I’ve been embedded at a well-known insurance company for the past 5 months (as of June 2018). My core task has been to grow and develop their UX competency. UX is not yet rooted in their culture and as such, it has taken time and effort to align key stakeholders to a shared user-centred vision. This particular company is not alone; in many companies UX is seen as peripheral or a box to be checked, when it should be central to, if not guiding, the digital product development process.

In the country where I work, South Africa (SA), you simply have to search the App Store to understand how peripheral UX is to a company’s digital output. On the App Store, you’ll find that plenty of SA’s top Johannesburg Stock Exchange companies with user ratings as low as one or two, not to mention a string of complaints. This shows that the problem isn’t simply about budgets or access to developers. So, what is the problem then? It’s most likely that these companies are at a low stage of UX maturity. This means the user is not at the centre of the development process and is likely losing out to other management priorities, or to technology decisions made in boardrooms. The cost of peripheralizing the user is often not recognised.

Luckily, the digital management team I’ve worked with at the aforementioned insurance company feels passionately about the user and their experience. This doesn’t mean it’s been an easy road, because the digital team has its own internal convincing to do, with other business units, who have their own priorities and agendas beyond user or customer experience.

So, how do we get a large company to improve user experience over time in a sustainable and integrated way?

Since many companies have been through this process before, we have plenty of case studies and models to work from. These models show time and again the consistency of steps required to turn a company into a user-centred business. The real trick is ‘kick-starting’ the process, not simply having the theory or strategy and the drive to do so. So, when I land at a client, my first step to ‘kick-start UX maturity’ is to talk…or better yet, to listen. I’ve done this before, so I know what I’m likely to face:

• Developers who think UX wastes their time.
• A client that doesn’t have a dedicated UX budget.
• A management team that doesn’t see the value of user research.

So, instead of trying to prove everyone wrong, I listen and empathise. Empathy is the first step in the Design Thinking process and I use this approach when trying to embed UX at a new company:

• What usability issues do the developers have that I can solve?
• How can I assist the client to see ROI in motivating for more UX budget?
• What tough product strategy decisions do management have to take that user research could guide?

If you can add crucial value to the success of a business and how it operates, the resources and funding will take care of itself (with hard-won proof of ROI, of course). So, next time you find yourself trying to embed UX at a company but find resistance, employ UX techniques:

1. Research your client’s needs as well as those of others crucial to implementing your strategy.
2. Ideate on solutions and test them out – you don’t need to get it right the first time.
3. Always put those that you aim to assist or grow at the centre of your work, just as you would in your design.
4. Implement your vision and track results, just as you would any new app or piece of software.
5. Improve, iterate and grow!

Would love to hear your comments and your questions and if you’ve had similar experiences.

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I’ve been doing a few courses through the fantastic Interaction Design Foundation (IDF), on all things related to the brain and UX. The key takeaway from this is that we need to ‘build technology to partner with the brain, rather than try and replace it’. In the age of  artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), we often think we are in a race to create an all conquering technology. A technology that limits the need for a user and increases the tasks of a computer. We do this, in part, because we entirely underestimate the abilities of the human brain. I personally believe, this is because we don’t yet a unified theory of mind, and it’s just plain jealousy. The brain can still many things the machine can’t and in turn we feel the human mind is competition to, rather than a partner for technology.

After decades of progress in computer science, neuroscience and psychology, we still don’t know exactly how the brain does such marvelous things. This ‘resistant brain’, that refuses to reveal all its secrets, has become something to be ‘cracked’ like a safe. The brain instead should be partnered with, for the marvelous tool it is. I’ve listened to many cognitive scientists say things like, ‘look how much we know about the brain, philosophers of old were completely off’, à la Daniel Dennet. Others have said things like, ‘we are so close to a unified theory of mind and we will crack in the next X years!’ to paraphrase Jeff Hawkins. Articles, like this one from Live Science, titled ‘Scientists Closing in on Theory of Consciousness‘, show a push to outdo the brain.

Now you might say, why is this a problem? Science has always sought to outdo human capability and now we have marvelous machines that can aid us in building once impossible structures, send us to the moon or advance industry. The human body has many physical limitations and is oft bettered by machines in various feats of strength and raw power. Taking all of this into account, we must remember that the body is still capable of beautiful forms of expression from painting to dance, that is yet to be outdone by any machine nor should we aim to create machines that can do so. As the 90s cyberpunk era proposed, machines should augment human ability because it is through this partnership, that we can do the incredible.

A collaborative effort between human and machine, should inform the design of technological products as both have their strengths and weaknesses. A user-centred approach, as opposed to a computer-centred approach, means we are able to create this collaboration. Let’s look at the core aspects of each:

Computer centered approach

• Person is another peripheral
• Maximise what computer does
• Minimise what person does
• Technology above people*

*Risk is this can create negative user-experiences i.e. phone addiction; users reverting to smart phones; leaving social media

User centered approach

• Computer and other devices are the peripheral
• Enable people to make their lives better
• Give people more control over their tasks
• People and their need defines the technology

The user-centred approach does two key things for us, as UX professionals. It allows us to focus on user needs to better define technological advancement that will be truly adopted and it also allows us to collaborate with another hugely powerful processor – the human brain. There are many things the brain can do, that computers can’t and vice versa. By enabling users through technology, we are able to achieve great things.

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When people think of user experience design (UXD), they may think of the sketching of a wireframe or testing of a prototype. These activities certainly makes up part of the process, but it’s not the full story by half. The psychology behind the user, what we can quite simply called ‘user psychology’ is also a crucial part of the process. User psychology are the thoughts, feelings and cognitive processes that go on in a user’s mind while using a product or service. You can’t be a good UXD, without having an interest in the psychology of your user. To put it another way, if you cannot understand your user, you cannot design for them.

Dr Susan Weinschenk, who has a PhD in Psychology, uses “research and knowledge about the brain, the visual system, memory, and motivation [to] extrapolate UX design principles…” The information she gleans from her studies, have been clearly defined in an article, all the way back in 2010. This article is still highly relevant today as psychology becomes a larger consideration in UXD; it is simply titled “The Psychologists View of UX Design”. In this article, Weinschenck marks out some basic principles and rules to follow regards psychology and UX. The rules may seem obvious at first, but are either forgotten, not known or simply not employed, when formulating a solutions to UX problems.

The direct correlation between psychology and UX is clear, when one understands that both disciplines require an ability to understand people’s motivations and behaviors. If a UX designer wants to guide a user to a desired outcome, it is essential to understand how the human mind perceives and experiences the world. Principles such as Gestalt, how human beings visually perceive objects, “sit at the sit at the heart of nearly everything we do graphically as designers” (Bradley, 2014). This is seen in the infographic below, showing the direct application of Gestalt psychology to web design (credit: B. Marcantonio, 2015):

By better understanding people’s emotions, motivations and cognitive behaviors, a UXD can provide a solution that works in conjunction with the human brain. We can only do this by employing design solutions, that follow the learnings of psychology and cognitive science. If you are a UXD, expose yourself to these discipines as it will aid you in creating designs that are more usable, efficient and easier to adopt.

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(image credit: thenextweb.com)

I’ve worked as both a designer and a developer and as both at once. From this, I’ve learned that while each role requires specialisation, there is a strong overlap. I found this overlap to be particularly strong in the fields of user experience design (UXD), user interface design (UID) and front-end development (FED). While it is certainly necessary, and near impossible, to have equal skills across all of these disciplines, it is vital to have an understanding of they relate and connect.

On a practical level, it aids productivity to have a FED that can do image editing, identify a font or imply colour theory. It’s important to have a UID that understands usability principles. It’s valuable to have a UXD that has a grasp of visual theory when wire-framing. All of these overlaps in knowledge are useful for teams from a delivery perspective but the true power is in each disciplines understanding each other’s role in the broader context of the user. The benefits of this collaborative understanding has been a key differentiator, in my experience, between a design team that can or cannot work together effectively.

So, should developers actually design? I recently listened to an episode of User Defenders, on this very question, entitled Should Developers Design with Laura Elizabeth. Laura runs a platform called Design Academy, that aims to equip developers with useful skills and thinking to better enable them as FEDs. She teaches them to ‘debug design’, as one would debug code, when looking for an error in a system. Laura trains developers to use basic design principles to figure out a design problem logically. Laura states on her site, that “[w]ith Design Academy, I’m working really hard to provide a systematic approach to design that you can follow to achieve a solid, user-friendly design every time.” This ‘knowledge share’ aids in avoiding the sometimes painful exchanges between developers and designers. I’ve seen many a ruffled feather, when teams try and decide on the ‘right solution’ or why a specific implementation is or isn’t a good idea.

Now onto the next question, which has been in debate in design circles for sometime now, ‘should designers develop’? I first took the leap into development back in 2015 and it has paid off exponentially. This knowledge and experience has allowed me to better design solutions that are logical, robust and scalable. Being able to develop, has also allowed me to have conversations about technology and design with developers, that would otherwise have been closed off to me. I’ve seen many of my friends in the field of UXD and UID follow suit and explore the world of code. This exploration has become vital, to better understand the many complex technologies that we are designing for.

Prototyping tools have picked up on this trend and now allowing for code editing, such as in the example below from Framer. Using a tool such as this, a designer can create a prototype very similar to the product intended to be developed. The benefits of this is clear as it ensures that when a design reaches the dev team, it has been through testing that emulates and validates the final product.

An example showing code on the left and a usable prototype on the right

(image credit: prototypingwithframer.com) 

We all have our strengths and weaknesses and should not feel a need to be a ‘unicorn’ but we should certainly be able to speak each other’s language. By better understanding the roles of those within our design team, as well as learning from and teaching each other, we are able to create better products that serve our user.

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As you may have gleaned from the banner on the homepage, “good design is good business”, so said former CEO of IBM, Thomas Watson Jr. Speaking to students in 1973, Watson famously said “We are convinced, that good design can materially help make a good product reach its full potential.” It may have taken the world a while to catch up with this sort of thinking, but he’s in good company nowadays. Both Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Mike Gebbia, founder of AirBnB, feel the same way:

“Jeff Bezos invested 100 times more into customer experience than advertising during the first year of Amazon. AirBnB’s Mike Gebbia credits UX with taking the company to $10 billion.” – Forbes Technology Council

We need to stop thinking of user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX) as separate or specialized disciplines, but rather part of broader business strategy. UX strategy then, is a way of thinking that informs and directs teams dedicated to better serve the user. By doing this you will increase user adoption, productivity and loyalty. As more and more businesses digitise their offering and more and more customers interact with businesses through a screen, it is essential that UX is core to business strategy.

Part the reason UX is not implemented successfully at companies still in transition, is due to how UX professionals communicate the value of their discipline. UX experts should engage with all parts of business, allowing others to take ownership of the user’s experience in their respective fields in an informed and sustainable way. It is therefore the role of those within UX to communicate disseminate their learnings among the various divisions with their business.  Tech teams and divisions have traditionally worked in siloed environments (at least in my experience at various tech companies) and so it is our task to integrate all parties and get them thinking about the user. Our tasks are not only to conduct research or design wireframes but also communicate the value of our user engagements, to allow others to benefit and add value.

As further evidence of the effectiveness of an integrated UX approach, we can look again to the Forbes Technology Council:

“Good user experience is clearly good for business. Studies show that companies that invest in UX see a lower cost of customer acquisition, lower support cost, increased customer retention and increased market share, according to a study done by Forrester. When compared to their peers, the top 10 companies leading in customer experience outperformed the S&P index with close to triple the returns. Forester Research shows that, on average, every dollar invested in UX brings 100 dollars in return. That’s an ROI of a whopping 9,900 percent.”

If you’re not championing UX as central to business, you and those you work with, will not truly reap the rewards of the digital revolution.

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