“Present the data from one of the world’s most reliable sources of international development statistics.”

The magnitude of the project seemed inconceivable at first glance, and its social and economic ramifications staggering. But I am happy to report that our work for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has become one of our most successful projects to date. I write this blog entry after-the-fact, the project has gone ‘live’ and you can read more about the OECD here and learn about the project itself from 2Paths, the company that hired us to conduct user research and design the user interface to drive this web application.

The project began back in November 2007, with 2Paths having initiated a detailed scoping and budget phase with the client. They decided early on to bring design experts on to the team to lead the interface development for this project.  DesignStamp joined in January and development was to begin in March.  Our task was to gather as much knowledge about the project as possible, from the work 2Paths had already done, the various user types identified and also understand business requirements from the client.

1. Our search for this knowledge meant doing extensive interviews with users from around the world who came in contact with OECD data for a variety of reasons. We conducted in-person interviews, phone interviews and also relied on video conferencing technology to be able to do small focus group style interviews.
2. We then made the trip to Paris, to gather business requirements from the OECD and echo our understanding of their vision, as well as what the end-users desired.  It was important that we speak with the staff that managed the current databases on international development statistics.  We learnt about the issues OECD development staff had in using the OECD.Stat interface and also documented queries from users.
3. This knowledge combined with our user research gave us enough information to be able to create the set of user personae (PDF) that would inform the rest of the project work ahead. The persona process is invaluable in helping not only help keep the end-user in mind when designing solutions but also lend focus to project scope.
4. We moved quickly from a lo-fi wireframing deliverable whereby we explained our proposed solution to the client using sketches, to high fidelity prototypes that enabled us to present click through scenarios and validate our approach based on common tasks that users may undertake to extract data from the interface.
5. Having received approval on the wireframes, we worked with the 2Paths development team and the client to hit 2 to 3 week iterations and tackle off user stories that helped us build components of the project in a priority sequence.
6. We worked with 2Paths to merge our design with their agile development process.  DesignStamp designers were kept a minimum of 2 weeks ahead of developer work, so that we could get client approval on the interface decisions and be ready with assets for developers to complete the user stories in time.

Lessons learned from this project:

1. One of our big wins was to align ourselves with the client from the get-go and work with them as partners trying to solve the problem. We took the time to understand the “pain”, and appreciate their goals before we started to do any design work.
2. The time 2Paths spent educating the client on how an agile development process works was worth the effort. Having client buy-in was invaluable, as they knew what to expect, what not to expect and just how we would tackle off the project in incremental bits. 2Paths did a great job managing this.
3. The OECD was the perfect client in many ways. Perfect client=Accommodating, collaborative and open to providing us with the knowledge we needed to do our job well.
4. The agile process works only when the client, and the entire team appreciate the benefit of frequent deliverables. It was also important that designers were kept 2 weeks ahead of the developer work, so that we could have time to work on, and gain approval on interface decisions, prior to the developers needing graphic assets.
5. Modern communication tools helped our global team produce a global project. Say what you will but the project would have been severely impacted if we could not rely on web conferencing and being able to share our desktops in Vancouver with a client in Paris. We had weekly check-in points to keep the client in the loop at all times. Remote conferencing was invaluable for that (even if it meant that the Vancouver team was bleary eyed, attending conference calls at 7 am in the morning!).

This project tested our process by the shear magnitude of the design brief. This project has proved to us once again, that we don’t just create good looking work; we solve problems. We do so by following a user-centric design process that marries business objectives with user goals. And at the end of the project, our biggest rewards: The glowing testimonials from the client and the users who have tested our new interface. You can view our design solution for this project here or contact us if you would like to learn more about our process for solving complex business problems.

Back in June 06, I had written an article about a more human approach to brining users into the design equation. In the midst of packing and checking flight times, here is a PDF that has so far only been used by us internally and sent via email to our clients. It lists our process of highlighting user goals and marrying them with business goals. It is heavily influenced by Alan Cooper, and his book “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum“– a must-read for anyone involved in the design, management or development of an interactive project.

DesignStamp Persona Process

Most businesses rely on statistical data to learn about there customer aka user. Be it demographic info such as age, income, occupation etc. But we find that the richness of talking to the actual users and learning about their experiences cannot be found in the best drawn statistical chart. Statistical averages are useful for large scale projects such as deciding where a highway should be built, but a humanized approach works better when designing software or marketing collateral. We find that creating user profiles helps us remain objective in our process, validate our design decisions and intuitions about potential problem areas. This is an example of a user persona that helped us conduct a usability study on our client’s existing web service.

Besides those good old statistics about demographics of your user, try and get some empirical data about your target audience. Do you know about how and why your user buys your product? What is their current perception about you and where did they get this impression? How different is this impression from the marketing message you put out there? Here’s a brief checklist of items to find out about your user:

• Experience: How long have they know about you, and your products? How did they come in contact with your brand? What similar products do they use currently? This will teach you not only your competition but also about your users experience with your product domain.
• Relationship to you? What do they know about you? What do they NOT know about you? This will help shape marketing, and brand awareness initiatives. Good branding is about creating top of mind awareness. And if you haven’t got to that stage with your core audience yet, there may be some work ahead.
• Relationship to technology: An easy way to figure this one out is to really hear how people talk about technology (Phrases such as ‘That thingie to click on…’ speak volumes about your user’s comfort level and exposure to technology). Alpha geeks (those who adopt early and often) have different relationship to technology than laggards. And both may impact your bottom-line differently even if your product has little to do with cutting edge technology. After all there is no point creating a complex interactive flash movie about your product, if it’s controls will frustrate yourt users and take focus away from your product.
• Language: Pot-taah-toh or Put-tay-toe? Do they use the same words that you do to describe the end-product? If you work in the music industry for example, does your user think of their music as songs or tracks? Use the language that works for your user. If you are a b2b enterprise, what does that business call their target audience? Use that word (example: subscriber?) to refer to their customer
• Humanize your brand: Ask people that if your company were an actor which actor would it be? It’s probably better to be seen as a Brad Pitt than a Jack Nicholson if your company deals with cutting edge technology. Not good if your brand is seen as a Dame Judy Dench when your aim was to attract a young, energetic crowd.
• Drivers of purchase decisions: What is important to your user when it comes to your product domain? You may be surprised by the answers you get. You might think that people only care about price, but they actually base decisions on credibility. You might think that people look for deals, but turns out they just trust what their son, daughter, niece or nephew tells them to buy. Finding the decision drivers will help focus your energies in the right direction.

I could go on, but the idea is that we want to find ‘human information’ not numbers. Wisdom not data. No one has 2.24 kids and is of 30 to 40 years of age. Averages only get you so far. We think better design happens when we can imagine who it is, that we are designing for.

"When I design, I design for people, not for an abstract entity, a market, but for real people. People I know, people I love."
— Konstantin Grcic (European furniture designer)

Here are a few things that I believe are worth focusing upon. Whether your business serves up a service or a product. Whether your customer is the end-consumer or another business. 

Before I continue on, I am going to mainly use the words product and user. Replace product with service, if that’ what your company serves up. Replace the word user with customer, consumer, vendor, purchasing company, enterprise…whoever ends up paying your bills by buying what you sell.

I suggest we need to consider two major elements to focus on when it comes to creating successful businesses

Context and the User. This month’ article will focus on context. We will move our attention to the user in next month’ article.

Context.

How and where will it your product be important to your user?

When will it be used? Studying the context of your product’ usage can bring back some unexpected gems. Someone recognized that this was a problem: Every time someone uses a spoon to stir pasta sauce they are making, they end up making a mess when they put their spoon down. The folks over at http://www.woodspoon.com/ improved upon the existing experience.The lazy spoon, has been celebrated on the Oprah show and raved on and on by famed cook Rachael Ray.

So what do you need to learn from messy/clean sauce spoons? It’ all about context? You need to know the environment that surrounds your relationship with your customer. Some examples of why studying up on context is good:

1. Context highlights the little things

   How is your product used? Where is it used? What are the key benefits associated with your service? Software that is used in noisy environments should probably not rely on audio cues. Daycare facilities should hire people who genuinely like kids (even the Janitor). Dental receptionists should have nice teeth and bank tellers should not tell you how bad they are at math (I have actually had that happen). Consider the wide circular halo that surrounds each of the perceived benefits that your product aims to offers your users. Even the smallest omission within this circle can spell death for your business or at the very least reduce some of that magic brand glow you were aiming to spread. Provide your product’ benefits everywhere. If you offer a service that relies on speed as one of its key benefits, it is probably crucial that your website servers never fail and have high bandwidth to serve pages at blazing fast speed even though your business is not directly web related. If you provide software product that features ease of use, your office layout should feature that same attention to ergonomics.

2. The Market has answers (some you don’t want to hear)

   What makes your user’ mouth water?

   What are some of the other products your customer will probably want to use? Doing a moodboard research about what turns your user’s crank could lead to some interesting alliances. The Four Seasons hotel in Vancouver lets its preferred guests park their cars in front of the hotel, bypassing the need to use the valet, a much cherished benefit for their customer. What does the hotel get out of this? Chances are that their prominent clients drive high-end luxury cars. Having passerbys and other guests see the high-end cars parked right in front of the hotel adds to the brand promise of the otherwise aging hotel building.

   Drink in your competition’ Kool Aid and then spit it out.

   Don’t make your own website, your browser’ home page. Instead try and focus in on your competition. Where is their message clear and where are the opportunities for you to make that message clearer on your own marketing and technical material? The better you know about them, the more authority you have in your voice when you clarify why you are better.

   Help your users do their market research.

   Your customer will shop around. Don’t pretend that your competition does not exist. SurveyMonkey is lists their competitors Urls right on their pricing page and tells you why SurveyMonkey is better. Easy projects™ provides their potential customers with a form they can use to compare performance of other project management tools. The Pricing page on most product and service selling websites is a top exit page. People come to do the research and leave if they don’t find a compelling reason to stay. What are you doing to help them research and in turn make up their mind to use you over your competition?

3. Street Cred & New Marketing Channels

   What are your user’ watering holes for information?

   Stop thinking narrowly in terms of traditional methods of banners and print ads to reach out to your potential users. Find places that they still believe in. Using trusted sources where people turn to find information leads to focused marketing efforts such as tryvertising. Consider what P&G is doing with the ‘mum’ market. It is giving mothers free products so they will refer other mums to try it themselves. It makes their marketing channel authentic and believable for that target user. A marketing channel inner circle if you will. The Ya-Ya is telling the sisterhood what to buy.

   What are they saying that you aren’t telling them?

   Besides the marketing message that you put out, how does your customer find out about you? In other words, what is the word on the street about you and your product, outside of your direct marketing efforts? Check out news groups and bulletin boards. Also be ready to find out things you didn’t want to know. People can use public forums to rant or to express love, but it’ the ranters that are more vocal. We found that out when researching VFS’ street cred in newsgroups. Smart companies from Adobe to the many 2 person tech companies in Vancouver have paid employees and well-wishers (read volunteers) troll news groups and quell negative talk by stating facts and solving problems.

   Some like it hot. Some like it cold.

   How do you serve up information? What information is best served cold? If your user is busy and multi-tasking when they come across your site, for example, they might be looking for snapshot information (hot information). More detailed information such as technical specs may be best served as downloadable PDFs to be referred to later (cold information)?

   The importance of consistency and inconsistency.

   What is the user going to be feeling when they call your sales hotline? What will they feel when they call the support hotline? What are commonalities and differences required in how you serve that customer, in those two instances? I would suggest a wait period in answering either of those calls is not going to help matters. Your website should be a good place to provide both pre-sales and after-sales support. Your brand should stand for something. And that message should be reinforced, no matter why your customer is reaching out to talk to you.

Recognising that people don’t access products in a vacuum and actually finding out the true context of how your product is used, helps make them more meaningful to your user. If you fit in well into people’ lives, they will thank you for it, by telling their friends about you.

technorati tags: business, ux, branding