This document provides an overview of user experience (UX) design and coaching, discussing areas of commonality between the two fields. It notes that both aim to help people achieve outcomes through discovery of internal resources. The document then discusses how people construct subjective experiences through sensory input and mental maps or models of the world. It introduces concepts like the map/territory distinction to understand how experiences are represented. Finally, it discusses intentional language patterns that can be used to discover users' real problems and needs, such as focusing on positive outcomes and sensory evidence of goals being achieved.

1. User eXperience Track:
Digging gold: How to discover
what your users really want?
(Sharing lessons learned
from practicing Management and Life Coaching)
Jurek Malecki
20 November, 2012
Version 1.07

2. M y Te a c h e r s & Recommended Links
John Seymour - http://www.jsnlp.co.uk/
Michael L. Hall - http://www.neurosemantics.com/
Judith DeLozier - http://www.nlpu.com/NewDesign/NLPU.html
Tad James - http://www.nlpcoaching.com/index.html
http://www.jsnlp.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/john2.jpg
http://www.ppdlearning.co.uk/team/affiliated-trainers/judith-delozier 2
http://www.self-actualizing.org/images/michael-home.png

3. • Topic 1:
– UX and Coaching: Anything in common?
• Topic 2:
– How we, and our users, construct Subjective
Experience? The Map, Territory, and the Gap
(Emotions).
• Topic 3:
– Intentional use of language: Introduction to
discovering user’s real problems and needs
3

4. Topic 1:
UX and Coaching:
Anything in common?
4

5. • UX is about an interaction between an product or service
perceived and evaluated by the user’s body-mind:
– Aspect 1: sensory stimulation designed to generate
specific emotions, measured against user’s expectations
across all interactions with service or application
– Aspect 2: meeting user’s usability ** expectations
through elegant, efficient and attractively offered
experience
http://creationwiki.org/Sensory_system;
5

6. Sample model of the user usability : Peter Moville's User Experience Honeycomb*
http://www.flickr.com/photos/morville/4274260576/in/set-72157623208480316/
http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/8-must-see-ux-diagrams/
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php 6

7. • UX is also a market differentiator and source of
sustainable competitive advantage, with clear potential
to turn your users into your advocates
• Achieving sustainable competitive advantage through
UX (i.e. the one which is difficult to copy) calls for
multidisciplinary approach that combines industrial
design, cognitive science, psychology, art, marketing,
etc.
http://creationwiki.org/Sensory_system; http://www.communication-impact.ca/images/differentiation.jpg
7

8. Coaching Session Graphics: J. Malecki
8

9. • COACHING - process of helping others to
perform at the peak of their abilities to achieve
intended outcomes through discovery and
utilisation of internal resources
– Involves discovering and expanding person’s strengths,
helping overcoming internal resistance and
approaching what had seemed to be the problem from
a new perspective
– Uses approaches such as well-formed outcomes,
modelling exceptional performance, and producing
step-by-step strategies for achieving better outcomes
– It is not about “fixing clients” but rather expanding
their cognitive and behavioural options (including the
maps of what they believe is possible), so that his/her
real needs can be both discovered and satisfied
– It may or may not require discovering and dealing with
the “root cause of the problem blocking the outcome”
*
9

10. User Experience (UX) Session Graphics: J. Malecki
10

11. • USER EXPERIENCE: the process of helping
others to perform at the peak of their
abilities to achieve intended outcomes using
specific product or service
• Similarly to coaching UX designer has to :
– Discover user’s actual outcome or need
– Navigate the map of the user’s problem or need
expressed as his/her requirements (e.g. specific
version of the usability “honeycomb”)
• Challenge:
– Real needs reside at a deep structure level of the
user’s mind and you need to know how to go
beyond the so called surface structure**
• Suggestion:
– The wealth of experience with intentional usage of
language by therapy and coaching (to explore deep
structure to discover client’s real problems and
needs) may be of real interest to you
**Compare works of Noam Chomsky
11

12. Coaching User Experience
The process of helping another person The process of helping another person
to perform at the peak of his or her to perform at the peak of his or her
abilities and to achieve intended abilities and to achieve intended
outcomes through mobilisation of outcomes through the use of your
internal resources products and services
Involves discovering and expanding person’s strengths, helping overcoming
internal resistance and approaching what had seemed to be the problem from a
new perspective, and most importantly, discovering the real need, which may be
held consciously or not, and providing a relevant solution
Success measured and verified by the real life application test.
12

13. Topic 2:
How do we, and our users,
construct Subjective Experience?
The Map, the Territory, and the
Gap (Emotions).
13

14. Theories
Descriptions
Interpretations
Causes Experience Meaning
Sensory
Input
• What is Experience?
– Experience refers to the process of sensing, feeling and perceiving the world
around us and our inner reactions to this world
– Our experiences are made up of information from the external environment that
we take in through our eyes, ears, skin, nose and mouth, as well as the associated
memories, fantasies, sensations and emotions that emerge from inside of us
– The on-going experience of something may be contrasted with “theories” or
“descriptions” made about the experience (meta-experience, or experience
reflecting upon itself e.g. being mad about being angry)
www.nlpuniversitypress.com
14

15. Theories
Descriptions
Interpretations
Causes Experience Meaning
Sensory
Input
• We usually differentiate between:
– Primary experience
• Relates to the information we actually receive and perceive through our senses
(VAKOG(T) – visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, gustatory, time)
• Is a function of direct perception of the “territory” around us
– Secondary experience
• Relates to verbal and symbolic “maps” we create to represent and organize our
primary experience.
• Is derived from our “mental maps,” i.e. descriptions and interpretations about
primary perceptions and are subject to significant filtering and modifications
www.nlpuniversitypress.com
15

16. Graphics: J. Malecki
16

17. 1 User selects the exposure program (portrait,
1.
landscape, …) based on his/her expectation
1 towards the character of the photo
2 The camera measures light, distance, etc.
2.
2 3 The camera adjusts its “senses” by
3.
3 configuring exposure time and sensitivity to
5 4 pattern-match
4 The camera captures the scene, “shedding
4.
its own light” if deems it necessary
5 The data representing the shot is processed
5.
and stored
The quality of the photo and resulting user experience depends on:
• Accuracy of the sensor’s exposure analysis (distance, light) [i.e. What is there?]
• Efficiency of the Exposure Configuration Library Pattern-Match [i.e. Did I experience it?]
• Quality if the interpretation and processing the data [i.e. Can I render it?]
Graphics: J. Malecki
17

18. Graphics: J. Malecki
18

19. 3 2 4
1
5
3
1 2 4 5
Donald A. Norman, “Toward a Theory of Memory and Attention,” Psychological Review 75 (1968); quoted by Daniel Goleman in Vital Lies, Simple
Truths; A psychology of self-deception, BLOOMSBURY, 1997; page 64, an actual scan of the referenced page is shown. 19

20. Filters &
2 Modifiers
DELETIONS
GENERALISATIONS
DISTORTIONS
Computation and Integration
Values
3 of the Internal Representation
of the Event Beliefs
Past Memories Event
4 1 Imagined or Real
Future Memories
Meta Programmes
Language Patterns
Awareness of the Event
4 Mind-Body State
(including Emotions)
5 Response / Behaviour
Graphics: J. Malecki Standard NLP Communication Model (see the works of Tad James )
20

21. DELETIONS
GENERALISATIONS
DISTORTIONS
• The Map (our model of the world) is not the Territory (so called objective Reality)
• Explore and understand the map to appreciate the behaviour
• Expand the map to change the behaviour and to satisfy the need
• Drive emotions by managing the map/territory gap
Graphics: J. Malecki; tube map: http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/travel/downloads/tube_map.html
21

22. The Map The Experience of the Territory
Concept: L. Michael Hall, PhD, THE MATRIX MODEL, Neuro-Semantics Publications Graphics: J. Malecki
22

23. • UX is about an interaction between an product or service
perceived and evaluated by the user’s body-mind:
– Aspect 1: sensory stimulation designed to generate
specific emotions, measured against user’s expectations
across all interactions with service or application
– Aspect 2: meeting user’s usability ** expectations
through elegant, efficient and attractively offered
experience
http://creationwiki.org/Sensory_system;
23

24. Quiz:
What is this?
Photo 1: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3368 Photo 2: http://www.dualshockers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Ace_Combat_Assault_Horizon_063.jpg
Photo 3: http://cdn.gamerant.com/wp-content/uploads/Ace-Combat-Assault-Horizon-Su-35-3.jpg 24

25. Topic 3:
Intentional use of language:
Introduction to discovering
user’s real problems and needs
25

26. Input SYSTEM Output
Feedback Data
• Feedback refers to the process in which part of the output of a
machine, process or system is fed back – that is, returned – as
input in order to guide or regulate its behaviour. The considered
part of the output information is called “feedback data”
• When the feedback signal reinforces a trend of the system, it is
called to be “positive” and when it opposes a trend of the system
it is called “negative.”
• Positive feedback is necessary for the parts of the system to grow
or multiply. Negative feedback is employed to balance or stabilize
parts of the system.
• Think of emotions as feedback data that could be used to
feedback (i.e. input) to affect user’s behaviour (i.e. output)
www.nlpuniversitypress.com
26

27. • TOTE model was developed by George
Miller (7±2)and Karl Pribram and presented
as a description of the fundamental
feedback loop at the basis of all mental
TEST process and behaviour.
Fixed Future Goal • Maintains that mental strategies are
Input Exit organized around goal oriented feedback
Sensory evidence for
T. Achievement E. loop.
Of the Goal • The model assumes that all mental and
behavioural programs revolve around
having a fixed goal and a variable means to
achieve it.
O. T.
• How does it work?
– We set goals in our minds (consciously
OPERATE or not) and develop a TEST for when
these goals have been met.
Flexibility of Means – If a particular goal is not achieved, we
to Accomplish Goals
OPERATE to change something or do
something to get closer to our goal.
– When our Test criteria have been
satisfied we then EXIT on to the next
step**
www.nlpuniversitypress.com **see Vroom’s model
27

28. EP PO
Valence
Expectancy Expectancy
Effort Performance Outcomes
• E>P expectancy: user’s assessment of the probability that his/her efforts will lead to the
required performance level.
• P>O expectancy: user’s assessment of the probability that his/her successful
performance will lead to certain outcomes.
• Valence: the value user assigns to achieving the outcome
• Vroom's expectancy theory works on user’s perceptions and beliefs about the specific
probabilities/expectancies rather than “objective facts”
www.nlpuniversitypress.com
28

29. TEST
Valence
Fixed Future Goal
Input Sensory evidence for
Exit
T. Achievement E.
Of the Goal
O. T.
EP PO
OPERATE Expectancy Expectancy
Flexibility of Means
to Accomplish Goals Effort Performance Outcomes
• Combined TOTE/Vroom model of the dynamics of the user/application interaction loop
• Your 1st job is to clearly define user’s Future Goal / Valence (what they really want)
• Your 2nd job is to create the application that will provide fexibile means to accomplish the
Goal within the boundaries of the user’s motivation loop
www.nlpuniversitypress.com
29

30. WELL-FORMED OUTCOME
• Outcome versus Problem Frame
TEST
Outcome Problem
Fixed Future Goal
What do you want? What is wrong?
Input Sensory evidence for
Exit
T. Achievement E. How can you get it? Why it is a problem?
Of the Goal
What resources you do What caused it?
you have and need? Whose fault it is?
Brain can represent the Brain cannot represent
O. T. positive outcome directly the outcome by negation-
(“freedom to relax”) of-the-problem
(“give up smoking”)
OPERATE
• Why “SMART” is not enough
Flexibility of Means – Sensory evidence/representation is required
to Accomplish Goals
– Positive outcome required to work
neurologically
– There are no negative Attractors
– Subconscious mind ignores NO, NOT (logical
rather than sensory operators)
www.nlpuniversitypress.com
30

31. WELL-FORMED OUTCOME
• The Outcome must be stated in the positive
terms, which means it states what the person
wants as opposed to what the person does not
want.
• The Outcome must be initiated and maintained
by the person desiring it (“own part”)
• The achievement of the Outcome is testable by
sensory experience (“evidence”)
• The Outcome is appropriately contextual and
ecologically sound
www.nlpuniversitypress.com
31

32. Surface structure: experience modelled using language, concepts, symbols
Deep structure: experience recorded using VAKOG rep systems
Graphics: J. Malecki
32

33. Surface structure: experience modelled using language, concepts, symbols
User’s Language:
The Model of Experience
Models of Language:
Meta & Milton
User’s Experience:
Coded through VAKOG
Deep structure: experience recorded using VAKOG rep systems
Graphics: J. Malecki
33

34. • Discovering positive outcome/sensory evidence
– “What it is that you want?”
– If negative response:
• “What would be better?”
• “What you would like instead?”
– “How do you know you will have/achieve the outcome?”
– “What would you see, feel, and hear?”
– “Why it is important to you?”
– “What does it give you?”
– “How does it feel when you see/hear/sense it?”
– “What type [….] it is?” [Clean Language Approaches]
Graphics: J. Malecki
34

35. • Other helpful patterns
• So called I don’t know cases
– If you do not know, what the answer would be should you have it?
– If you do not know, who would? What Don Norman or Peter Moville would say? What the
person who knows would say?
– Should you know, what the answer would be?
– If you cast your mind into the future and the perfect application shows up right in front of
you, what do you see and feel?
• Prototyping by using imagery (active imagination)
– Should it be like […alternative sensory description of the evidence…], would it still work?
– Could you represent this [problem, need] as a symbol, what it would be?
– So, seeing this symbol, what does it represent, what it is all about?
Graphics: J. Malecki
35

36. • Other helpful patterns
• “Memory indexing and pointers”
– Using user’s quotes to retrieve and to check for memory pattern-matches [e.g. handling complaints]
• As a coach you have to:
– Be mindfully present
– Pay attention to your intention to see the requirement from the user deep structure perspective
– Be aware of your own maps and avoid mind-reading (the user is the only master of his own
perception)
– Maintaining clean second position
– Using clean language to navigate user’s deep structure
Graphics: J. Malecki
36

37. • Meta Model reverses the • Milton Model puts person in
process of going from Deep
Structure to Surface Structure the learning trance which
facilitates “filling the spaces”
• It de-abstracts the process by and free indexing or internal
taking the person back to
experience searching of memory to find
new best pattern or
• Recovers material deleted,
generalized, and distorted by integration of patterns rather
the surface level language than a specific detail
Graphics: J. Malecki
37

38. This presentation was inspired by the following sources…
38