Confusion
User Experience (UX), could there be a more loaded, misunderstood and misused term in the industry? When confronted with the term, some clients feel confused or unsure of exactly what is being talked about. “What do you mean by User Experience?” “What is a User Experience Design process?” “What are the proven benefits of the process, what’s the ROI?”
Trying to explain user experience to clients can be a daunting and annoying task. It’s understandable how industry professionals can even come to hate the term, since it’s a broad and sometimes clumsy way of describing several disciplines and/or several different methodologies that places the user at the center of the design process. If the term were to disappear tomorrow, there are probably quite a few Interaction Designers, Information Architects and Usability Practitioners that would not be devastated by its absence.
Some clients may have absolutely no clue about a User-Centered Design process, much less what the term “User Experience” actually encompasses. Still, you’ll find it comes up in client conversations quite often. In some cases, you’ll have a few people on the client side that understand UX or even have a formal background in Human-Computer Interaction. These individuals are usually the UX advocates within their company and are often frustrated by the lack of understanding within their company’s culture. There are also cases where the client knows they need UX solutions, but they’re unclear of what that means. Finding common ground, while effectively communicating the value of User Experience can prove to be a huge challenge. Especially during the early engagement process with new clients.
Origin
While working at Apple, Donald Norman coined the term “User Experience.” During the CHI Proceedings in 1995 he used the term to describe how Apple’s HI (Human Interface) team referred to their research and design work.
“I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system including industrial design graphics, the interface, the physical interaction and the manual.”
- Don Norman
In 2008, Don Norman gave an interesting talk during UX Week, where he continued to emphasize “Know your users” as the most fundamental principle of design. He also encouraged all UX professionals to not just focus on the end user, but on clients and businesses as well. He said UX professionals should learn “to speak the language of business” and use numbers to sell ideas.
Ah yes, what a novel idea, speak the language of the very people to whom you are trying to prove the value of your services!
Don Norman | UX Week 2008 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
Clarity
There are quite a few ways you can find common ground with your client, while also effectively communicating the value of User Experience. Depending on the depth of your client’s understanding, your meeting will be much more engaging if you ditch UX related vernacular and focus on the context of your client’s business needs. While every client is different, just about everyone likes illustrated examples, especially when those examples are clear, relatable and supported by real data.
Here are a few things you can consider for meetings and presentations:
Illustrate Your Point of View
Always include an illustration of your approach and philosophy. This is huge, especially since it can help set the tone of the meeting and spark some immediate interest. This can help answer preexisting questions in the minds of your audience and give you the opportunity to clearly articulate – this is what I do, this is why I do it and this is how it can help you. One model I continue to use and revise depending on the type of client is what I call “The Point of Contact”:
Cite Related Research Findings
Demonstrating early on that you value and use quantitative data will go a long way with clients, especially ones with skeptical team members. Not to diminish the importance of qualitative data, it’s definitely core, but remember, when it’s all said and done, it comes down to money and numbers.
All quantitative data is based on qualitative interpretation
Grab people’s attention with some real research findings and I guarantee their minds will be more receptive and open to learning about such things as task analysis, user personas, paper prototyping and usability testing. Dedicating at least one slide of recent industry research findings at the beginning of your client presentation may be all that’s needed.
Work with your client in advance to understand their pain points and their industry. For instance, say you just started working with a client that has a subscription based website. Their subscription base is mainly 35 to 55 year old males working in the Law, Marketing and Research industries. This client has a vast amount of fresh and exciting content for ages 18 to 24 and 25 to 35, but their subscriptions for those demographics are tanking and make up only 4% of their total subscriptions. You’ve taken a look at their website and noticed they have no social network components. Since a subscription based web business is a tough sell to those two demographics, one of your recommendations will be to integrate social network components into the site. You’ve also learned there are a few key individuals on the client side that have suggested this strategy, but have had difficulty evangelizing the strategy internally. Providing some compelling and relevant research findings or case studies will help you demonstrate how the integration of social networks into the product will enrich the overall user experience and drive subscriptions for those targeted demographics.
There are quite a few industry and marketing research websites out there, some of which are expensive, but you never know what you may find for free. Here are a few sites to get you started:
:: Forrester Research – a technology and market research company
:: Marketing Sherpa – case studies and marketing research
:: Marketing Experiments – research lab specializing in optimization
:: eMarketer – research and trend analysis on digital marketing and media
Qualitative data can be coded quantitatively
A great way to do this is to create a user experience scorecard and apply it to the client’s product. Again, work with the client in advance to understand their pain points and see what additional data about their customers and their product they’re willing to share with you. Develop a UX scorecard and look at their website from the perspective of one of their potential users. Quantify your findings using the scorecard. This does not have to be a deep dive analysis, but can be an initial assessment that can help the client look at their business from the perspective of their existing and potential customers.
Provide Best Practices and Guidelines
Including some guidelines and best practices to accompany your illustrated examples can help drive home your points, especially if they compliment your related research findings. If you have a potential client that is in need to learn some basics, these might help:
Homepage guidelines
.: Clearly communicate your brand
.: Make the purpose of your Web site immediately apparent
.: Clearly indicate to the user where they are on your site
.: Provide high-level overview of offerings
Landing page guidelines
.: Align with online and offline advertising campaigns
.: Match natural and paid search engine results
.: Target content towards purpose and value of site page
.: Target content towards needs and goals of users
Additional Resources
:: The UX Research Cheat Sheet, from David Sherwin’s article: “Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients”
:: How To Quantify The User Experience, by Robert Rubinoff
:: A method for quantifying user experience, by Eric Reiss
:: Measuring the User Experience, a companion website to the book by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert
:: Explaining User Experience, by Jeremy Johnson
