Jared Spool does it again.
He explains how two important aspects that are key to successful design teams:
- Direct exposure to user observation of team members for at least 2 hours in six weeks
Each team member has to be exposed directly to the users themselves. Teams that have dedicated user research professionals, who watch the users, then in turn, report the results through documents or videos, don’t deliver the same benefits. It’s from the direct exposure to the users that we see the improvements in the design.
- Involvement of strong influencers (execs, project managers, etc.) in direct observation of users
The tipping point came when we found teams where all these other folks were participating in the user research studies. No longer did they assert their own opinions of the design direction above what the research findings were telling the teams. Having the execs, stakeholders, and other non-design folks part of the exposure program produced a more user-focused process overall.
The question is – will we be willing to sacrifice invest in order to ensure this happens to make our designs more successful? It’s a common occurrence everywhere, and we as designers need to stand our ground.
Sacrifice what?
Good reference, good point.
Getting team members and above all execs to spend time watching users is hard. Their time is company money.
But 2 hours every six weeks is pretty reasonable. If you build it in to an agile development process, that’s something like one hour per sprint.
I think I’d try to start by getting the devs and designers doing this, then the product owner. Building it in to the Sprint process – as something that validates the deliverables from one Sprint and prioritises the goals of the next – might be a good way to go.
Richard: Sacrifice our time and effort (to convince others to do this), our comfort zone (we may get told to go away)…?
Nice word change.
(Thanks for responding.)