Understanding Client Dynamics, presented at Embrace UX
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UX Designers become more valuable to their team when they understand how to achieve a client’s goal while creating a great experience for customers and users. When you can demonstrate to your team and to clients that you can bring together multiple objectives into one user-friendly design, everyone is more open to “those crazy creative design ideas” you introduce. Look for ideas on: - The impact of project context on design - Meeting basics - How to respond to specific client behaviours in your project
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Understanding Client Dynamics, presented at Embrace UX
- 1. UNDERSTANDING CLIENT DYNAMICS EMBRACE UX FEBRUARY 28, 2015 MORAG JOHNSTON © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 1
- 2. theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell © 2014 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 2
- 3. “What the heck just happened in there?” © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 3
- 4. WHY TALK ABOUT CLIENT DYNAMICS? Create a great user experience Affect business outcomes Generate repeat business © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 4
- 5. APPROACH Based on 20+ years of consulting experience. Assumes the best of people. © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 5
- 6. Designers are not users. © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 6
- 7. Designers are not clients. © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 7
- 8. “When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.” -- Steve Jobs http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/04/creativity-habits_n_4859769.html © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 8
- 9. Treat this like a design problem. © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ http://blog.mitx.org/Blog/bid/87111/What-Does-Innovation-Mean-to-You-7-of- 9
- 10. 1. What is your client’s goal? 2. What tools, skills and attitudes are they bringing to bear? © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 10
- 11. Image: http://hqworld.net/gallery/data/media/20/tip_of_the_iceberg.jpg Creating the User Experience Annual project portfolio Organizational objectives Political, Economic, Social and Technology Environment The Project 11 CONTEXT
- 12. Bid on contract Awarded contract Team formed Made aware of project External Project Team Internal Project Team Members PRIOR TO KICK-OFF Kick-off meeting © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 12
- 13. © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 13 Bid on contract Awarded contract Team formed Made aware of project External Project Team Kick-off meeting Internal Project Team Members
- 14. WHY DOES THIS PROJECT EXIST? •Market impact VS. risk •Investment VS. short term profit •Response to a competitor •Legislative requirement •Visual identity alignment © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 14
- 15. WHY WERE YOU PICKED? Reputation Account team Proposal Mandated © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 15
- 16. WHY THIS CLIENT TEAM? A-Team Right skills, knowledge, attitude, availability, connections & personalities Not the A-Team A-Team has higher priority work Growth opportunity Scope misjudgment Politics No one exists © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 16
- 17. AT THE TABLE •How do they introduce themselves? •Who does most of the talking? •What are they doing? •Where do people sit? © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 17
- 18. Image: http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/plan/groups/meetings-and-conferences/© 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 18
- 19. http://intimateexcellent.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/snapshots-cyrano-production-design-meeting/ 19
- 20. FRAMEWORK How What Why = Project contribution = Business contribution = Personal investment © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 20
- 21. PROJECT CONTRIBUTION 21 High Low Learn how they get things done Provide strong project management PROCESS RIGOR DESIGN EXPERIENCE © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ http://coldbroken.deviantart.com/art/Circuit-board-8359189 ExpertLearning the Ropes
- 22. PROJECT CONTRIBUTION Help them solution differently Move toward a partnership? UX / Subject matter education Over-over- communicate © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ http://coldbroken.deviantart.com/art/Circuit-board-8359189 22 High Low PROCESS RIGOR DESIGN EXPERIENCE ExpertLearning the Ropes
- 23. BUSINESS CONTRIBUTION © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 23 Expert Learning the Ropes ExpertLearning the Ropes CORE COMPETENCY DIGITAL EXPERIENCE
- 24. BUSINESS CONTRIBUTION Great business requirements Create allies, carefully Educate as best possible Why are they here? © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 24 Expert ExpertLearning the Ropes CORE COMPETENCY DIGITAL EXPERIENCE Learning the Ropes
- 25. PERSONAL INVESTMENT © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 25 Corporate Personal OpenClosed OBJECTIVES VULNERABILITY http://globe-views.com/dreams/lizard.html
- 26. © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 26 PERSONAL INVESTMENT Optimally productive May take credit Make them look good Do nothing in public Corporate Personal OpenClosed OBJECTIVES VULNERABILITY
- 27. Working with clients is a design problem. Improve incrementally. © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 27
- 28. THANKS UnderstandingClients.com @MoragJ © 2015 Morag Johnston | @MoragJ 28
Editor's Notes
- UX Designers become more valuable to their team when they understand how to achieve a client’s goal while creating a great experience for customers and users. When you can demonstrate to your team and to clients that you can bring together multiple objectives into one user-friendly design, everyone is more open to “those crazy creative design ideas” you introduce. Look for ideas on: - The impact of project context on design - Meeting basics - How to respond to specific client behaviours in your project 2 THANKS to Martin for inviting me to share my experiences in UX practice. 3 I wanted to contribute in an area that I hadn’t seen much written on. 4 For those of you starting out – I know it was new to me. 5 If you’ve been working for a while- some conversation.
- I recommend the oatmeal. This particular comic ends up with a website that includes blinking kittens or something.
- Diving right in… 1 This talk came from this situation: I’d come out of a meeting, or one of my team would, or both, and someone would say, “what the heck….” 2 In my first job. My boss, the owner of a small consulting firm, 3 Most recently, I noticed that most of my mentoring time was spent on this topic.
- I BELIEVE that the benefit of understanding client dynamics is that it can change your mindset toward your clients – empathy. With empathy, you can influence your project and product owners and achieve user experience design goals. This means the difference between: 1. Meeting project objectives VS. a great user experience 2. Beautiful deliverables VS. impact on organizational outcomes 3. One-offs VS. repeat business
- Based on my experience so anecdotal based on my observations. Could use a more rigorous approach – if any research No judgment – presented as my observations. .
- HOW IS IT THAT WE GET DERAILED BY OUR CLIENTS? Well we know that designers are not users. That is drilled into us.
- We are a different breed
- “… That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.” We synthesize ideas. Most of your clients won’t be synthesizers, so you’re going to need to explain things to them even when it seems obvious to you. Luke W: Recognize patterns Communicate visually Think from a position of empathy.
- The solution is to treat it like a design problem.
- We generally don’t assume that our users are evil – that they’ll attempt to hack the site. Your system’s IT folk are on top of that Similarly, let your account rep and your Project manager be the paranoid ones. when we’re frustrated, it’s so easy to say “my god that person is stupid or evil”. Rare. I’ve only had two clients that were Bullies and a couple of coworkers who were probably sociopaths
- How is this project going to operationalized? Are there dependencies on other projects also on the books this year? What’s the company trying to achieve – look at the annual report
- To get to that meeting, there were a number of steps – RFIs, RFPs, - but essentially, you bid on the contract…
- There was a trigger for every step in that process. Your Sales people, Account Managers, Project Managers, Product managers will be a fount of knowledge here.
- We like to assume that our clients are interested in changing the world and doing whatever it takes to create a world class customer experience – because that’s what we promised in the proposal. I had one project where we put tons of effort in a short time frame into an app for a low use OS, whose sole purpose was to get another higher use OS to provide us with funding to develop an app for their platform. “hey – look what we’re doing for your competitor.” e.g. LG television app
- Reputation Shake things up VS. play safe Strength of the account team What was promised? Did the client meet the execution team? Proposal What’s fixed: budget, people, timeline? Process: do they understand or care? Reputation gets you on the short list only. I tried to match the vendor with my team and the internal client team. Was the client wowed by your pitch team, and now you have to come in and execute? Design Process – many won’t understand it, don’t understand the value, and worried that you’re going to spend too much time on research or navel gazing.
- If you’re not getting the A-Team – why not? These are all valid reasons. This will not become apparent until you’re into the project a bit.
- As always, be present in the moment, and observe. Titles – how do they introduce themselves? Do they “run”, “lead”, “support”, not clear? – window into corporate culture Where do people sit? If you sit beside the decision maker, you’re more likely to get them on side than if you sit across the table/in opposition. Note words. What are they doing – are they on their phone? Are they taking notes? Who does most of the talking, and how are their colleagues reacting to that person?
- Let’s get into the meat of it. NEED AT LEAST 20 minutes for the rest.
- All persona development has to start with a theory, or hypothesis. This is mine. What are they willing to do to make this a success Can they make the business that this project is contributing to a success? Design contribution – icing on the cake, really What’s needed next is observable, discoverable traits that map to these 3 groupings. clients are people too start of the project we tend to think of them as an amorphous mass with a spokesperson CLIENT PERSONAS Hypothesize defining characteristics Research – interview, survey, test Cluster analysis Create personas based on clusters and show differentiation
- First thing that is usually apparent is how comfortable the team is with working on a project, within a project environment through their language, etc. You will also know pretty quickly whether they have worked with a UX designer before and in what capacity – just visual design, or engaged throughout the whole process
- Projects that were not priority for my boss. We’d recommend a vendor if asked.
- Worst case, they don’t get digital and don’t care. Found more often when you’re working in cross-platform teams, or with people whose work is affected by the digital project.
- Top right – AND you’ll learn lots from them Educate – draw from their offline realm for parallels Allies – they may be on the team because they’re the most digitally savvy person they have. win-win. Help them find a way in with their colleagues. BUT don’t ally with them at the expense of higher priority stakeholders If they’re a key member – dig. Worst case replace or work around. News radio example – knew radio but stuck on the idea that site visits had to be long to generate the ad revenue they wanted. We spent a full meeting explaining how we were going to drive multiple visits per day – like their radio station. Basis of the project was supposed to be a straight lift and drop from one CMS to another, but everyone kept trying to sneak their favourite features in there. Where are you – I interviewed people who knew UX but came into the interview saying that they were reluctant to put ads in front of users.
- Personal Investment Weigh personal versus corporate objectives. There’s always a personal component, but what’s the balance? Good things happen when someone’s compensation is tied to corporate objectives. “Closed” means that the person is afraid of looking stupid, and so doesn’t contribute as much as they could. what are their individual motivations – what are they looking to get out of this result: what is personally driving the clients who are at the table money, prestige, reputation, title, career advancement, getting home to see their family Frustrated designer Motivations: Corporate objectives versus personal objectives Vulnerability: Willing to collaborate/say what they don’t know vs. fearful of looking stupid
- Paul English – 10 years ago. Kayak.com & pinpoint travel. Trusted our team to design. As founder, he was highly incented to make things work. Incidentally, we later found out that aol was on the block, so suspected that beyond generating revenue, our project was part of a concerted effort for aoL to present itself as a more forward looking company in the marketplace Help by rephrasing Personal and open – rare in clients, and awkward Get a good rapport behind the scenes to explain, or work around. WHERE ARE YOU? Risks of perfectionism to the project, arm crossing.
- Basic playground rules. Empathy Communication Boundaries