Improving User Experience

I gave a presentation last week at the User Experience Professionals Association’s conference, together with Abby Leafe, about how we can get a better understanding of users’ overall experience by going beyond usability research in the lab and conducting ethnographic research in people’s actual environment (“Out of the Lab and Into the Wild! Mobile Ethnography for Richer UX Insights”).

While I was at the conference, I was drawn to several presentations that showed that companies can be more successful when they consider customers’ emotional state as they design products and services.  And interestingly, the presentations weren’t talking about products we traditionally consider emotional, but rather tax preparation software and website data security!

Companies are looking at each of the steps in their customers’ interactions with them (the “customer journey”) and finding ways to create a lasting positive impression rather than a neutral or negative impression.

For example, Turbotax tax preparation software now asks users how they feel about doing their taxes.  If the user answers “not so good,” the software says “we get it.  The tax code is pretty crazy.  But we’re used to rolling up our sleeves and making taxes less, well, taxing.”  They encourage the user and humanize the software at the same time.

Another example: consider the steps involved in taking a taxi.  The last step in the process is paying the driver, which can include some difficulties like figuring out how much to tip, or the driver claiming his credit card machine doesn’t work, etc.  Uber came along and has delighted customers by removing that step from the process: the payment is automatically charged to your credit card on file.  You just thank the driver and get out of the car.

At Symantec, researchers asked company executives to describe the steps in their customers’ “journey” and also to rate the customer experience at each step as positive, neutral or negative.  Then they conducted research with customers and asked the same questions.  They found discrepancies between executives’ views and customers’ experiences: there were areas where the company was doing better than they thought and didn’t need to improve and other problem areas that executives were unaware of.

Getting the buy-in of a company’s senior leadership is crucial in order redesign the user experience to delight customers.  In many cases, it requires an “internal marketing” effort to persuade them of its importance.  I’m willing to help: I’ve developed a presentation showing how understanding customer emotions increases company profits.  I’d be happy to give the presentation – just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “Out of the Lab and Into the Wild! Mobile Ethnography for Richer UX Insights,” Abby Leafe and Jay Zaltzman, UXPA 2015; “Principles of Emotional Design,” Garron Engstrom and Jake Maynard, UXPA 2015; “Mapping, ”Shima Kazerooni, UXPA 2015; “Create a Customer-Driven Culture that Inspires a Large Organization,” Dawn Nidy and Kristy Avgerinos, UXPA 2015