Workshop: Designing a user experience without a screen

Although the screen used to dominate the digital world, thanks to the rapid improvement of technologies, there are more options emerging. Most of mobile users have used or heard Siri from Apple iOS and Amazon Echo and almost 60 Mio Americans apparently already own a smart speaker. Until recently sill unheard of, nowadays smart voice based assistants are changing our life quickly. This means that user experience has to think beyond screen based interfaces. Actually it has always defined a holistic experience in a context where the user is involved, and also in speech recognition and speech as main input source, UX is needed to prevent potential usability issues in its interaction.

Yuri participated in our innoday workshop as an UX designer, where her goal was to help the team to define a recipe assistant with ASR and TTS, that help the user to cook recipes in the kitchen without using his hands, and is a enjoyable to use. In this blog post Yuri helped me to write down our UX workshop steps.

Ideation

We started off with a brainstorming of our long term vision and short term vision and then wrote down down our ideas and thoughts on post its. We then grouped the ideas into three organically emerging topics, which were Business, Technology and User needs. I took the liberty to highlight some of the aspects that came to our minds:

• User
  • Privacy: Users might not want to have their voice samples saved on some google server. Click here to listen to all your samples, if you have an Android phone.
  • Alexa vs. Mobile or is audio only enough?: We spent a lot of discussion thinking if a cookbook could work in an audio only mode. We were aware that there is for example an Alexa Skill from Chefkoch, but somehow the low rating made us suspicious if the user might need some minimal visual orientation. An app might be able to show you the ingredients or some visual clues on what to do in a certain step and who doesn't like these delicious pictures in recipes that lure you in to give a recipe a try?
  • Conversational Flow: An interesting aspect, that is easy to overlook was how to design the conversational flow in order to allow the user enough flexibility when going through each step of recipe but also not being to rigid.
  • Wakeup Word: The so called wakeup word is a crucial part of every ASR system, which triggers the start of the recording. I've written about it in a recent blog post.
  • Assistant Mode: Working with audio also gives interesting opportunities for features that are rather unusual on normal apps. We thought of a spoken audio alert, when the app notifies you to take the food from the oven. Something that might feel very helpful, or very annoying, depending on how it is solved.
• Technology
  • Structured Data: Interestingly we soon realized that breaking down a cooking process means that we need to structure our data better than a simple text. An example is simply multiplying the ingredients by the amount of people. An interesting project in this area is the open recipe format that simply defines a YAML to hold all the necessary data in a structured way.
  • Lag and Usability: Combining TTS with ASR poses an interesting opportunity to combine different solutions in one product, but also poses the problem of time lags when two different cloud based systems have to work together.
• Business
  • Tech and Cooking: Maybe a silly idea, but we definitely thought that as men it would feel much cooler to use a tech gadget to cook the meal, instead of a boring cookbook.

User journey

From there we took on the question: “How might we design an assistant that allows for cooking without looking at recipe on the screen several times, since the users’ hands and eyes are busy with cooking.”

We sketched the user journey as a full spectrum of activities that go beyond just cooking, and can be described as:

• Awareness of the recipes and its interface on App or Web
• Shopping ingredients according to selected recipe
• Cooking
• Eating
• After eating

Due to the limited time of an inno-day, we decided to focus on the cooking phase only, while acknowledging that the this phase is definitely part of a much bigger user journey, where some parts, such as exploration, might be hard to tackle with an audio-only assistant. We tried though to explore the cooking step of the journey and broke it down into its own sub-steps. For example:

• Cooking
  • Preparation
  • Select intended Recipe to cook
  • Select number of portions to cook
  • Check ingredients if the user has them all ready
• Progress
  • Prepare ingredients
  • The actual cooking (boiling, baking, etc)
  • Seasoning and garnishing
  • Setting on a table

This meant for our cooking assistant that he needs to inform the user when to start each new sub-step and introduce the next steps in a easy unobtrusive way. He has also to track the multiple starts and stops from small actions during cooking, to for example remind the user to preheat the baking oven at an early point in time, when the user might not think of that future step yet (see below)

User experience with a screen vs. no screen

Although we were first keen on building an audio only interface, we found that a quick visual overview helps to make the process faster and easier. For example, an overview of ingredients can be viewed at a glance on the mobile screen without listening every single ingredient from the app. As a result we decided that a combination of a minimal screen output and voice output will ease out potential usability problems.

Since the user needs to navigate with his voice easy input options like “back”, “stop”, “forward”, “repeat” we decided to also show the step that the user is currently in the screen. This feedback helps the user to solve small errors or just orient himself more easily.

During the ux-prototyping phase, we also realised that we should visually highlight the moments when the user is expected to speak and when he is expected to listen. That's why immediately after a question from the app, we would like to show an icon with a microphone meaning “Please tell me your answer!”. In a similar way we also want to show an audio icon when we want the user to listen carefully. Finally since we didn’t want the assistant to permanently listen to audio, but listen to a so called “wake-up-word”, we show a little ear-icon, signalling that the assistant is now listening for this wake-up-word.

While those micro interactions and visual cues, helped us to streamline the user experience, we still think that these are definitely areas that are central to a user experience and should be improved in a next iteration.

Conclusion and what's next

I enjoyed that instead of starting to write code right away, we first sat together and started to sketch out the concept, by writing sticky notes, with ideas and comments that came to our mind. I enjoyed having a mixed group where we had UX people, Developers, Data Scientists and Project owners sitting at one table. Although our ambitious goal for the day was to deliver a prototype that was able to read recipes to the user we ran out of time and I couldn’t code the prototype on that day, but in exchange I think we gathered very valuable insights on a user experiences that work and that don’t work without a screen. We realized that going totally without a screen is much harder than it seems. It is crucial for the user experience that the user has enough orientation to know where he is in the process in order for him not to feel lost or confused.

In the final and third blog post of this mini series I will finally provide you with the details on how to write a simple flask and socket.io based prototype that combines automatic speech recognition, text to speech and wake-up-word detection to create a hands-free cooking experience.

You surely received many companies’ emails about your data privacy during last weeks. That’s due to the new European law (called GDPR for General Data Protection Regulation) that became enforceable on the 25th of May 2018.
This is a major step towards a more responsible usage of personal data by companies, as you can now request information on how your data is being used, and ask to change it.

Nevertheless, as James Aschberger (Founder & CEO of One.Thing.Less AG) noticed, many people didn’t understand how they can concretely claim their rights using this new regulation.

"It’s overwhelming, where do I even start?"

"I am worried about my data, but I don’t have the time or knowledge to contact companies individually or read through all the privacy policies and terms of use they put in front of me."

"I receive so many messages regarding data privacy, but I don’t understand all of it and don’t have time to read the fine print."

There is an app for that now

We at Liip have worked hard during the past four months to make the One.Thing.Less dream of James happen — a free and simple way to take control over the use of your personal data.

You can now download the app on the Apple App Store (and in June on Google Play for Android) and make your voice heard by companies.

One.Thing.Less mobile app Homescreen

Keep It Simple, Stupid (aka KISS)

When James first came to us, he made it clear that the User Experience had to be simple. That was one of our main challenge: solve this complex legal problem via one click.

This is what we did.

Ask companies about the use of your personal data, in one tap.

On the above view, you can just press the “Send request” to ask a company seven (simple) questions about the use of your personal data. Companies have to provide a response within 30 days under GDPR.

Then you can request them to change how they make use of your personal data, still one click away.

Change the way companies use your personal data

A trustful partnership

We can’t stop talking about trust here at Liip, as we believe that’s one of the core element of successful products and companies.
This project was a great example of how one of our mottos “Trust over control” can lead to extraordinary results, in less than four months.

"Successfully launching our platform in such a short time was only possible because we established and earned mutual trust along the entire journey together. If I had not been able to trust that each of the Liip team members delivers, we would have failed." James Aschberger, Founder & CEO at One.Thing.Less AG

"It was a chance to craft such a meaningful product, in a trustful and solution-oriented partnership." Thomas Botton, Product Owner at Liip

fenaco is an agricultural association with a concept dating back over a century and is owned by around 192 LANDI cooperatives and their over 42,000 members, 22,000 of whom are active Swiss farmers. Some of their best-known brands include drinks manufacturer RAMSEIER Suisse, meat processor Ernst Sutter, retailers Volg and LANDI, fertiliser supplier Landor, feed manufacturer UFA and energy supplier AGROLA. The aim of fenaco is to help farmers economically develop their businesses.

The company is celebrating its 25th birthday this year, an excellent reason to update its outdated online presence. A new company website was needed, but what would it look like – and what should it say?

The website project

The aim of the project was to achieve a simple, clearly structured appearance. The company’s website needed to be modern and attractive. The fenaco brand was to be strengthened without weakening the brands of the companies which are part of the association. These were the requirements with which we began the project. We had a clear aim, a short time frame and a modest budget.

Agile development methods and an active exchange with customers meant that the project could be implemented within a short period of time and for a relatively small budget. Two POs (product owners) worked to ensure that everything ran smoothly: fenaco’s PO recorded the requirements in the form of tickets in Jira, and Liip’s PO prioritised them in conjunction with the development team. Regular coordination and approval meetings in small groups were held for this purpose.

The website was developed using Drupal 8 to ensure a high level of flexibility and a modular structure. The design impresses with its simple colours, taken from fenaco’s corporate design, and its user-oriented menu navigation. The end results speak for themselves! We look forward to seeing how fenaco’s customers and stakeholders react.

Trust over control

We worked together to replace the outdated website and improve fenaco’s visibility without competing with the brands of its members, building on the trust placed in our collaboration and shared goals.

«Liip delivered on their promises – consulting on equal terms, strong project support, a high level of design skill, and a technically perfect solution – all on budget and on time, in what was a very pleasant collaboration. Thank you!»
Elias Loretan, Online and Social Media Manager at fenaco

«A precision landing with minimum effort thanks to a straightforward collaboration between Liip and fenaco» Daniel Frey, Liip PO

Talking about improving customer satisfaction, companies often describe the fancy new product they are about to design. The one that is meant to boost customer satisfaction and sales rates like a miracle. But: Is the lack of this new product really the source of unhappy customers?

The biggest obstacles for customer friendliness are (internal) processes.

As a Service Designer at Liip, I do a lot of user research in my projects to find out what makes customers unhappy and how we can solve this. And in most of the cases, I encounter difficult, complicated or nontransparent processes as the biggest pain points. Customers feel, that they have to make too much effort to get the problem solved. Often it doesn’t seem to be clear what to do next. Or they are redirected many times and have to tell the same story over and over again.
These problems typically result from (internal) processes that don’t suit the customers' and employees' needs. And in the meantime they seem to have a big impact on customer satisfaction and the way a customer talks about a company.

Internal processes often seem complex and difficult to change.

In my projects, I experience that many people often don’t dare to touch these processes, although they realise something is not working well. Why? Typically, the problems have many different causes. So a variety of processes and systems are affected and they can’t be assigned to just one department or one person’s responsibility. So who should take care of them? Who feels responsible to change something? This threatens to end up expensive and complicated. Sounds a bit like Pandora’s box, right?

But also the cost of doing nothing is high.

People often forget that doing nothing also is expensive and complicated too. Unhappy customers who spread bad word of mouth or don’t buy again can have a big impact on a company’s revenues. Also, handling customer enquiries costs a lot of money, especially when internal processes to handle them are complicated too. And last but not least - the impact of unhappy employees on a company’s performance is not to be underestimated.

Align the customer experience with what happens behind the scenes.

So in order to improve customer satisfaction, it’s time to pay attention to user friendly and efficient services. It’s about aligning the customer experience with what happens behind the scenes - from internal processes to tools and systems.

But how to get there? And how to not get lost in complexity, especially when the service touches many different processes, systems and departments? Service Design provides us a lot of useful answers to these questions.

How to design user friendly and efficient services - 9 steps

1. Have a clear mission:
   At the beginning of every project, I work on creating a clear mission and a common understanding of where to go together with the team - like a lighthouse that helps to keep orientation on the way.
2. Understand the problem in all its aspects before working on the solution:
   In my opinion, the most important part of creating useful new services is to have a clear and overall understanding of where exactly the issues are - from the user’s needs to the company’s goals and problems. And very important: based on data, not assumptions.
3. Start with the user’s needs, not what tools allow you.
4. Focus in Ideation:
   It requires some discipline to not ideate on whatever seems to be cool. But clearly focusing on solving exactly the problems the team encountered is crucial to not get lost in complexity.
5. Prototype ideas already at early stages:
   The clear common understanding of what the idea consists of is extremely valuable.
6. Test continuously:
   The more feedback we get, the better. It helps to discover if we are on the right or wrong way at an early stage.
7. Implement step by step:
   Implementing one idea after the other helps to get things done and not get lost in too many measures we can’t cope with. Improving services is often about continuously implementing a bunch of measures in order to fulfill one big longterm mission. Agile methods as Scrum perfectly support this way of working during implementation.
8. Think big. But start small:
   Sometimes also small changes are promising.
9. Evolve:
   Projects are never done with the GoLive. They just enter a new phase: the one where our work gets really tested by the mass of users. Every new learning helps us to continuously improve the service.

What are your experiences with designing better services and processes? What was hard, what worked well? Let me know by leaving a comment.

Ayant compris tous les bénéfices business que l’implication des QoQasiens va apporter à la nouvelle plateforme web, il ne peut pas imaginer faire autrement pour la refonte de leur application mobile. Les challenges principaux auxquels fait face l’équipe QoQa sont lancés :

• Challenge 1 : Qu’est ce qui ferait de l’expérience QoQa quelque chose d’exceptionnel ?
• Challenge 2 : Comment créer une expérience d’achat exempte de frustration, mais qui reste excitante et fun ?
• Challenge 3 : Comment peut-on accueillir les nouveaux clients pour qu'ils se sentent vraiment les bienvenus ?
• Challenge 4 : Comment faire grandir la famille QoQa ?

Des Legos pour stimuler la créativité

Afin d’aider QoQa de la manière la plus efficiente qui soit, nous leur avons proposé un workshop de Design Thinking. Cet outil de résolution de problématiques permet de co-créer des solutions créatives et innovantes en impliquant l'utilisateur final.
L’avantage de cette approche est qu’en une ou deux journées, on arrive à : identifier les personnes clés ayant un intérêt pour la solution, définir une ou plusieurs problématiques à traiter, générer des idées innovantes, les prototyper, et les tester concrètement.

Plutôt que de vous faire un résumé de cette journée moi-même, j’ai demandé à Joann de répondre à plusieurs questions pour vous partager son expérience.

Quel était le besoin initial derrière cette volonté de renouveler vos applications mobiles en 2016 ?
L’objectif était simple: nous avons toujours eu comme objectif premier d’offrir aux QoQasiens des applications simples à utiliser, et amusantes. Dès le départ, nous voulions utiliser ce nouveau support non pas comme un canal de plus, mais bien comme une nouvelle opportunité d’être au plus proche de notre Qommunauté. Pourquoi faire une app, si c’est pour offrir exactement les mêmes possibilités que sur le web ? Et en voyant le potentiel ainsi que le trafic - qui devient supérieur au web - nous avons décidé de monter une team en interne et de voir les apps mobiles comme une priorité dans nos réflexions.

Qu’as-tu pensé du Design Thinking de prime abord, lorsqu’on vous a proposé cette méthode comme solution à votre problématique ?
J’ai tout de suite été enthousiaste! Cette méthode collaborative nous a permis d’aller au plus proche des besoins de nos QoQasiens. Cette démarche a pris du temps, notamment l’identification des personas, mais cela nous a fait beaucoup de bien. Notre parti-pris, c’est “On Qiffe tout le monde”: mais même si QoQa ne doit exclure personne, nous avions pas mal d’idées préconçues sur notre public. Pour nous, l’important était donc de pouvoir se retrouver avec des QoQasiens de tous horizons et d’en connaître leurs besoins. C’était vraiment ultra-motivant!

A quoi t’attendais-tu comme résultat de cette journée de workshop (avant de la faire) ?
Dur à dire! Disons que je pensais ressortir de cette journée avec des centaines d’idées mais ma grande interrogation était: “Est-ce que nous pourrons en faire quelque chose de concret ?”

La co-créativité comme élément central de la journée

Comment as-tu sélectionné les personnes qui ont participé au workshop ?
On a d’abord fait une analyse de notre “clientèle”. Même si nous ne sommes pas trop fanas de la démarche, je dois dire que cette analyse nous a fait du bien. Au final, nous avions 6 types distincts et avons trouvé pour chaque persona deux personnes dans notre entourage.

Où as-tu décidé d’effectuer le workshop, et pourquoi ?
Il fallait un lieu qui représente QoQa, qui nous sorte du bureau et qui nous pousse à être créatifs. Ce n’était pas considéré comme une journée de travail, mais comme une journée de détente, de fun et d’éclate. Nous avons donc décidé d’aller au bar TA CAVE à Lausanne, un lieu communautaire et atypique que nous avons pu privatiser une journée. Bons vins, bonne bouffe, super chaleureux… C’était le reflet parfait de notre philosophie!

Comment s’est déroulée la journée ? Qu’est-ce qui t’a surpris ou déçu ?
Hyper bien, à certains moments je pensais halluciner. Surtout quand j’ai compris que nous allions travailler avec des Legos! Mais en fait l’ambiance super créative était vraiment motivante. Ce workshop a même créé des nouvelles amitiés! Des idées un peu folles en sont ressorties, mais elles répondaient toutes à un réel besoin. Les échanges ont permis de trouver des solutions créatives, et de répondre à chaque persona et ses propres problématiques. Donc autant vous dire que nos apps mobiles sont aujourd’hui juste le début d’une belle aventure!

Quels impacts a eu cette journée de workshop sur la stratégie digitale de QoQa pour les apps mobiles (ou web/digital plus globalement) ?
Nos apps mobiles sont considérées comme un nouveau canal et non pas un simple device qui nous permet de faire la même chose que sur la version web. Cette journée nous a permis de valider — ou pas — nos prochains développements. Et notre stratégie reste simple, à savoir répondre aux besoins de nos QoQasiens et donc continuer à les impliquer dans nos futures réflexions.

Concrètement, quels sont les projets innovants qui ont déjà été implémentés — ou qui vont être implémentés (tu nous donnes un petit teaser sur la semaine anniversaire ?)
Je peux difficilement parler de nouvelles features. Mais par contre, je peux vous dire que tous les aspects communautaires seront bientôt dans nos apps mobiles. Je parle des Qdéfis, des sondages, des chasses au trésor, etc. Nous avons également décidé de passer plus de temps pour de la R&D afin de tester des idées résultantes du workshop, et soyez sûr que de belles choses se préparent pour 2018… La réalité augmentée nous intéresse beaucoup !

Un prototype répondant à une problématique concrète

À quelle société en Suisse romande recommanderais-tu ce type de workshop, et pour répondre à quel problème ?
À toutes les boîtes qui ont besoin d’évoluer et d’écouter leurs clients. Nous vivons une période étrange avec cette transformation digitale… Je pense que c’est le bon moment pour se poser les bonnes questions. Car l’objectif ne sera pas de juste numériser, de faire un site web ou une app, mais bien de répondre à un vrai besoin et de se transformer pour évoluer dans le bon sens.

Pourquoi as-tu fais confiance à Liip plutôt qu’à une société de consulting en stratégie qui aurait pu proposer le même type de workshop ?
Car vous êtes des pointures, et en plus vous mettez l’ambiance aux apéros !

Vous pouvez retrouver un résumé vidéo de ce workshop de Design Thinking QoQa qui retranscrit bien l’ambiance de cette journée d’idéation.

Chez Liip, on adore cette énergie créative et collaborative qui ressort de chaque workshop de Design Thinking. C’est grisant de voir des idées innovantes qui fusent et prennent forme grâce à un judicieux mélange de personnes du “business” et d’utilisateurs réels venant d’horizons différents.

Pour le client ou la marque concernée, c’est à chaque fois le même refrain qu’on entend en sortant du workshop : “On a enfin pu prendre le besoin à sa source, et se reconnecter avec nos clients finaux dans la vraie vie (vs. sur nos Analytics) !”

Liip has supported the Migros Group on the basis of a preliminary study, first wireframes and the CI/CD to design the new online career portal, to design it interactively and visually as well as to implement it technically. "One of the biggest challenges in the project was to map the complex group structure of Migros in a way that was easy for the user to understand," says Product Owner Martin Meier at Liip. The solution to this problem was, among other things, user testing of an early wireframe prototype and a consistent focus on the user on both the visitor and editorial side. Although the "Migros Gruppe Arbeitswelt" hosted more than 60 cooperatives and companies at the launch and the content was created by a correspondingly large number of teams, a very high degree of visual and structural consistency can be ensured through the site. This is made possible by a flat information architecture and numerous content modules that automatically adapt to the respective context. This gives cooperatives and companies sufficient flexibility and scope to optimize their new career site.

The new online platform was implemented together with the Migros Group deliberately following an agile approach. The continuous optimization during the course of the project enabled us to develop a high quality product, which already comes with extensive functions in the first release. The focus is on the search function for 600 jobs per month and the 1500 additional apprenticeships advertised each year, which is extremely efficient and flexible due to the modern Vue.js frontend architecture. For content management, the open source system Drupal 8 was chosen. In summary, Micol Rezzonico, Head of the Competence Center Employer Branding, says: "Together with Liip, we have succeeded in building a clear and stable platform that can be developed further on a modular basis and gives the Migros Group the opportunity to make its extraordinary diversity and the many qualities in the field of career accessable".

Responsible at the Migros Cooperative Association: Micol Rezzonico (Head of Competence Center Employer Branding), Christopher Schmidt (Project Manager), Pascal Schwager (Product Owner), Sabina Del Grosso (Content Strategy), Ivan Ganarin (Information Architect); Responsible at Liip: Martin Meier (Product Owner, Consultant), Jan Hug (UX Designer, Developer), Jonathan Minder (Developer), Krisztian Kovacs (Developer), Christian Wüthrich (Developer), Christian Stocker (Developer), Fabian Ryf (SEO/Analytics), Daniel Frey (Scrum Master), Tonio Zemp (Consultant).

Link to the Migros Gruppe Arbeitswelt: www.migros-gruppe.jobs

When preparing a design thinking workshop for my colleagues, I realised that we do practice design thinking everyday as designer but often our clients don’t realise it. One of the reason, is that we don’t extensively sell our service under the name of design thinking. But it is the foundation of every step of our work. Design thinking is a method with many tools and techniques. It is often used in user experience, customer experience and service design as an output.

No matter they are small or big project, we keep the end users in the center of the solution for every project. As user experience designers, we apply these tools and techniques to projects depend on the status and the type of work. In other words, we are using design thinking method at liip without people realise it because it is the baseline in order to create great user experience.

You don’t know what to solve? Then, you are right on the track.

Business problems are complex and difficult, and often are hard to explain. It seems that there is no right solutions for them. It can be hard to know where to start and what to solve. Don’t panic! That’s a good time to start!

The discovery phase 1

We start with a discovery phase, when we empathise with the users through interviews and observation. When people are involved in a project or business for a long time, often they think that they know their customers well. However market trend changes, so do people’s preferences and lifestyle. It is important to update time to time, and reflect on what has impacted our customers and how they feel.
By analysing discovery phase, we can collect insights and problematic issues where we can bring to the next step, “defining a problem”.

Writing a good problem statement shapes to the right ideas.

Based on the outcome of discovery phase, we can gather insights. While analysing the insights we can see a patterns and critical topics in the area. It’s time to find focus area by identifying problem statement. We start with question; how might we…… This shouldn’t be too small or too broad. We should give some space for creativity.

• A bad example is: How might we redesign a hotel booking app for everyone to reserve accommodation. (The solution is already provided and for everyone is too broad)
• A good example is: How might we redesign booking process for digital savvy users to integrate seamlessly in their devices. (It gives a room to explore and areas to focus)

Design thinking will show you the way how to reach to the solution!

We are living in the era when tons of information and digital solutions are available. They should be structured easy to use rather than consuming our precious time. User centered design is essential for complex problems, hence Design Thinking method is widely used in many industries.
Common mistakes are often jumping into solution quickly. We should not discuss from a feature list but questioning what is the insight and what would be the meaningful solution. In this way we can pave the way to the right direction and we will get there at the end.

1. Why bother with user testing? We perform well!

Client : no need for this, our product is great, we're not leaders for nothing.

Designer : Oh really? If you never test it with users, how can you be sure that they don't struggle regularly on your product?

Some clients are so confident with the quality of their website / product, that they just think they will not learn from user testing sessions. But they are just wrong. You always learn something during user testing, even when made on great products, you always learn something interesting for the design, the development, or even the business model…

Users change, habits evolve and if your product does not take care of the users today, will they adopt it tomorrow?

2. There is no money for user testing

Client : Sorry, but we can barely afford this website, so no options can be added.

Designer : can you afford two websites?

If your client or boss pretends to be broke, ask him if it is ok for him to waste the entire budget just to save a few grounds.

If you have barely enough money to do one website, failure is no option. So you should try to get feedbacks as soon as possible, so please, make user testing instead of risking to hit the wall and never recover. Remove some nice to have features and use this budget to test your core features.

One $ spent during design phase saves up to 100 $  in development phase.

3. No need for this, our design is obvious and user testing is just an option!

Client : Come on! I'm not an idiot, user testing is optional, this is obvious!

What is obvious to you, is not necessarily obvious for your target.

Designer : Sure, just like seatbelts, airbags or success…

Today, would you buy a car that has no airbags, no seatbelts (assuming this is even possible)?

If clients have the right to tell designers that user testing is optional, then designers should be allowed to say to clients that success is optional as well.

A client of mine once told me: “Never underestimate the stupidity of the end users. It's the best way to fail a project”. Nevertheless, it was very hard to agree on doing user testing on the current project with him! If a end user cannot use properly what you designed, then it is your fault.

Remember, what looks obvious to you, might be very confusing for your end user.

4. No time left for this!

Client : We just don't  have time for user testing

Designer : Oh!? you go live next Monday ?

The more your wait before testing, the more features are subject to be tested.

The more there is to test, the more there might be features to redesign.

If you expect to use your time totes and fix things once your product is live, you will suffer.

The more your wait, the harder you might crash.

5. We already know the users!

Client : Nah, it's ok we already know the users and what they want, thanks!

Designer : Sure…

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

… you know the rest.

I heard this several times, and each time this was just a nightmare when I took a look under the hood. All the decisions had been made on several guessing games. When people pretend to really know the users, I ask them for the personas, and if they can't provide them, I ask for more detailed information (attention span, socio professional category, favorite device, brand affinity, product usage frequency, biggest fears…)

Pretty quick I cannot get an answer, or I face irritation. It sometimes is enough to make people realize that they have been designing a project without knowing their users. By doing so, they face terrible outcomes. The sooner they accept to confront their product to their real users, the more they have chances to adjust.

As soon as you will defeat an objection, prepare to face another one. It might not lead to do user testing on this specific project but it will prepare the ground for the next ones.

What happens if someone systematically refuses user testing or warning?

To conclude: this is what you should avoid

I will remember for a long period, this client who asked for help to design a portal for its employees, but did not want to consider user testing, who didn't want to take into account the personas we provided them either, and that systematically ignored our warnings.

Once we delivered the portal, one third of their users complained heavily, because they had to use it on their laptop as they were mobile and working at their clients places during rendez-vous. The portal was optimised for full HD resolutions available on the screens in the headquarters, and the laptops were far from this standard. And as if it was not enough, users complained about the complexity of working on it, as the 3G + VPN + Laptop setup was way too complicated to operate just to check information quickly. Users asked for smartphones, and wanted the portal to be accessible there, and usable, of course.

As they knew everything, they were not in the mindset of listening to consultants. If they had listened to our warnings, they would have saved 2 months of redesign to go responsive after a desktop first approach, they would have avoided the unexpected expense associated to that.

A quick user testing sessions in guerilla mode, even with printed wireframes and access to the real end users would have confirmed our warnings, and possibly have changed the project before any development.

As a conclusion, you should insist on testing prototype or wireframes as soon as possible and remind your client / your boss that the further the project is developed, the more expensive it is to change anything afterwards.

Great teams sometimes deliver wrong products

Yes, why?  We perform WELL, we are talented designers, Product owners, Product designers, we know our business, we are good enough so that we don't design unusable stuff… Therefore, our clients can rely on us for delivering simple, intuitive and cutting the edge experiences through great products…

However, there are terrible websites online. There are terrible products on the shelves, there are garments that just don't fit what they are supposed to, there are tools supposed to simplify our lives, but they are just bringing more complexity to our lives.

Have you ever tried to use a tactile keyboard? And a foreign keyboard? and a tactile foreign keyboard? The guys who designed the keyboard of my GPS car system have just delivered something really hard to use. Maybe they thought everyone knows the alphabet, and so it should be intuitive to use this, no matter which country you are from. Well, it is not. At all. They should have tested it…

Keyboard with Alphabetical order layout, the best worst idea I have seen in years.

A keyboard is only a tool. A website is like a tool. It has or supports functionalities, and it helps a specific kind of users to performs their tasks.

One of the most common mistakes leading to serious risks

The people who design a website are rarely the people for whom the website is being redesigned / created. The ‘design team act as if “they” were the users' is a very common way of screwing a project.

In other words, to be convinced that the design team perfectly knows the users is the most common mistake when creating a product. Trying to fit in someone's shoes is important to conceptualise the project. However, analysing data that real users offer during user-testing is the only way to validate what your team designed.

By not performing user testing, you face the following risks:

• Hitting the wrong market for your business
• Failing hardly (or even totally) your business goals
• Losing Customers you hardly earned
• Gaining Customers your business is not interested in
• Losing a lot of money
• Losing a huge amount of money
• Being sued by unsatisfied client's companies
• Hurting very badly your reputation
• Losing your job

You don't want any of the aforementioned to happen? GOOD NEWS! As soon as you are warned that you face a problem, you can use the warning and adapt. Indeed, you just need to get warnings.

User Testing is your answer

You can avoid all these risks by performing user testing. It will help you make a successful project and it helps you to:

• Get clear and unequivocal feedbacks
• Reduce rejection risks
• Improve quickly your product
• Get in touch with the people you expect to adopt your product

To be continued…

Next, How to convince to perform user testing? Answer 5 common objections

Our aim is to present a range of practical tools to help you develop your projects. 

As specialists in web development and digital projects, we work with IT and marketing experts on a daily basis. We understand the challenges and opportunities of web projects.

During the workshops, you will learn how to increase the impact of your site or app, express your requirements, establish your position, write a brief and prepare to cooperate with partners.

Check our agenda here.

Workshop 1: users

Creating and using personas (typical users)

Objective: Know your users and design your site to create an impact

Whether your site is commercial or cultural, this workshop will help you understand your users to offer them a unique experience!

Do you like websites and mobile apps where information is easily accessible? Where you don't waste time understanding how they work?

Learn to understand your clients to respond to their needs!

During this workshop, you will learn how to create specific user types (or ‘personas') and examine how they navigate your website. You will also understand the needs of visitors to your site and how to respond appropriately to them.

Practical information

Doors open 18:30 – Presentation starts 19:00

Drinks reception after the presentation

Liip Lausanne

Rue Etraz 4

Register via Swiss Marketing Vaud