Megan Sauter

A blog I wrote for AnswerLab on the most important UX approach.

A new year offers us the opportunity to reflect on what’s working well and what can be better. For those developing digital products and experiences, we may find ourselves inundated with trend-watching lists, slideshows of tech we MUST see, and endless previews for what’s coming next. So I’m going to make this easy: there’s just one trend everyone should pay attention to this year and it’s what all of my clients do. I hope it becomes more than a trend but an integral part of our approach to products: Have empathy for your customers.

Empathy comes in several flavors. We must consider the customer within her environment.

• Where is she when she is inspired to go to your website?
• What does she want to accomplish?
• What device is she using to meet those goals?

During FedEx World Usability Day in November, Googler Sharif El-Badawi and my colleague John Cheng gave a great talk on Mobile UX. El-Badawi mentioned that mobile users are the “divas” of the user world – they have less time and higher expectations of your site. Should we cater to these customers? Some companies have used metrics like time on site to determine that it’s not worth spending extra to craft a mobile experience. That’s not the full story. By paying attention to conversions, we see that mobile users are just as engaged (if not more so!) than computer users even though they’re spending less time on the site. Mobile users might be tough customers, but they “force us to distill what’s important because every tap and swipe counts.”

Back in December, I wished that a certain ticketing site had empathy for me and my husband as we sat at the airport. We were killing time on our phones and saw that our favorite comedian was doing a surprise show. We jumped at the opportunity, clicking from twitter onto the ticketing site. But wait! It appears that this ticketing site was mobile-optimized for everything except purchasing tickets. My husband and I sat there pinching and zooming our screens, both trying to read an incomprehensible CAPCHA, hoping that one of us would get it right before the site timed out. Time was of the essence and our phones were our only available devices. I wished the company had considered this common use case while developing their site.

There’s another form of empathy that’s independent of the environmental context.
Empathize with where the customer is in their life.

• What life events is your customer experiencing?
• How are these life events shaping her motivations for using your product?

A life change like a wedding can shape your customer’s day-to-day life by raising stress levels and lengthening their to-do lists. In turn, your customer may seek out products that help them organize their thoughts and receive social support. Pinterest has become a helpful tool in couples’ wedding plans for this reason. The best way to understand what your customers are going through is to ask them. When talking to customers, be sure to ask open-ended questions about how they are utilizing your product and what changes, if any, may have occurred since they first adopted it: their answers can give you valuable insight into new use cases and features.

We have to be able to see the person on the other side of the product and understand how they are feeling. Tom Kelley of IDEO reminded those of us at FedEx World Usability Day to always “start with empathy.” Kelley told the memorable story of Doug Dietz, a principal designer at GE Healthcare who designed MRI and CT machines. While in the field testing a new machine, he saw an alarming reaction from a young patient — the little girl was crying, terrified of the imposing, impersonal machine. He learned that eighty percent of children had to be sedated while in the MRI because of this fear. Dietz used the empathy he felt for that little girl and those like her to begin an effective research plan to redesign the machines. By integrating imaginative play, Dietz and his colleagues transformed the MRI rooms into new environments like a pirate ship or a jungle with stories to transform the experience. The results were incredible: the rate of sedation fell to less than 10%.

As a UX professional, coming to understand customers as people and sharing that understanding with clients is the most rewarding part of my day. Whether your customer is traveling for business or in a hospital room, keep them in mind. Whether they’re just running errands or struggling through a large life change, keep them in mind. Let empathy guide you because there are people on both sides of every product. The choices we make with empathy in mind can make our customers’ lives better and our lives, in turn, more fulfilling.

This post I wrote for AnswerLab connects two things I love: film and UX research. Here it is in its full-text glory!

There is a lot of overlap between UX research and film. When we do research, we are (hopefully) watching and listening with the attention of a good actor. We’re working hard so we can convey a story or point of view to an eager audience of stakeholders. And if we pay enough attention to either one, we just might learn something! In that spirit, here are two cinematic moments that show what it takes to be a good moderator: patient listening and careful observation.

Patient Listening

There’s a great moment in Pulp Fiction that unfortunately hit the cutting room floor. Before her date with Vincent Vega, Mia Wallace asks him a series of questions to discover what kind of man he is. After a series of seemingly benign pop culture questions (“Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family? Elvis man or Beatles man?”), we hear this exchange:

Mia: “In conversation, do you listen or wait to talk?”

Vincent: “I have to admit, I wait to talk. I’m trying real hard with this, though.”

One of the most important skills when moderating is learning how to listen. It looks so easy on paper, but how often do we really listen? Think about a recent conversation with a close friend or partner: did you find yourself distracted while they were speaking? Were you just waiting for the right moment to tell them about an issue that’s been on your mind? Our inner world is rich with ideas and memories, and the environment is just as distracting, so it can be easy to lose sight of the present moment. While speaking to users, we must work hard to remain in that present so we can best represent their viewpoints later on. If we treat our moderator’s guide as a checklist, eagerly waiting for the next moment to cross off a question, we fail to be in the present moment. This surface-level listening may cause us to miss the subtleties of what our user has to say, such as the subtext of an answer or a moment of hesitation. Following these subtleties over the course of a session can lead to some very exciting discoveries.

Careful Observation

Listening to what someone says is only half the story; we also have to observe how the user interacts with their environment. I’m reminded of that amazing moment at the end of Usual Suspects when Agent Kujan realizes that the aptly-named Verbal Kint has talked his way out of custody by crafting a story using small details he noticed around the office. Kujan was a great listener and was asking all the right questions, but he failed to see what his interlocutor was seeing and doing during the course of their interview. In research, methodologies like eye-tracking can help us get at this issue, but so can these observational tricks:

• Computer-Based Studies: Always ask your user to use the mouse to show where they’re focusing. This will make it easier to follow up on any misunderstandings or wants they might have but fail to voice.
•  Mobile Studies: Watch carefully where the users are tapping. In a recent study, we discovered that users were actually interpreting one larger touch area as many smaller touch points because of the use of purple text (which they thought were separate links).
•  In-Field Studies: Use the skills of Verbal Kint to carefully observe the details of the environment and form questions based on what you see. The environment may fill in “whys” and “hows” that your participant may not be consciously aware of.

In this blog post I wrote for AnswerLab, I share a real-world example of simplicity gone awry. Full text below!

One week before I moved into my apartment, there was a fire in one of the downstairs units. My neighbor woke up to thick smoke and flames bursting from his oven. I admit that I was judgmental at first — who doesn’t know to turn off an oven? When I found myself face to face with the UI of this particular oven, however, things made a lot more sense.

In attempting to simplify the digital interface of the oven, the designers made the same “Cancel” button control both the timer and the oven. This makes it difficult to know which of these very different features you’re controlling. I feel less confident with each use, and have doubled back to the kitchen multiple times just to verify that the oven was successfully turned off. Yes, there is an indicator light that appears next to “Bake” and “Broil” when they’re turned on, but the light is small and easy to miss (even then, I’m not 100% sure whether the indicator means I’ve selected the feature or the feature is on). In simplifying the controls, the experience had become more difficult for the user.

There are also situations in which we don’t want to make a task simple. I’m reminded of a recent mobile study where an off button was very easy to tap, which pleased most users. However, one user accidentally tapped this button as she navigated the app and undid all her work without her initially realizing it. Although this experience only happened to one user, the consequences were important enough that we decided that the design must be made less simple. The design team added an additional step so the feature was still discoverable but the user must make a deliberate decision to use it.

When designing a product, we must consider the overall context of the experience. It’s too easy to throw around words like ‘simplify’ and ‘intuitive’ without considering what it might really mean to the user. What are the consequences of our design? If something doesn’t work as expected, will it just lead to minor frustration or major loss?

(Source: addtoany.com)

Sweet Home Chicago!

The Tenderloin in 8-bit.  via Google Maps, April 1st Edition

A city keeps its secrets.

San Francisco, March 2012