how to adapt it to your own organization.
The Paradox of Disruption - CMA B2B Innovation ConferenceBo Pelech
The Paradox of Disruption as presented at CMA B2B Innovation Conference Toronto Nov 12, 2014 by Bo Pelech and Grayson Bass of the Mayor Wilson D-Institute Initiative at Rotman. Audio available at http://bit.ly/1s666L1
A talk given to University of Washington HCDE Program introducing how design thinking offers a toolkit for the 21st century "4C" skills of collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking
Resistance is Futile: About the changes caused by digitalization @ eMBAForum ...Zeeland Family
Zeeland's Janne Saarikko at TSE exe eMBAForum in Turku. How the profound changes in the business environment will force companies to re-invent their organization and ways of working.
Effective presentation skills is all about storytelling, selecting the best content to include and ensuring that your live performance is convincing. Talk by Camrin Robert.
Professor Jennifer Aaker and venture capitalist David Hornik explore the importance of stories in fueling growth and innovation in your company as well as the role of stories in shaping how others view your brand
My RISE University Talk on Social Business – Why it is important, why it is not a fad and here to stay. "Social business, as defined by Dave Evans, is the application of social technologies as a formal component of business processes – revolves around understanding how your customers or stakeholders connect to Your business to understand, accept, and innovate based on their involvement.
Social Business IS about integrating all your business functions: customer support, marketing, the executive team and everyone else for the purpose of creating collaborative innovation And engagement at meaningful, measurable levels tied clearly and directly to your company’s BUSINESS OBJECTIVES."
I presented this deck at a recent 'Asian Women in Business' workshop/ talk on social media.
I've tried to give small business owners a strategic framework to think about their approach in social media.
I'd love some feedback. This deck served mostly as talking points for me - if you need additional information or clarification, please let me know and I'll do my best to provide it.
Lean LaunchPad NYU ITP - Value Proposition, with additional design and enthrography tools for how to talk to customers, observe, and get underneath the obvious pain points.
"From Insights to Action" by Andrew Vincent, a Revelation Great Research Thin...Revelation Next
As much as we value excellent research, it simply is not enough. Insight must be actionable. Key take-away points include:
--Developing practical strategies to ensure, monitor, and measure insight adoption
--Understanding how your end-users make decisions
--Framing and positioning your insights for the greatest impact
Whether you are a client-side manager or an agency researcher, it is only when your insights directly impact the decisions taken by marketers that the true value of your work is realized. Use Andrew’s new frameworks and techniques to make your insights stick; for innovation and for impact.
Top Trends Driving Event Marketers in 2015Opus Agency
Here's whats coming in 2015...
The new year embodies a sense of optimism and energy. It’s
the time to start fresh, move fast, and make no small plans. In
that spirit, we wanted to know what’s on the minds of some
of the most influential players in event marketing.
We asked them to discuss the trends, large and small, that
are driving their decision-making for 2015.
Top Trends Driving Event Marketers in 2015Pat McClellan
Top Event Marketers discuss the trends that are driving their decision-making for 2015, and their answers are thought provoking. Big Data, personalization, event ROI, authenticity and more.
The End of Shareholder Capitalism / The Beginning of Customer CapitalismHelge Tennø
At an increasing rate companies are seeing that they need to figure out ways to put the customer at the center of their attention and decisions.
Through these three sessions I tried to give some tools and ideas, to help participants start digging into ways of finding the right approach for their company.
IGNITE: Mobile Augmented Reality - Can It Be Made Useful? - Kevin ArthurUXPA International
Can mobile augmented reality move from gimmicks and advertising towards genuinely useful and compelling applications? I'll talk about new camera and computer vision technology that may help, and give some tips on designing for these new mobile AR experiences.
Taken from Future of Web Design (#FOWD), London 2015 Conference. http://futureofwebdesign.com/london-2015
Reports are in from Twitter, Medium, and the like; we can’t make full comps, use Photoshop, or even utter the phrase 'visual design' anymore. What’s a designer to do? Has our role evaporated? Fear not! Dan Mall will help redefine the tasks of the modern day designer in light of the multi -device world that snuck up on us.
Customer Journey Maps: Why and how UX practitioners use them or avoid themUXPA International
A panel of seasoned UX practitioners bring their individual experiences to the lively topic of customer journey mapping. Brief statements from each panelist shed light on their position, with topics including a new way to create a template for an interactive journey mapping experience, issues surrounding different parts of an organization using the same words to mean different things around visualizing customer experience, to techniques for creating this visualization technique with a co-located team, to the value of using the technique for visualizing workflows for a mobile app, and, on the flip side—why you shouldn’t do customer journey mapping, plus more! With lots of time for questions, this session will be highly interactive.
In this tutorial for experienced practitioners you will learn how to manage work and make great experiences one sprint at a time. We'll look at common Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban and what opportunities and risks are inherent for UX teams. We will look at team makeup, balancing longer-term research with production needs and strategies for making the most of design spikes. We'll also go through the pros and cons of a Sprint Zero and alternatives. We'll look at how Lean Startup practices are changing business development, and how your UX skills can be a key part in making that successful. Participants will come away with the tools they need to be successful in their Agile/Lean environment
Adapting to Responsive Web Design - Figaro DigitalMatt Gibson
These are my slides from Figaro Digital on 5th August 2015: http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/seminars.aspx?pkEventID=2e528d70-4eea-4344-b49d-57a544f5399b
Video available here: http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/Video.aspx?v=29ecfc59-8fc4-4505-86b2-5646dcef88f0
Have you ever been the lone customer advocate? We’ll share our strategy for creating a customer-first culture, the successes and failures, and tips for how to adapt it to your own organization.
The Paradox of Disruption - CMA B2B Innovation ConferenceBo Pelech
The Paradox of Disruption as presented at CMA B2B Innovation Conference Toronto Nov 12, 2014 by Bo Pelech and Grayson Bass of the Mayor Wilson D-Institute Initiative at Rotman. Audio available at http://bit.ly/1s666L1
A talk given to University of Washington HCDE Program introducing how design thinking offers a toolkit for the 21st century "4C" skills of collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking
Resistance is Futile: About the changes caused by digitalization @ eMBAForum ...Zeeland Family
Zeeland's Janne Saarikko at TSE exe eMBAForum in Turku. How the profound changes in the business environment will force companies to re-invent their organization and ways of working.
Effective presentation skills is all about storytelling, selecting the best content to include and ensuring that your live performance is convincing. Talk by Camrin Robert.
Professor Jennifer Aaker and venture capitalist David Hornik explore the importance of stories in fueling growth and innovation in your company as well as the role of stories in shaping how others view your brand
My RISE University Talk on Social Business – Why it is important, why it is not a fad and here to stay. "Social business, as defined by Dave Evans, is the application of social technologies as a formal component of business processes – revolves around understanding how your customers or stakeholders connect to Your business to understand, accept, and innovate based on their involvement.
Social Business IS about integrating all your business functions: customer support, marketing, the executive team and everyone else for the purpose of creating collaborative innovation And engagement at meaningful, measurable levels tied clearly and directly to your company’s BUSINESS OBJECTIVES."
I presented this deck at a recent 'Asian Women in Business' workshop/ talk on social media.
I've tried to give small business owners a strategic framework to think about their approach in social media.
I'd love some feedback. This deck served mostly as talking points for me - if you need additional information or clarification, please let me know and I'll do my best to provide it.
Lean LaunchPad NYU ITP - Value Proposition, with additional design and enthrography tools for how to talk to customers, observe, and get underneath the obvious pain points.
"From Insights to Action" by Andrew Vincent, a Revelation Great Research Thin...Revelation Next
As much as we value excellent research, it simply is not enough. Insight must be actionable. Key take-away points include:
--Developing practical strategies to ensure, monitor, and measure insight adoption
--Understanding how your end-users make decisions
--Framing and positioning your insights for the greatest impact
Whether you are a client-side manager or an agency researcher, it is only when your insights directly impact the decisions taken by marketers that the true value of your work is realized. Use Andrew’s new frameworks and techniques to make your insights stick; for innovation and for impact.
Top Trends Driving Event Marketers in 2015Opus Agency
Here's whats coming in 2015...
The new year embodies a sense of optimism and energy. It’s
the time to start fresh, move fast, and make no small plans. In
that spirit, we wanted to know what’s on the minds of some
of the most influential players in event marketing.
We asked them to discuss the trends, large and small, that
are driving their decision-making for 2015.
Top Trends Driving Event Marketers in 2015Pat McClellan
Top Event Marketers discuss the trends that are driving their decision-making for 2015, and their answers are thought provoking. Big Data, personalization, event ROI, authenticity and more.
The End of Shareholder Capitalism / The Beginning of Customer CapitalismHelge Tennø
At an increasing rate companies are seeing that they need to figure out ways to put the customer at the center of their attention and decisions.
Through these three sessions I tried to give some tools and ideas, to help participants start digging into ways of finding the right approach for their company.
"Innovation + Marketing: Two Essential Tools of Modern Business"
by Mike Parsons, Qualitance
In 1954 Peter Drucker, famous business author, said: “…the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation.“
Today, 63 years later, this has never been truer. Discover how product innovation drives growth and how modern marketing practices are binding brands and customers together.
Mike Parsons, Chief Innovation Officer at QUALITANCE will take you through a journey of ideas and practical advice to help you unlock the two essential weapons of modern business.
Over the last 20 years, Mike has developed breakthrough products for IKEA, Virgin, Levi’s and Nike. During his time on Madison Avenue, he created award-winning campaigns for Xbox, VW, and Hasbro.
Finding Charisma: The Secrets To Becoming Design OrientedKelsey Ruger
The phrase design-driven seems to be used a lot these days and companies everywhere are touting their “design-driven culture”. What does that mean? For a lot of companies it means having an awesome design team, simple user experiences or awe inspiring design. The reality is that these views couldn’t be further from the truth. Being design-driven means creating a culture that centers on people and drives a share understanding of what it takes to make your company truly lovable. In this session Kelsey Ruger will share insights on the steps you can take embrace design by systematically making it a part of your company’s culture. You’ll learn the critical components you will need to build and maintain a culture of design.
UXPA 2023: Start Strong - Lessons learned from associate programs to platform...UXPA International
Imagine creating experiences for your rookie designers’ first couple years that are rewarding, enriching, and full of learning — without taking all your time or energy to manage. We’ll share techniques any team leader can put into practice using real-life examples from associate programs, apprenticeships, and internships.
Topics include onboarding, varied work challenges, developing multiple capabilities, buddy systems, group sharing, guest speakers, time with executives, and mentorship. We’ll also share how to operationalize learning, soft skills like communication and collaboration, setting boundaries, time management, achieving deep work, and more skills we all wish we were explicitly taught early on.
We’ll focus on modern-day associate programs, but even if you can’t create a full-fledged program, you’ll leave this session with ideas to use with your fledgling professionals. The benefits go beyond efficiency; it’s a foundation for culture, camaraderie, autonomy, and mastery.
UXPA 2023: Disrupting Inaccessibility: Applying A11Y-Focused Discovery & Idea...UXPA International
Digital advances are being made at a rapid-fire pace, yet disability inclusivity continues to fall short of the digital revolution. As the number of people living with disabilities rises, the time to take digital accessibility to the next level is now. Let’s disrupt inaccessibility together! Come hear about a multi-part discovery research and ideation project informing foundational UX designs for our customers. You’ll get insights from our unique study, which are widely applicable across industries, and walk away with tips and inspiration to kick off your own accessibility-focused discovery and ideation. Only YOU can prevent inaccessibility – are you in?
User experience can be drastically elevated by combining data science insights with user-based insights from research. Data analytics on its own can make themes and correlations difficult to explain and to provide accurate recommendations. For example, themes identified via large global surveys and usage data can be better understood with UX insights from focused user research, such as user interviews and/or cognitive walkthroughs. This presentation will highlight the complimentary nature of data science and UX and will focus on the benefits of bringing the two disciplines together. This will be buttressed with practical examples of enterprise projects and applications that combined data and skills from the two disciplines, guidance on how the two disciplines can better work together, and the skills needed to improve as a UX professional when working with data science teams.
UXPA 2023: UX Fracking: Using Mixed Methods to Extract Hidden InsightsUXPA International
Users do not always accurately describe what they mean or feel. There are many reasons for this, ranging from politeness to poor introspection, to lack of sufficient technical vocabulary. Fortunately, UX researchers have tools in their trade to deduce what was really meant. We call this UX Fracking, a mixed methods approach that is optimized for extracting hidden user insights. We will illustrate the dangers of inadequate, superficial research, and how this may lead to outcomes incapable of addressing the users’ core issues. We will explore ways to avoid these pitfalls by leveraging mixed research methods to test hypotheses about the users’ intent and needs. This starts with a thorough understanding of who the user is, their goals, and how they work today, to an approach that combines surveys, interviews, and comment analysis with behavioral observation, and finally, validating the newly discovered user insights with the users themselves.
UXPA 2023: Learn how to get over personas by swiping right on user rolesUXPA International
This session walks through the concept of user roles as an alternative to personas as a means to generate and disseminate user insights for product development teams. We will describe the tools and methods used to create a research database organized by user roles, along with examples and short exercises to help attendees think through user roles within their own context.
By the end of the session, attendees should be aware of tools and approaches for:
Organizing user research information in a database
Disseminating user role information to product and design teams
Managing a user roles database as part of a long term UX Research program
If you’re ready to ditch personas but don’t know how, this session is for you!
We will present a case study that details our approach for replacing user personas with user roles for a multi-national SAAS company. We will take the audience on a journey that starts with an executive request for personas, travels through the tribulations of realizing personas suck, and concludes with convincing others to accept a new and innovative way to understand the people who use the product. Our key message is that personas lack real value for organizations that already understand the importance of empathizing with users. Building user-centered products requires easily accessible and well organized user insights. We will discuss defining users through a process of stakeholder consultation and content review, and structuring data around Jobs to Be Done and product interactions. We will also discuss the dissemination of user roles in our organization using relational databases, interactive dashboards and online wikis. Spoiler alert, our stakeholders loved user roles!
UXPA 2023: Experience Maps - A designer's framework for working in Agile team...UXPA International
Agile Methodology refers to software design and development methodologies centered around the idea of iterative design and development, where requirements and concepts evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. Thus, Agile enables teams to deliver value faster, with greater quality and predictability, and greater aptitude to respond to change. With evolving product features every design sprint, designers & researchers find it difficult to follow the design process. This sometimes leads to designs delivered in haste or sub-par design artifacts which result in UX debt. UX debt is accumulated when design teams take actions or shortcuts to expedite the delivery of a piece of functionality or a project which later needs to be refactored. It is the result of prioritizing speedy delivery of design to the development team over a perfect experience journey. Experience Maps is a great tool to practice UX in Agile as well as manage UX Debt.
UXPA 2023: UX Enterprise Story: How to apply a UX process to a company withou...UXPA International
How to build a UX Department from scratch, in an environment they think UX people do social media posters and posts! An agile implementation just started, and people are moving from a waterfall and ad-hoc mindset to agility. In this session, I will talk about my Journey to establish a UX Department for a company that is part of a global brand, but this local branch just started the digital transformation movement. Challenges like: spreading awareness and educating people about UX, hiring the right team, defining the right team structure, establishing workflow and day-to-day operations, and applying localization (non-western culture).
UXPA 2023: High-Fives over Zoom: Creating a Remote-First Creative TeamUXPA International
I started my current job in March of 2020. Many of us remember something clearly about the month that COVID started to shut things down. I remember being surprised to hear that my new on-site-only job would be starting in my living room over zoom. How do you lead a design team when none of the team members live near each other and creativity is highly collaborative? Taking from over a decade of working in HR software, I knew whatever I did needed to put people first. That what employees love about a job is often deeper than the work, it’s the culture, the relationships and people they work with. It’s the feeling that their work has value, and their contribution matters. In this talk I will walk though some of the rituals and best practices I have learned over the last two years building a remote-first creative team.
UXPA 2023: Behind the Bias: Dissecting human shortcuts for better research & ...UXPA International
As humans, we are biased by design. Our intricate and fascinating brains have developed shortcuts through centuries of human evolution. They reduce an unimaginable load of paralyzing decisions, keep us alive, and help us navigate this complex world. Now, these life saving biases affect how we behave with modern technology. Understanding some of the theories and reasons why these biases exist is the key to unlocking their power. In this workshop we will cover some theories around how the brain works. We will review some of our mental shortcuts, take a look at some common biases, and learn how they affect our users, our research, and our designs. Lastly we will review some advantages of biases, and ways to identify and reduce bias. This workshop is targeted for designers who do their own research, and researchers looking to learn more about removing bias from their studies.
UXPA 2023 Poster: Improving the Internal and External User Experience of a Fe...UXPA International
UXPA 2023 Poster: Improving the Internal and External User Experience of a Federal Government Legacy Application Using User Experience and Agile Principles
Are you new to UX management, or thinking of getting into management? Then this talk is for you. After reading countless books, attending countless trainings, mentoring and being menteed, nothing quite prepared me for management like my first year. I’ll share with you what I wish they’d told me. I’ll also share my process for generating team research roadmaps, establishing team values, keeping employees motivated, and not burning out.
UXPA 2023: Redesigning An Automotive Feature from Gasoline to Electric Vehicl...UXPA International
Join us for an interaction design case study from the automotive industry. We created a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) for a vehicle feature that provides household-levels of power in electrical outlets for our customers to use at work and play. This case study will reveal: · Our debate of re-using version 1.0’s HMI vs designing a new user interface for the electric vehicle—when to break with consistency and why? · User research we conducted to guide our early design concept. · Paper prototypes we created to support our usability testing of the concept with vehicle owners. · How we solved internal debate over the interaction design in moving from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles. * Advice to help you evangelize user-centered design that is also brand-centered for a new product.
Connect Conference 2022: Passive House - Economic and Environmental Solution...TE Studio
Passive House: The Economic and Environmental Solution for Sustainable Real Estate. Lecture by Tim Eian of TE Studio Passive House Design in November 2022 in Minneapolis.
- The Built Environment
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1. UXPA 2015
DAWN NIDY // EXPERIENCE DESIGN
L E A D E R
K R I S T Y A V G E R I N O S / / U S E R
R E S E A R C H E R
Create a Customer-
Driven Culture that
Inspires a Large
Organization
4. CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
MISSION:
To improve our customers’ financial lives
so profoundly…they can’t imagine going
back to the old way
5. ABOUT OUR TEAM JOURNEY
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
6. THE MAGIC HAPPENS WHEN
DEVELOPERS GET AND SEE
CUSTOMER PAIN… THE BIGGEST
SINGLE SOURCE OF INNOVATION
IS TYPICALLY THE ENGINEERS.
THEY KNOW WHAT’S POSSIBLE
BETTER THAN ANYONE
- MARTY CAGAN
6
“
”
7. CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
7
Stage 1:
Understand &
Embrace
Stage 2:
Practice &
Build Muscle
Stage 3:
Empathy is in
our DNA
We bring it to you:
Sharing Customer Insights
Customer Panels
“Empathy Kits”
We coach & help you:
Interview & Research Guides
Skills Workshops
Sprint Team Coaching
We provide support:
Advanced Skills Workshops
Customer Recruiting
Enable Insight Sharing
8. STAGE 1: UNDERSTAND AND EMBRACE
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
METHODS
9. METHOD #1: CUSTOMER PANELS
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
10. CUSTOMER PANELS: PROS/CONS
PROS
Can get a wide representation of
customer segments
Can bring customers to a large
audience
A skilled facilitator can elicit a wide
range of attitudes
Brings the outside in
CONS
Only represents what customers
say, not what they do
Customers may be intimidated by
a large audience (select
participants carefully and prep
them)
Customers can feel judged or
compared
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
Time
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
11. METHOD #2: CUSTOMER VIDEOS
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
12. MEET MARY (VIDEO)
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t4mll5s5v99fsze/Mary%20Revised%20Short%20
Cut.mp4?dl=0
13. EMPLOYEE REACTIONS
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
I don't think Mary was a
good use case. She clearly
didn't have a business-
oriented mindset.
Mary still did not possess
enough knowledge on using
QuickBooks after being a
small business owner over
an year.
They have a lot of passion towards
their work. I feel motivated to work to
make it simpler for them to pursue
their passion without the burden of
external factors.
We need to do lot more to actually help
our customers live their passion.
It brings to light how complicated just
keeping the financials are for small
businesses. And this is on top of the
actual product or service they are
providing.
“
”
“
”
14. CUSTOMER VIDEOS: PROS/CONS
PROS
Skilled interviewing and good
editing results in videos that lead
to deep empathy
Can show the context of a
customer’s life to a large audience
Brings customer insights to life
(their own words are powerful!)
CONS
Video editing is time-consuming
Some customers are intimidated
by the camera
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
15. CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
Method #3: Emotional Analogies
16. CON 1
Collecting and Sorting Mountains of PaperworkAccountant Pain in Collecting & Sorting Data
17. ROLE PLAYING: ACCOUNTANT ACTIVITY
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
18. CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ACCOUNTANT ACTIVITY VIDEO
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pilxrjanxgnmmjc/Accountant%20Activity%20Video.m
p4?dl=0
19. ACCOUNTANT ROLE PLAYING - REACTIONS
I could feel the urgency in getting the
activity completed which reflects the reality
of tax deadlines.
Accountants are more flexible than I
thought – I had a stigma that they are stuck
in their ways, but I had to pivot a lot during
the exercise depending on the clients, and
it made me realize that Accountants have to
adjust to accommodate their clients.
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
How did this
make you feel?
Stressful.
Rushed.
Time Pressed.
Frustrated.
Mary made me mad.
“ ”
“ ”
20. 14 MILLION AMERICANS ARE UNEMPLOYED.
NOW IMAGINE YOU’RE ONE OF THEM. YOUR
SAVINGS ARE GONE. YOU’VE LOST YOUR
HOUSE. AND YOU’RE DOWN TO YOUR LAST
$1,000. CAN YOU MAKE IT THROUGH THE
MONTH?
“
—PLAYSPENT.ORG
”
22. EMPLOYEE REACTIONS VIDEO
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5e0ni4sdk5t1na/IgniteCompilationVideo.mp
4?dl=0
23. EMOTIONAL ANALOGIES: PROS/CONS
PROS
Can replicate the same emotion a
customer would feel without
recreating the exact situation
and/or requiring subject matter
expertise
Can develop deep empathy in a
short amount of time
Creates the opportunity for
reflection and understanding
CONS
Can be expensive and time-
consuming to create
Needs careful planning to execute
well and be believable, otherwise
people can fixate on the flaws
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
24. MAKING RESEARCH EXPERIENTIAL : DEVELOPERS
Context was a large-scale contextual inquiry study with 18 internal developers
Did a traditional research read out of top insights, followed by experiential activity
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
24
Method #4: Making Research Experiential
26. CUSTOMERS WALKING THROUGH JOURNEY LINE
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
27. EMPATHY MAP: SAY / DO / THINK / FEEL
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
28. EMPATHY MAP: SAY / DO / THINK / FEEL
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
29. MAKING RESEARCH EXPERIENTIAL : PROS/CONS
PROS
Brings research to life in a way that
a traditional report cannot
Solidifies your research findings
and makes them more memorable
Rallies the team around a
customer and their problems –
they feel deep ownership
CONS
Requires a lot of preparation
Requires skilled facilitation
Customers may be intimidated by
a large audience (select
participants carefully and prep
them)
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
30. STAGE 1: UNDERSTAND & EMBRACE
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
Methods
1. Customer Panel
2. Customer Video
3. Emotional Analogies
4. Experiential Research
_ Journey Lines
_ Empathy Map
_Pilot and experiment
_Leverage what already exists
_Content trumps production value
_Mix and match methods to make
it more meaningful
_Make it required, not opt-in
Tips &
Tricks
31. STAGE 2: PRACTICE AND BUILD MUSCLE
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
METHODS
32. METHOD #5: HAVE LEADERSHIP INTERVIEW
CUSTOMERS
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
33. LEADERSHIP INTERVIEWING CUSTOMERS:
PROS/CONS
PROS
Hands on experience and
customer learning
Reinforces how good of an
investment customer learning is
Leading by example/role modeling
CONS
Requires directive coaching up
front because leaders have a
strong tendency to advocate or
teach
Requires a time commitment from
leadership team
Potential for misinterpretation of
customer views or problems
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
34. METHOD #6: SKILLS WORKSHOPS
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
35. SKILLS WORKSHOPS: PROS/CONS
PROS
Scalable way to teach foundational
research skills
Practice in a safe environment and
get in the moment feedback and
coaching
Can empower teams, especially
when research resources are
scarce
CONS
Difficult to create relevant and
realistic situations to fit everyone
Harder to replicate pitfalls in safe
environment
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
36. METHOD #7: CUSTOMER OFFICE HOURS
My team learned a lot today.
Thanks for the opportunity to
connect with other developers.
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
“
”
“
”
Thanks for setting it up. We move at
a million miles an hour over there so
it's rare we get an opportunity to stop
and get an objective viewpoint on
anything.
37. CUSTOMER OFFICE HOURS: PROS/CONS
PROS
Low barrier to engagement
Gets teams or individuals to
engage with customers who might
not make time otherwise
Encourages more frequent
feedback throughout a project
CONS
May not be the ideal customer for
each person participating
Customers could go un-used
Lack of a defined research plan
can lead to less interesting
outcomes (poor interviewing?)
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
38. METHOD #8: CUSTOMER IMMERSION DAYS
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
39. CUSTOMER EMPATHY FIELD GUIDE
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
40. CUSTOMER IMMERSION DAYS: PROS/CONS
PROS
Gets an entire team aligned on the
customer in a short amount of time
Energizing and impactful
Gets people more comfortable with
being uncomfortable – you’re all in
the same boat
You’re meeting customers where
they are – it’s real life
CONS
Very costly from a time and
resource perspective
Logistics need to be orchestrated
really well to keep a large number
of people safe and on task
Hard to sustain the momentum
beyond the event itself
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
ATTRIBUTES TO CONSIDER:
L
L
L
H
H
H
Impact
Expens
e
41. STAGE 2: PRACTICE & BUILD MUSCLE
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
Methods
5. Leadership Interview
_ Interview Guides
_ Research Guides
6. Skills Workshops
7. Customer Office
Hours
8. Customer Immersion
_Broadly & clearly communicate
_Savor the surprises
_Set your teams up for success
Tips &
Tricks
43. WHAT TO CONSIDER FOR YOUR EMPATHY PROGRAM
Expect a wide range of reactions, including skepticism and apathy
Identify your champions & leverage them
Managing the logistics
_Tap into existing channels and operating mechanisms whenever possible
_Introduce rigor around the program
Get executive sponsorship
Be patient & flexible
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
44. GET IN TOUCH
Dawn Nidy
dawn_nidy@intuit.com
@uxdawn
Kristy Avgerinos
kristy_avgerinos@intuit.com
@KristyAvgerinos
CREATE A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CULTURE THAT INSPIRES A LARGE ORGANIZATION
Materials from our program and talk:
CustomerEmpathy.wordpress.org -or-
http://ow.ly/MEAL6
Editor's Notes
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Dawn
Kristy
KRISTY:
We know that user research, contextual inquiry, and deep customer empathy are not new concepts – especially in the world of user experience, and ideally everyone in your organization understands these concepts puts the customer first. But that is not always the case. In fact, time and time again we’ve seen companies and groups rely on their user experience team to carry all of the load when it comes to creating something delightful for the customer.
So, what happens if you’re that lone customer advocate, or even a very small team of customer advocates, in a large organization? How do you influence the rest of the group? That is our story - and we strongly believe that when everyone in the company, and we do mean everyone, feels empathy deeply for the customer, then the work of the UX team gets significantly easier – not to mention better outcomes for the customer. So today we want to share with you our journey to create a customer driven culture in our organization.
KRISTY:
But before we can get into the heart of our talk, we need to set up a little bit of context.
From the very beginning there has always been a strong culture of customer empathy and user experience at Intuit.
In fact, the idea for Intuit’s very first product, Quicken, was formed 30 years ago at co-founder Scott Cook’s kitchen table while he watched his wife struggle to balance their checkbook.
After observing her, he set out to find a way to make the process easier and simpler.
In fact that very table is now part of a coaching corner in our mountain view campus where Scott and other Intuit leaders regularly coach teams on how to create awesome product experiences that delight customers
KRISTY:
And just in case you don’t know what we do at Intuit, we are a financial management company whose mission is to improve our customers’ financial lives so profoundly they can’t imagine going back to the old way.
We have several flagship financial management products that serve a wide variety of different customers including accountants, small business owners and consumers
we are sharing this with you today because these different products and different customer segments are an integral part of our story today.
DAWN:
Even though we have this great culture of customer empathy, not all teams are in the same place.
For example we are in a central technology organization– we create platforms and technologies that other internal teams use to build their products. As a central team, we have a variety of customers: accountants, small business owners, and consumers as well as internal employees.
Before I started, in 2013, our organization had not adopted the customer empathy culture of Intuit because they were focused on delivering back end services –
but very quickly our senior VP realized those services also needed to deliver a value for the end customer, and that’s why we needed a user experience team.
But then our VP had another ah-hah moment in a meeting when she realized that the engineers in the room didn’t understand the small business customer and therefore they weren’t going to be able to deliver the value they needed, and it couldn’t be the sole responsibility of the tiny, newly formed UX team.
So she came to me, and that’s when we decided that we should start with the Deep customer empathy principal as the foundation for the organization.
DAWN:
And the importance of empathy for engineers was summed up beautifully in this quote from Marty Cagen during an interview at Intuit a few years ago. He said “the magic happens when developers get and see customer pain” because they know what’s possible and when armed both with that knowledge and the understanding of the customer pain, they are often the source of innovation.
DAWN:
We knew creating a culture of empathy was going to be a multi-year journey and we needed our methods to scale to all 500 employees.
So we decided to start with the foundation: just getting everyone in our organization to understand the value of empathy as a concept and embrace the fact that they play a role in creating great experiences for the customers. This was not something that came naturally to most of them, nor did they have a lot of experience with it.
After that, we move onto the second stage, which is all about helping them actively practice getting customer feedback and building their empathy muscle. Here we focused our efforts on coaching, creating guides, and leading workshops to build basic skills for employees to regularly connect with their customers on their own.
The final step in the journey is that empathy is in the DNA of our organization.
By this stage we’ll have a customer driven culture where all teams are customer obsessed. We aren’t here yet.
(SLIDE Change) – in fact, we are somewhere in the middle of step two –
but our hope is that when we get to this stage, the organization will proactively be reaching out to customers and focusing on the delighting the customer. Empathy is not just about research, but it’s also about design and making good product choices all the way throughout the software development lifecycle.
Kristy:
So now that you know what we did and why, we wanted to take you through some of the details of our journey so far, and share some of the methods we used in each stage.
We did a lot of experimenting throughout this process, especially in that initial stage of the journey, and some ideas worked better than others!
In this section we’ll share 4 of the methods we used to help our organization better understand and embrace a customer empathy mindset.
With each method we’ll also share our learnings and help you decide if it’s something you can use in your own organization!
Kristy:
One of the first, and probably most obvious, things we did was to bring in a group of customers at the same time to share their experiences and opinions on a similar topic - otherwise known as a customer panel.
This method works regardless of whether your customer is internal or external.
Kristy:
As with any method, there are both pros and cons.
For us, we found that the panels allowed us to share a variety of customer types to a large audience in a short amount of time – and with the right facilitator, you could learn a lot from the customers.
However, depending on the customer and the subject matter, it can be difficult to get your customers to open up and feel comfortable sharing.
We saw this in a panel with tax customers who live paycheck to paycheck.
They all had different financial backgrounds and priorities and you could see some of them start to clam up as they heard the other panelists share their stories – they got uncomfortable and opening up became more difficult for them.
But panels can work well when the subject matter is more neutral –
for example, we brought in 3 internal developers who had all recently on-boarded a particular service.
They openly shared their stories, issues and pains with the process and were able to build off of one another because their common thread was not personal
– and the team that built that service was able to get a ton of great learning and some empathy for their customers from the experience.
For each method we are sharing today, we’ve also included some of the attributes that you may want to take into consideration when deciding if this is a good method for you and your organization.
It’s important to note that all of these methods are about getting customer empathy, and all accomplish that to some extend, but some may be more impactful, time consuming or costly than others.
For example, the customer panel, is relatively inexpensive to set up, but tends to have a lower impact when it comes to empathy.
One of the reasons for this is that a panel focuses more on what the customer says and not what they do,
but more than that, because you are interacting with multiple customers at one time, you end up getting a bit more of an overview which doesn’t usually allow you to develop deep empathy for any one customer on the panel.
You and your organization can absolutely still get great learnings and insights from customer panels, but it’s unlikely to produce the deepest level of empathy.
DAWN:
Another way we brought the customer to life for our organization was through customer videos.
Taking 500 employees, mostly engineers, out to meet customers where they live was not scalable for us – at least not in the first stage of our journey – so we brought the customers to them.
In this case our research team went out and did in context interviews with customers, filming the entire interaction, and then we later cut down the videos to share the essence of who the customer is and how they work in ‘bite sized’ chunks.
We are going to show you a sample of a video is focused on understanding the small business owner.
Our customer, Mary, works from home, as do about half of small businesses, so we met her there, and conducted a 2 hour contextual inquiry about her and her work – and then we cut that down to a 12 minute video that we shared with the entire organization.
Today we’d like to share a 2.5 minute snippet to give you an idea of what it looked like….
DAWN:
DAWN:
With just a 12 minute video employees were able to develop some real empathy in a short amount of time.
Several of the employees walked away feeling really connected to Mary and her struggles and were already thinking about ways they could contribute to making her situation better.
As you can see by the positive reactions here.
However, we know that there’s no quick fix to getting empathy and some people progress slower and that’s to be expected.
Some of the more negative responses to the video actually showed us that the employee really did not get to a place of empathy for the customer.
They were still disconnected from Mary’s plight, and critiqued her for being inexperienced or a poor business person. They just weren’t able to put themselves into the shoes of a new business owner and recognize the difficulty they might experience.
DAWN:
A good customer video with a skilled interviewer and careful editing can help people begin to develop real empathy for the customer.
It can also show the context of the customer’s life in a scalable way (since we can’t fit 500 employees in Mary’s living room) and brings insights to life through the customer’s own words.
The impact can be pretty significant, and in a lot of cases higher than the customer panel because the customer tends to be more authentic and comfortable in their own environment, but it’s still not as strong as interacting directly with the customer would be.
Although videos can be extremely powerful and are typically not that expensive to create,
they do take a lot of time and careful editing to create, and some customers may be intimidated by the camera.
KRISTY:
Another method we’ve used is Analogous experiences and simulations.
Obviously the best case is that you can be with your customers in their situation or experience exactly what they do, but there are times when doing that is just not possible
– like in the image here, do you really need to send all of your employees out to fix a water main break in order for them to experience the stress, panic and exhaustion the men in this picture did? Probably not!
KRISTY:
Sometimes your domain knowledge, or even lack of knowledge, on a subject can get in the way of you fully understanding what your customer goes through, but by utilizing an analogous experience, you can often create a similar emotional state.
So let me set the stage for this next example:
After observing accountants during tax season we learned that:
Collecting documentation from clients is time consuming and painful
Once documentation is collected, the accountant has to sort through mountains of paperwork to find what they need – clients would actually bring boxes like you see in this image, full of paperwork that the accountant has to go through.
Missing or incomplete data is a problem that interrupts the workflow of the accountant and results in them having to continue to ask/nag their client
So first we have collecting and sorting data – we know that getting data from clients is painful, and then once they have it, they have to sort through it to find what they need and discover anything that might be missing – and that causes disruption to the workflow.
As a side note, these are pictures taken from a real accountants office – they get so much paperwork it fills every corner of every space in the office.
So we wanted our employees to understand the pain an accountant goes through during the rush of tax season,
but trying to recreate exactly what they go through would require significant tax domain knowledge, which our team did not have. Instead we needed to create an experience that would elicit the same emotions without needing the domain expertise.
KRISTY:
To do this, we used an online survey, simple word documents and dropbox to create the experience. Participants were asked to imagine they were an accountant during tax season: they had to communicate with fake clients throughout the process using open ended questions in the survey,
(CLICK) They downloaded the client’s documents from dropbox, sorted through those documents to find and tally the ones with the name of a color on them.
(CLICK) and then finished by entering the totals for each document type to determine the amount of taxes their client owed.
They did all of this with a 15 minute time limit to simulate the rush of tax season.
This short video shows about 50 of our developers going through the activity– just to give you a visual of how it worked…
KRISTY:
I’m not sure if you can tell from the video, but the experience itself is completely standalone – everything was monitored and paced through the survey tool, but we usually ran it as a group and then spent time debriefing afterwards.
When we introduced the activity it was met with a fair amount of skepticism from the participants –
mostly because it seemed simple and a little silly, but afterwards they were genuinely surprised by how much they learned and how much they could empathize with what accountants go through.
They also shared that the exercise made them feel stressed, rushed and frustrated – all emotions that accountants can relate to during the very busy tax season.
KRISTY:
Another way to create a hands on emotional experience is through simulations.
Simulations can help put you in the shoes of the customer even when it can be difficult or impossible to have the full or real experience
Playspent.org is a simulation we used to help our employees get empathy for Americans living paycheck to paycheck (which is a shocking 75% of the population!)
The simulation shows the ramifications of losing your job and the hard choices you have to make – something that would be difficult to have our gainfully employed staff realistically experience.
KRISTY:
This web-based simulation only takes a few minutes to go through and asks you to use your last $1000 and try to make it through the next 30 days.
You are presented with situations and have to make a choice of what to do
(CLICK) With each screen you choose what to do and your path and future situations change with it,
(CLICK) Which creates a very powerful experience.
KRISTY:
Okay – last video!! This short video shows a group of employees going through this simulation. We filmed a few of their reactions to it and wanted to share that with you today, because we thought they summed it up better than we could!
KRISTY:
To wrap up, for analogous experiences and simulations, we have seen that they can replicate the emotion a customer feels without recreating the exact situation or requiring subject matter expertise.
They can help develop deep empathy in a short period of time, but they can be expensive and time consuming to create – especially when you can’t find an existing option you can leverage or adapt.
Careful planning and review are essential to ensure that it’s executed well and believable – otherwise people may fixate on the flaws and miss the point.
DAWN:
You may be wondering where user research fits into this program…This next method is really about taking research results to the next level.
Our user experience team conducted a large scale research study focused on the internal developer at Intuit, but instead of just sharing the results through a report, we decided to make the insights more experiential and share them with the entire organization
DAWN:
To do that, we selected three of the research participants and worked with them to create a journey line of their experience.
DAWN:
Then we got our leadership team together and we started by sharing the overall results of the study in a typical research report out – and then we brought in those 3 participants and had them retell their stories aided by their journey lines, and the leaders were able to ask questions in an informal Q&A after.
We also filmed the sessions (nothing fancy, just a camcorder and some external mics)
DAWN:
After the stories were completed we had the leaders unpack what they heard.
To facilitate this we used an empathy map tool where you start by capturing the things you heard your customer say or saw them do,
and then move on to what you inferred that they were thinking or feeling during those moments.
DAWN:
This process helped the leaders really step into the shoes of the customer and try to understand what they were thinking and feeling, which helped the research have a much broader impact.
The leaders made a deeper connection to the research and walked away “owning” the results much more than they would have if we had stopped at the report out.
Following this exercise, we took the videos from the sessions, journey lines and created instructions for how to facilitate the empathy map exercise and had the leaders repeat (and facilitate) these sessions with their own teams in order to get the information through all 500 employees in our organization.
DAWN:
Making research experiential can really bring research to life and makes the findings more memorable.
It also rallies the team around the customer and their problems so they feel deep ownership – all which leads to a pretty high impact with regards to empathy.
However, it does take a lot of preparation and skilled facilitation, which may make it hard to do this for every research effort!
Another thing to consider is your customer – are they likely to be comfortable sharing their story or thoughts in front of a large audience?
This is definitely something to be conscious of when considering this method.
KRISTY:
For the initial stage of our empathy program, we focused on helping the organization understand and embrace empathy and today shared with you some of the ones we found most promising.
We also wanted to share with you a few tips from our learnings along the way….
1. First, pilot and experiment – As we mentioned earlier, we experimented a ton with different methods, and often piloted them with small groups before bringing it to the entire organization.
For example, the accountant activity went through multiple versions before we landed on what you saw today – the first few iterations were clunky and had too many components –
participants started to lose interest, which diminished the impact we were going for.
So as you adapt some of these methods or create your own, make sure that you test them with a smaller group to make sure the experience is really evoking the emotion and reaction you intend.
2. Our next tip is to leverage what already exists.
We leveraged research done by the various product teams around Intuit to build empathy and understanding for the consumer tax payer, small business owner, and accountant.
We used their reports, participated in and recorded some of their research sessions. We have also leveraged products and apps made externally when they fit our needs.
Sometimes you’ll have to build everything from scratch, but whenever possible we encourage you to bring the awesome work that researchers have and will do to a larger audience
3. Another thing we learned was that video quality is not super important –
we found that people were able to look past the often poor quality and in fact it may have actually worked in our favor.
When we were trying to build empathy for the accountant customer, we used a video another internal group had produced as well as one we created.
The other video was a very high production value and we considered using theirs exclusively since ours felt pretty amateur in comparison–
but when we showed employees the videos, the feedback we received was that the low production value made it more real –
they could tell it was a real person in their office and they felt more connected, whereas the more polished video felt inauthentic and like a marketing video.
So don’t stress- if this is internal, just make sure the content is there – which does mean good audio! - and that will be enough!
4.We also found that packaging multiple methods together into a facilitated empathy kit was a powerful way to provide an overview of a customer group or segment.
We mixed some of the experiential and hands on activities with videos and general research summaries to create our empathy kits
and we found that creating the balance with methods we used, helped keep people engaged.
Our employees love the videos and learned a lot from the summaries, but it was too easy to lose focus after a while – sprinkling in the experiential and hands on activities kept them interested and engaged.
The facilitated kits we created took about 2 hours total, and could accommodate between 20-100 employees.
It proved a good way to get a lot of information and empathy to the organization in a relatively short amount of time.
5. Finally, our last tip is to Skip the opt-in and just make it required…
I know that sounds harsh, but many of our employees didn’t understand or buy into the empathy program it at first,
so we had to start off by making attendance to the facilitated empathy kits required
and another tip – track attendance, or at least threaten to!
Once they start to understand what you’re doing, and see the value in understanding the customer, then you wont have to work so hard to convince them!
----- Meeting Notes (6/17/15 14:04) -----
change order on last 2
DAWN:
As we moved into the second stage of our journey, which focused on practicing and building the empathy muscle, we didn’t stop all activity in the first stage.
They overlap a lot since everyone is at a different phase of the journey.
Now we’d like to share 4 more methods we’ve had success with in stage 2
DAWN:
One of the first things we focused on in stage two was getting people in our organization to interact with customers directly – mostly through customer interviews.
The first time we created research and interview guides to help them get started, and often recruited the customers for them, but we had them go through the process of actually interviewing the customer
For our program, we specifically started with our leadership team.
We knew they were steeped in the perspective of their stakeholders, but not as grounded in the day to day usage of the products and services they owned.
We hypothesized that by better understanding their end users, they’d get more empathy and become greater champions of the program and role-models for the rest of the organization to follow.
But then we asked them to do it again, the second time with less guidance.
We found that some leaders were ready: they found their own customers, asked really good questions, and came back with interesting insights.
Other’s, however, needed more help and guidance, which is where the coaching aspect of this phase comes in.
DAWN:
Customer learnings are significantly more impactful and powerful when they are heard directly from the customer, which is a huge pro for having your teams directly interact with customers.
However, it can be difficult to scale this, which is why we started people who could have the most impact across the organization.
By doing so, we were also able to show that customer learning is a worthy time investment.
In your organization, those people of influence might be a leadership team, your PM community, or maybe your development managers.
If you're doing this with your leadership, they are very busy, so working with their schedules can be difficult.
There’s also a need for strong coaching and that preparation can be time consuming for you.
There is also a potential for misinterpretation of customer views or problems– especially if the leaders are only interviewing one or two customers.
It’s important to note that these interviews are not intended to replace user research nor should they be used to inform major decisions.
That’s not the point – the point is we want to create champions who care about the customer and understand the importance of empathy.
Managing that expectation will be important!
KRISTY:
As we expanded our interview initiative beyond the senior leadership team, we started to notice significant gaps in the people’s skill levels when it came to how they interacted with customers.
We knew that part of our second phase we wanted to work on developing the skills and capabilities of our organization and decided that our first skill building workshop should be focused on interviewing!
In this hour long workshop, we focused on fundamentals –
first encouraging the participants to stop thinking of their customer interactions as interviews, and focus instead on listening and letting the customer drive the conversation.
We also challenged them to let go of their solution and just be present in the moment with the customer.
(CLICK) – After we went through some of the mindsets, we then had them practice these listening skills with one another using specific scenarios and taking turns being the interviewer, the customer or just an observer.
(CLICK) We created little takeaway cards that outlined common pitfalls to avoid – such as talking more than the customer, or teaching instead of listening
(CLICK) And best practices to focus on – like being present and asking open ended questions.
The cards were guidelines we established that made sense for our team, but you could think about what would be appropriate for your own organization and create your own.
I still see people with these cards tucked into their badge holders so that they are with them at all times.
Although the workshop was relatively simple it provided an opportunity to establish a consistent baseline of skill across the group.
Overall the participants learned a lot by getting in the moment feedback and coaching from the facilitators as well as their peers in an unthreatening environment.
On the downside, the orchestrated situations and topics can feel a little inauthentic.
During our workshop, one participant told me that they loved the exercise and the tips, but thought the subject matter made it easier for them to stay neutral and just learn from the customer.
If the topic had been about their product or day to day work, they may have had more difficulty not falling into some of the common traps.
Taking the time to create situations that are as realistic as possible, while maintaining that safe environment, will produce the best possible results.
Skills workshops, in general, are not going to help you team directly feel empathy for their customer,
but they will teach them the skills and mindsets they need to get more out of the customer interactions they do have – which we think is very important!
KRISTY:
And on the topic of customer interactions - another method we have used to help our organization directly interact with their customers is office hours.
We noticed that although teams were starting to really understand and embrace the power of customer empathy, there was still a perceived barrier to getting access to their customers.
The time and effort it takes to decide who, what and when was often enough to stop a team from connecting on their own – and we wanted to address that.
So we created an office hours environment where we’d bring in customers and allow employees to drop in and connect with them.
Our research team recruited a sampling of customers that we thought would be relevant to the majority of employees and then just sent out an email indicating when they’d be available and asking interested employees to sign up for time.
With internal customers, we designated 20 minute time blocks and allowed 3-4 teams to talk to any one customer, but with external customers we usually go for 30 minute segments and limit each customer to two teams – so as not to overwhelm them.
But you could do whatever works for your group!
Teams were really excited to have a chance to talk to customers and share their ideas- especially because they wouldn’t have made the time to do it on their own.
And they loved the fact that it took almost no effort for them.
KRISTY:
In order for teams to develop deep empathy, they need to be interacting with their customers frequently
But because the investment is high, they weren’t doing it
Office hours creates a nice, low barrier option for employees to get feedback from customers more frequently – at all stages of their product
They are by no means perfect, of course
We observed some teams coming into office hours with little to no preparation, which overall is not the end of the world,
but in some cases that led to them asking very thin, opinion based questions
But, kind of like the customer interviews, the primary purpose of these office hours is not to replace strategic research, but rather to help the teams stay connected to their customers day to day.
DAWN:
Customer immersion days are one of the most impactful and intense methods for taking an entire organization on the customer empathy journey at once.
These are full day immersive experience with real customers. That means having everyone, YES everyone, leave the building and talk to customers on the same day. It is a great way to mobilize an entire organization around a singular goal and to create commitment.
One example was an event called Unite, in which one of our divisions shut down operations for the day and sent everyone out to learn about what motivates their customers and how they think about finances. Accountants, small business owners and consumers were recruited for the event and busses were hired to take people out to their customers. It was an extremely effective way to quickly ignite a passion for the customer.
DAWN:
This artifact is an example of what we used during one of the immersion activities
We sent employees out to talk to customers where they are, what we refer to as “in the wild”
This field guide provides an overview of empathy, mindsets to consider and guidance for talking to customers in the moment.
We’ve actually brought copies of these guides with us today to share with you –
Although some of the content is specific to Intuit's customers, a lot of it can be leveraged no matter what the industry and you can always adapt the interview guides to work for your own company and products
DAWN:
Customer immersion days can be amazing.
They get people outside, meeting customers in real life, and can really energize and align an entire organization.
But they come at a very high cost.
This is not something that should be done randomly
The event needs have something meaningful to propel it – like a new strategy you want the organization to understand or rally around – otherwise it could fall flat
Once people understand the value of getting customer insights and how it should impact the way they work, then your org could be in a position to make this kind of investment.
DAWN:
To sum up, the methods we’ve used in our second stage are really about helping the organization practice building empathy for themselves.
As we continue along this journey, we’ll continue to do more coaching and experiment with additional methods, but we again wanted to share with you some of our takeaways so far:
First, its so important broadly and clearly communicate the context and objectives of the program to all levels of the organization.
We focused on clear communication with the senior leaders, but realized that as that information trickled down the management chain, they didn’t always hear the same messaging, so when we were trying to get their employees to do stuff, we sometimes found resistance.
We really needed to ground all levels of employees in the goals of the program.
Also savor the surprises – as you go through this journey you're going to learn a lot and have to try a lot of things in order to see what works and what doesn’t for you and for your organization.
As you experiment, its important to embrace those moments you didn’t expect.
For example, after we asked the leadership team to do their first set of customer interviews, one of our leaders actually went out on his own and did a bunch of additional interviews, recorded them and then shared a video montage of what his customers were saying and feeling about his product during an operations review.
We didn’t expect that response, but it helped us think about how we could up the ante in the future and allowed us to show that particular leader off as a shining example.
The surprises can be good or bad too –
when we sat in on some of the leadership interviews, we found that some of them were not well prepared to conduct interviews and spent a lot of time advocating for their products instead of listening –
this learning helped us decide on making our first skill workshop focused on interviewing and listening skills!
Finally, make sure you set your teams up for success.
When we set up the office hours, our primary goal was to help employees connect more often with customers–
Although we accomplished that, we saw some mixed results for the teams who’d had very little experience interviewing customers.
We quickly realized that offering in the moment guidance as well as more preemptive hands on coaching for teams that were less experienced would help them have better conversations with their customers which would keep them coming back for more.
When you are trying to convince your team or organization to embrace customer empathy in their day to day,
you want to make sure that the interactions they do have – especially early on - are as positive and engaging as possible.
KRISTY:
Our goal with this program was to create a culture of empathy across our organization instead of pinning that responsibility solely on the user experience team.
It does not replace the need for user research or design on a team, but instead creates an environment where the strong shared interest and passion around the customer allows the team to work together to come up with more innovative and delightful solutions.
We hope the methods we shared with you today will help you as you consider bringing empathy to your own organization.
KRISTY:
So we’ll leave you with just a few final thoughts on what to consider for your own empathy program:
First, expect a wide range of reactions: UX folks usually have a thick skin, and you might need it for this!! We’ve been met with skepticism and even apathy throughout the process, but we just keep pushing and chipping away at the stubborn exterior of those that resist!
But when you do find the people who get it, and are excited about what you are doing – grab them and celebrate them!
Those champions are an invaluable asset.
They can help you expand your program and reach audiences at a different level – it’s one thing for the developers to hear the user researchers talk about how it’s easy to talk to customers and they should just try – but it’s a whole lot more believable when they hear and see their engineering leader championing it.
If you are going to go through the effort of creating a program, managing the logistics is a huge part of that. For us, we did things like create the Empathy Kits we mentioned earlier. Packaging methods together and curating that facilitated experience worked really well for us – especially because it allowed us to cover a lot of information at one time, which was key when dealing with busy individuals. Another way we made the logistics work was by tapping into existing channels. For example, we added our skills workshop to an existing operational review, and we’ve brought customer panels into all hands meetings.
DAWN:
Another thing we did was to add rigor around the program. We created a road map, deliverables, and treated it like any other program – which has been key in keeping the momentum.
And whenever you can, get executive sponsorship. Having the senior VP behind us made this process so much easier.
That’s not to say it couldn’t or wouldn’t have happened without her – but it would have been a much longer and bumpier road
Finally, remember to be patient, and flexible. This takes time, and people progress at different speeds.
There were absolutely times when we were frustrated and disheartened by failures or by people who saw no value in what we were doing – but we persevered.
You may have to change course mid program to make it work for you and your team – but if your flexible and patient, you’ll see results.
People have stopped us in the halls and asked when we’ll be doing the next empathy kit
They ask for more opportunities to get in touch with their customers
And sometimes we even over-hear them talking about customer empathy in the break room – all good signs!
KRISTY:
Thank you so much for your time and attention today – we have about ten minutes now for questions if anyone has anything they’d like to ask!
KRISTY:
Thank you again. If you have any other questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to either of us.
Also, we’ve made some of the materials from our program as well as our talk available online and the printed empathy field guides are all by the back door if you’d like to take one on your way out!!