In many cases, businesses fail to make a considerable change after reviewing a UX user research report. The data may be organized proficiently and clearly identify areas that need improvement; however, the resources fail to drive tangible improvements. Many companies use UX agencies to conduct customer discovery interviews to compile usability testing research, but they don’t utilize the information to directly impact their business and make the appropriate changes.
Failing to execute often happens at the hand of the agency conducting the research. We will discuss how UX professionals can help their clients gain a deeper understanding of the data and reach a collaborative plan to implement their findings.
Gaining a Deep Understanding of the Problems
All business operators want a better user experience for their customers and clients. Using UX research should serve as the foundation for their design strategy. Whether the business provides a physical product, a service, or a digital asset, user feedback is essential in creating the best experience possible.
Too often, businesses become stagnant by either not conducting frequent customer discovery interviews or failing to use the data to identify the problems in their user experience. One of the problems is that the business doesn’t understand the issue or realize it directly affects their bottom line.
Creating a clear understanding of the issue and how it is negatively influencing the UX creates ideal validation that will lead to increasing the business impact of user research.
Teach UX Design Concepts in Presentations
Identifying a client’s gap in information architecture (IA) on their website is only the first step to improving the site’s UX. To successfully enhance the user experience, business operators must understand the concept and how it differs from the overall UX design. For example, an SEO SaaS company may have a beautiful design with various powerful tools that can help clients identify keywords their competitors are utilizing, but if their content isn’t organized correctly, the user may miss some of the critical components of the service.
Explaining to clients how organization systems and hierarchy structures are used to organize content to create a better user experience can bridge the gap between their problem and taking action.
Gaining a deeper understanding of the issue will not only help identify their shortcomings but collectively come to a solution. Teaching concepts like IA and how to wireframe a website to people who aren’t UX professionals can be challenging, but the result will connect the research with the importance of making a change and a plan to move forward.
Diversify the UX Team
Presenting the results of customer discovery interviews to a limited team can also lead to not acting on the findings. Explaining the usability testing data and teaching the concepts to a diverse group, including everyone involved in developing the product or service, is essential. Including the developers, designers, and project managers in the research analysis helps gain a shared understanding of the user experience and reach a mutual solution.
Presenting the Data
UX professionals often fail to communicate the direct implications of usability testing research on their client’s ROI. Presentations have to leave project managers with a feeling of urgency, or the results of the interviews won’t translate to impactful solutions.
Researchers must link their findings with ways the client can generate more profit. If a client is still in the development phase of their project, researchers should effectively communicate the importance of fixing the problems now. The cost of repairing an error in the development phase of a project is 100X less expensive than once the product goes to market.
Presenting the data in an impactful manner to a diverse team also helps generate improvements in the user’s experience. If the web development team is involved in the UX research, they are more likely to act on the customer discovery interviews. Programmers spend 50% of their time doing avoidable reworks. Involving them in the usability testing research can help them identify problems, especially if the product is still in development.
Increase Frequency of Usability Testing Research
A failure to implement changes after UX research can also be due to not enough data. UI design experts at UIE’s Center Centre suggest testing ‘a minimum of every six weeks to create an impact. Their direct experience with UX and UI design teams has found that most reports are only conducted once or twice a year.
UIE sites two reasons why increasing the frequency will lead to a substantial change in the UX design: memory and pain. It’s too easy to forget about the frustration and pain users deal with going an imperfect design. If the users are heard more frequently, the problems are more likely to create the sense of urgency needed to generate impactful change.
Stop Reporting Start Teaching
Creating solutions after UX research requires more than a presentation. Effectively communicating the problems, teaching the concepts, and collaborating with a diverse team will produce solutions and improve the user experience.
UX professionals must teach their clients UX design concepts through user research to identify their product’s flaws and how it affects their bottom line. Once designers, programmers, and project managers are on the same page, they can utilize the customer discovery interviews to produce and execute a collaborative solution.
Contact Lean Discovery Group for Superior Usability Testing Research
Identifying problems in UX is only half the battle. Effectively communicating and creating a solution is much more complex and where most agencies fail. Increasing the business impact of user research is only done through experience in conducting customer discovery interviews and translating the data into a realistic plan to create a better user experience.
Lean Discovery Group specializes in helping series A stage tech startups with product management and UX research services. We bring valuable experience and lessons learned in the industry so that our clients don’t make the same mistakes again.
