Tips you can use in your organization to help bring person-focused (instead of idea- or solution- or data-focused) research into your process. Balance the numbers with the reasons why, the descriptions, and the patterns of human behavior.
2. Risk vs. Confidence
The business world believes knowledge is best
represented by numbers …
WebVisions Portland 2014 3
3. The Problem
WebVisions Portland 2014
organizations only have
half the tools
Organizations have been moving into the digital
frontier using philosophies honed for the
manufacturing of objects.
4
10. WebVisions Portland 2014
data, trends, surveys, conversion rates, etc.
(photo of reports)
Photo credit: Marc Smith flickr 5252467080, 6871711979; Michael Coghlan 11
16. Natural vs. Artificial
Science
WebVisions Portland 2014
the way organizations do
research has splintered
Quote credit: Dr. Karl Fast, professor of User Experience, Kent State
Organizations use natural science techniques
and vocabulary to “prove” things.
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17. WebVisions Portland 2014Photo credit: Bruce McKay flickr 3811256597, Peter Schofield flickr shoey/131014908, Duane Tate flickr fdtate/9982411 18
19. WebVisions Portland 2014
second half of the story is human
only reflects the teams’ personal experiences
Photo credit: Wikipedia, Daily scrum meeting 20
22. Circle the Solution &
People
WebVisions Portland 2014
look at people’s intent
and reasoning
23
listen
deepen
applythink
make
check
brainstorming
IDEA
user research
PEOPL
E
27. WebVisions Portland 2014
minimum viable product
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
p h a s e
t w o
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
m i n i m u m
v i a b l e
p r o d u c t
28
29. The View from the Top
WebVisions Portland 2014
so much responsibility
Your boss thinks more about protecting
the organization than supporting the customer.
Photo credit: Nestle flickr 62634946450, CEO Paul Buckle, Nestle 30
30. WebVisions Portland 2014
“New ideas involve risk. Give me proof the idea will
be successful. I want data—numbers we can
measure. We must be data-driven.”
Photo credit: US Ambassador Gutman flickr 5750452073, CEO Mattheiu Boone, Lotus Bakeries 31
31. Quantitative vs.
Qualitative
WebVisions Portland 2014
not opposite ends of the
same spectrum
quantitative
qualitative
estimate detailed tally/calculation
guess detailed depiction
quantity, amount
patterns, regularities, differences
32
32. WebVisions Portland 2014
Dr. Brené Brown Jun-2010 TEDxHouston
“The goal in qualitative research is to obtain insight.
The confidence one has in qualitative results
comes from … the degree to which findings are
consistent across discussions.”
Dr. Brené Brown Jun-2010 TEDxHouston 33
33. Organizational
Obstacles
WebVisions Portland 2014
why isn’t it working?
Silos creating divisions between people who should be speaking to each other
Management structures in which people feel that they cannot speak to other people
No time to think or plan in situations where people are working so hard to meet their short-term
goals and implement their solutions so quickly that they have no time to lift their heads to see the
path ahead or plan what they should really be working on
No customer truth where siloed businesses are creating different versions of customer truth,
leading to false assumptions about how to meet customers’ needs
Too much rational thinking people spending so much energy on being business people that they
forget how to communicate as human beings and instead speak in numbers
Holistic Thinking on Transitioning to a New Practice Framework, Daniel Szuc, Josephine Wong; UX Matters, Nov-2013
34
34. WebVisions Portland 2014
Care about your customers as humans
Think about larger relationships
Dispel assumptions
Designing the Future of Business, Daniel Szuc, Josephine Wong; UX Matters, Jun-2013
35
36. WebVisions Portland 2014
What does she mean by
“managing the
awkwardness?” I need to
understand her reasoning
there.
I feel her joy!
Landing her dream
job is fantastic!
She’s worked so
hard.
I am trying to have
empathy for these slow
people who obviously
haven’t boarded a
plane in a while.
37
39. WebVisions Portland 2014
cognitive empathy
emotional empathy
self empathy
mirrored empathy
personal distress
empathic concern
intuitive, reactive
Echoing the emotion
another person (or
group) is expressing
intentional, constructed
Figuring out how and
why another person
thinks and reacts
40
40. WebVisions Portland 2014
cognitive empathy
emotional empathy
self empathy
mirrored empathy
personal distress
empathic concern
intuitive, reactive
“I empathize with you
about the layoffs.”
intentional, constructed
“I see, now, how the
team’s coach is helping
them handle their
losses.”
41
47. DEVELOPING EMPATHY
WebVisions Portland 2014
cognitive empathy
emotional empathy
self empathy
mirrored empathy
personal distress
empathic concern
Image credit: ear imgarcade.com, pot flaticon.com, magnifying glass
APPLYIN
G
EMPATHY
tochangeminds
tocommunicate
toimagineit
to persuade
48
48. DEVELOPING EMPATHY
WebVisions Portland 2014
cognitive empathy
emotional empathy
self empathy
mirrored empathy
personal distress
empathic concern
Image credit: ear imgarcade.com, pot flaticon.com, magnifying glass
APPLYIN
G
EMPATHY
tochangeminds
tocommunicate
things you make
interactions with people
toimagineit
to persuade
49
49. WebVisions Portland 2014 50
Management told us to go make a new
dispatch application that will compete
with others who are already in the
market.
Srinivas Raghavan, Andrea Villa
51. WebVisions Portland 2014 52
Management told us to go make a new
dispatch application that will compete
with others who are already in the
market.
Srinivas Raghavan, Andrea Villa
The empathy research told us that people
are well-served in dispatch already … but it
showed us a whole new area of the
business that was completely under-
served!
52. Ecosystems
WebVisions Portland 2014
information systems are
“intertwingled”
Design is not limited to digital services.
It includes policy-making, process design, and
writing.
Vocabulary credit: Peter Morville’s new book 53
53. WebVisions Portland 2014
Empathy showed us how people
trying to lose weight lived with
completely different situations. We
decided we had to produce content
unique to each of the three groups to
be effective.
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58. WebVisions Portland 2014 59
listen
deepen
applythink
make
check
brainstorming
IDEA
user research
PEOPL
E
59. It’s No Longer a Frontier
WebVisions Portland 2014
minimal solutions are
fine for a frontier
Dispel assumptions
Make smarter choices
Stop wasting resources
60
60. The Data Is Talking
WebVisions Portland 2014
help your organization to
listen
jlkjl
Photo credit: Vijay Gunda flickr vgunda/3714195223 61
Design is not limited to screen-based products. It includes policy-making process design and writing. Now we have services that bleed into products which are supported by writing and by processes and policies. Digital means things can be custom-fit based on understanding of a person’s intent and history of that person’s actions.
Manufacturing, factory downtime, supply chain, labor costs … automation, disruptive technology, smarts and courage to solve something in a bold way … All about the PRODUCT
music is being sorted using the meta tags that were defined many years ago in MP3. The system is record based, very linear, and doesn't provide this level of flexibility. it's an example of design based on the database, not on the user needs.
Other artists’ work. Make the connections. Explore. Gain meaning via context.Netflix just spent $1million on improving recommendations, yet it sticks to established data fields. Abby: apps only aim to make us efficient, result of engineers? Isn’t there something more?
What if there was an app that let you search by architect, similar style buildings, and it notes that your contact list has a friend working in a similar building, and that there is a building of the same firm in the city you just bought tickets to visit, etc.
These are all used to persuade and CYA. Incremental improvements are safe. No one gets in trouble because there is no risk.
Employees run out and do a quick survey to back up a premise. The results usually favor the new idea.
Marketing; science persuades
Hyperbole/manipulation. The holder with the most senior claim (the oldest claim) gets all of his share before any junior holders. If his share is 50 cubic feet per second (cfs), and the stream has only 60 cfs this year, he would get all 50, and the juniors would get their share of the remaining 10. If there was less precipitation, and the stream has only 40 cfs this year, the senior holder would get all 40, but nothing more because there isn’t anything more. The junior holders would get zero.
Money makes you mean – cars stopping for a ped, monopoly; poor research technique makes assumptions about people without listening to their reasoning. Does this for attention, funding. Picked a hot topic, the disparity between rich and poor, and exploited it to get published.
Rocks and ducks and sunlight would still be here if people didn’t exist.
Artificial science is the study of anything that humans have created.
Usually data is not collected; it’s personal experience about an idea. People in the room.
We have data; each person chooses differently. Why is the trip being taken? Is it an obligation? What’s the person’s attitude about the flights—does he want to squeeze in other things to accomplish on the day he flies? Does he want to get home to his four-year-old as soon as possible? Or does he enjoy having the flight time to himself, conserving it for creative thought and productivity? Is he trying to add up mileage points to keep his status with an airline?
Netflix recommendations are based on ratings. There’s nothing in between. There’s no rating by acting or cinematography or by lack of violence.There’s no way to let Netflix know that a movie you rated in college isn’t what you want to watch 20 years later.
Lean and agile aim for putting out something in the interim, the least effort to get something valid working. “Viable” is subject to debate and always constrained by the organization’s perspective.
The mythical “phase two.” There are too many projects out there that stop at minimum.
If you build minimum spec, you will get overwhelmed by forces of real people trying to get things done.
Numbers, words. “Just because it’s something you can’t count doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.” Albert Einstien
Empathy means so many different things to different people.
Affective=emotional … perspective-taking
Developing empathy
Developing empathy
You listen and observe to develop empathy (except self empathy)
Simmer what you learned, across many participants, to deepen your developed empathy
Let the empathy you consolidated bathe and enrich the things you make and the interactions you have with people.
Let the empathy you consolidated bathe and enrich the things you make and the interactions you have with people.
Let the empathy you consolidated bathe and enrich the things you make and the interactions you have with people.
Let the empathy you consolidated bathe and enrich the things you make and the interactions you have with people.
Turns people around, expands their vision
Turns people around, expands their vision
Design is not limited to screen-based products. It includes policy-making process design and writing. Now we have services that bleed into products which are supported by writing and by processes and policies. Digital means things can be custom-fit based on understanding of a person’s intent and history of that person’s actions.
Philosopher gets upstream, to the roots. Business guy asks about margins on phone sales, philosopher asks why the customer is trying to connect with people.
Minimal solutions are fine for a frontier, but it’s no longer a frontier.
If you know the terrain, you can confidently go off-trail; explore a promising valley; branch away from your competition. Stop jostling for position to blaze the expected trail.