Design partnership with users
How we build lasting connections with users to improve our product experiences.
What is a Sponsor User?
Imagine that you work for a company that creates lawnmowers. Now imagine that you are tasked with the design of a new, specialized lawnmower, but you have always lived in the city and have never used any kind of large landscaping tools. The only grass you have exposure to is at the park. How can you design a delightful experience for your users if you haven’t shared their perspective and don’t really understand what they need?
At IBM, our Sponsor User program is one of the key components in our Enterprise Design Thinking framework. They help us understand how our designs impact them in the real world and what obstacles they face to do their jobs effectively. They provide us with ongoing insights into their daily grind: learning about their needs, goals, pain points, emotions, processes, and relationships help us design better product experiences. Sponsor Users partner with design teams to ensure that we make a serious investment in user research, target the right direction for product development, and create solutions that people will benefit from using.
“Sponsor Users are active partners — together we are building a better product experience.”
- Tracy McGoldrick, Client Experience Lead, IBM Design Research
So, how does it work?
In IBM Hybrid Cloud Design, Sponsor Users actively participate in our product teams, working with user researchers and others to provide feedback, ideas, and domain expertise. The process starts with finding the right people to work with — most often it’s customers who are using our products day-in and day-out.
Things generally unfold like this:
1). After contacting or being contacted by someone who is interested in becoming a Sponsor User, we start a conversation about the products they use and what kinds of user roles (including specific qualities, responsibilities, knowledge, and skills) we’re looking to engage with. Titles and job descriptions can vary across companies, so sometimes we look for several different roles within the same place to help us understand the complete customer experience. We want to represent the person who is touching the product in each phase of the user process.
2). If everything initially looks good for a match, our Client Experience Lead, Tracy McGoldrick, begins the discussion about the program with our potential Sponsor User. Tracy starts by covering some basic questions: What is the time commitment? What kind of feedback are we looking for? How does the relationship benefit both users and design teams?
3). From there, we have to get the paperwork done. Sponsor Users sign a GDPR-compliant Feedback Program Agreement that clarifies how we’ll work together. The design team will share unreleased design concepts and prototypes and in return, Sponsor Users will provide us with feedback on how well designs are meeting their needs. The benefits of being a Sponsor User are great: participants get to view early product designs and are invited to share their domain knowledge and perspective, which has a direct impact on how the user experience takes shape.
4). Next is the introduction meeting. The design team presents a research plan, which is kind of like a road map for the design, and then introduces the larger product team to kick things off. We initially want everyone to meet up, get feedback from our Sponsor Users about the research plan, and align on what our partnership will look like.
5). After that, the user researcher, who becomes the primary contact, sets up individual interviews with the Sponsor User participants. These are typically done by phone or video conference. Each partnership is unique and one of the things our design researchers do really well is to tailor their research to meet both our needs and the needs of our Sponsor Users. Depending on that criteria, we might start off with a 6-month engagement and then reassess at the end of that time to make sure it’s still beneficial to both sides.
6). When feasible, we love to set up on-site visits, so we can go through Design Thinking sessions and really understand how our Sponsor Users are working with products and what their whole environment looks like on a day-to-day basis. We want to deep dive on their pain points and figure out how we can make our products fit their daily needs.
7). From there, things move into more of a regular rhythm. Agendas are determined by our researchers and Sponsor Users working together to decide what areas of the product to focus on. Typically, teams try to set up a cadence that includes 1–2 sessions per month. Sessions could include research interviews, showing new design concepts to get feedback, or presenting design changes that were made based on previous feedback.
It’s all about relationships
Engaging and creating lasting partnerships with our Sponsor Users is all about relationship-building. It starts on the inside with our customer pipeline advocates. These are the people and teams who have direct relationships with customers. Working side-by-side and helping them understand the importance of user research is critical in helping us find the right people to connect with. They are a key piece of how we build and leverage our Sponsor User networks.
A few years ago, the IBM Watson Studio team had no Sponsor Users. The design team started looking at who had the most experience with customers and how we could start engaging with them. They contacted the Product Managers, Tech Sellers, Lab Advocates, Global Elite Customer Experience Managers, sales teams, and Lead Architects, among others. These were the teams who were deploying software solutions and meeting with everyone who had a product touch point.
Growing this team connection provided a clearer path to finding potential Sponsor Users. Though the Sponsor User program is driven from a design standpoint, we could not be successful without the involvement of our key stakeholders. Playbacks are scheduled at regular intervals to share research methods and insights. The feedback we receive from our Sponsor Users benefits everyone involved in the development of a product. It’s a holistic team responsibility to understand the perspective of our users and act on their input together.
A partnership to make better products
Working with Sponsor Users is not a one-and-done approach. We want to avoid having just a single session, demo, or walk-through with potential Sponsor Users. Instead, we’re looking to forge long-term partnerships where both sides benefit and work together to create better products and better user experiences.
“The Sponsor User Program is a very trust based and respectful relationship. Requests — from both sides — are taken very seriously.”
- Robin Auer, User Researcher
A huge part of working with Sponsor Users is doing evaluative research to get their feedback on concepts and early design ideas. After understanding their high-level pain points and user roles during initial on-boarding, our researchers have a better idea of which Sponsor Users to engage for different parts of the product experience. New designs are evaluated by several different Sponsor Users to avoid focusing on the perspective of just one user.
Having a mix of more established users and newer users also rounds out the kind of feedback we receive and helps us focus on different facets of the design. Established customers who have been using the product for a long time can help us improve the experience, but newer customers can help us see what direction we want to go in the future.
Another very important aspect to the Sponsor User partnership is making sure they really feel like a part of the product team. Establishing personal connections and getting to know people on an individual, outside-of-work basis is paramount in that pursuit. Those friendly relationships help facilitate meeting on a regular schedule and as time goes on, strengthens the collaboration.
The design team for IBM Unified Governance and Integration (based in Boeblingen, Germany) was working with a Sponsor User who had been studying German for over 20 years. They found out that he really liked German comic books which were no longer being produced. The team located some reprints and purchased them for him as a gift — cementing their already friendly and strong relationship. As in any job, getting to know a little more about people than what you might encounter in the office helps forge stronger bonds and deeper connections.
The design team for Watson Studio sent out hand-written holiday postcards to all of their Sponsor Users. They wanted to add a more personal touch when they said thanks for a year of great collaboration and shared good wishes for the coming year. Making sure that Sponsor Users know they are important not only as part of the product team but on an individual level is another key ingredient to success.
By working hard to meet our users’ needs and pulling them in to partner with us on each user journey, we’ve established strong alliances and lasting partnerships. With users as our North Star, we continue to improve our empathy and understanding of their worlds, fueling our mission to create meaningful and usable product experiences.
Interested in learning more about the IBM Sponsor User Program? Contact us at: http://ibm.biz/userexperience
A special thank you to my colleagues Tracy McGoldrick, Robin Auer, and Toni Aguilar for sharing their experiences and perspectives on working with Sponsor Users.
Arin Bhowmick (@arinbhowmick) is Vice President, Design at IBM based in San Francisco, California. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
