UX Research: User or Business? The chicken or the egg?
How to approach it in an efficient way.
Although it seems a contradiction, the task that all user research should do is of course research and have a good comprehension of the business.
As user experience designers, we naturally assume that we are partners of users, because there is an apparent –in the name of discipline– main and essential mission of satisfying their needs.
Our temptation –because of our learning methodology almost as a reflex– we empathize with the users first. However, many times we must betray that principle to answer some main questions.
How can we empathize with the users and their needs, if we do not understand the environment of their business in which the product or service is being used?
How do we understand their journey and detect their pains, if our knowledge is next to null, vague or superficial?
When we face the challenge of improving the experience of the users with a product or service in a business context that we do not understand or we know very little of, it is necessary to learn …
…of the business first and users after
Regarding the baseline of my experience, I suggest starting to understand the business well. And do this with the highest detail possible, empathizing first with its needs before the user’s needs.
The idea is to build a solid base of knowledge so when we approach them, we can understand the context in which they are moving and detect their pains in a much better way.
In the User Experience and Service Design Research, we do not always resolve problems related to people’s daily life issues (including designers as well).
In many cases, it is not about discovering better ways to buy food or a car, getting a loan or a certificate, wiring money or investments, or even visiting a doctor. Sometimes we must approach many different types of issues and so much more complex ones.
When the challenge isn’t about trivial cases, speaking with the users can be the wrong way to go. If we can’t speak the same language that they do, it will result very hard to empathize with their needs.
Learning the business is typically a complicated enough task because each industry is full of complexities, singular processes even in their own language, but it is so necessary and important to delay it. Therefore, the sooner it happens the better.
As a consultant, I have faced challenges like managing systems designs, distributing and reinforcing massive surveys through several analog and digital channels even the construction of technical websites for development specialists into payment systems or even manage the operational complexity of loans for public entities of different countries.
The learning curve is always going uphill and absorbing so much knowledge and digesting it quickly when the deadlines are limited is even harder to do.
So, what do we do to understand the business with greater velocity and how to reach ground floor before talking with users?
Become a partner with an expert
The client is typically the greater expert in his business and should be our main supporter if he wants us to help him with his product or service. The key is becoming the client’s partner.
If they don’t help us in person (because of calendar issues or corporate hierarchy), he could assign someone to work with us for some weeks. This person can transfer us, all the knowledge and context in no time so we can understand his goals and processes, along with his tools, technical language, etc.
Our supporter must answer us all the questions with patience, everything that may come up again and again while we investigate and examine. And if he is not sure about something, he will surely know who to ask. Because it isn’t enough to have a couple of interviews with some stakeholders to learn and understand everything.
But how can we learn if we can’t become a partner of the client?
Taking shortcuts: the power of stakeholders
We may not be able to be an ally with the client or have them help us. And we shouldn’t assign someone to do it either. Therefore, we could feel forced to talk with users beforehand and stack up more doubts than certainties.
In order to solve this case, A shortcut that can work would be to: gather all stakeholders that have more knowledge and have them do part of the work for us, while everyone learns at the same time.
They may not know users well enough, but they will surely know more than we do. And that is priceless.
An efficient way to make use of their knowledge is to dip into methodologies of co-creation like Design Sprint and make a fun workshop, and with which we can experience almost a “quantum leap”.
In a co-creative workshop, the experts will use the magic that results from a combination of their advanced knowledge and imagination to resolve the problem, even though we cannot see clearly yet. And they will be the ones who make it easier for us to learn in a faster way.
Afterward, our task will be to prototype, refine, validate and iterate with the users to learn more and to reach a more assertive solution.
This shortcut allows us to move more quickly along the path of understanding the business to design the solution, which could be very significant. However, it will not be exempt from some gaps that we’re going to fill using other tools.
Win-win
When we improve the experience for the users, we don’t try to make them happy, but we help them achieve what they are looking for. And we also do it to make sure that the business success, helping their product or service attend to their customers in a much better way.
That is why we must focus our work on the creation of a virtuous relationship between them. Achieving a balance. A win-win for both parties.
Sometimes, as designers, we give little significance to the business. Especially in the early stages of our trade, we stayed trapped in the cliché and not in the background of phrases like “users first” or “users at the center of experience”.
Because there isn’t an implicit preference for the business at the expense of the users worrying about them at the beginning or end and nor should it assume tendency either.
It isn’t about a dichotomy of the type, the egg or the chicken. Finally, the order of the aspects into user research is only a matter of pragmatism and efficiency.
