A Product Managers’ take on the Nielsen Norman UX Conference 2019

Don Norman first coined the term User Experience in 1993 and in the last 26 years, UX has exploded. It’s now a vital capability for brands and it’s forecasted to total 100 million jobs by 2050. It’s misunderstood by many to solely be the interactions on a screen to get from A to B. But UX is about human-centred design, no matter the product nor the audience, creating services that help people in one way or another. In essence, it’s extremely important for any business that wants to stay relevant!

The Nielsen Norman Group are one of the leading UX consultancies and researchers, sharing best practices around the world. Last week I was lucky enough to attend one of their conferences to sample some of their learnings from design thinking, usability testing and omnichannel experiences. They were an enriched, jam-packed three days so here’s my attempt of summarising 300 slides, umpteen exercises and an unhealthy amount of post-it notes.

I attend the Boston conference but they teach everywhere from Singapore to Berlin

Day 1: Generating Big Ideas with Design Thinking

Source: Nielsen Norman Group

Design thinking is not design, it’s problem solving. It’s a process for true innovation that shifts mindset from “How can we make what’s existing, just, better?” to “What do our users truly need?”. It involves 3 key aspects: deep understanding of users; exploring and ideating fast and wide; and rapid prototyping to test, learn and adapt.

This was a learn-by-doing session as we participated in 5 exercises, following the real case study of someone trying to buy a TV.

1/5 Empathy Mapping- Using research of one user, identifying what they say, think, feel and do. From this, call out any similarities or conflicts, as well as what is apparent and what can be inferred from what we know.

2/5 As-Is Scenario Mapping- Combining what you know about the user with what they experience through a series of steps. Then together as a group clustering common themes and voting on the biggest pain points (i.e. areas of opportunity).

3/5 Needs Statement- Articulating their needs into one clear problem statement, following the template: [USER] needs a way [TO DO SOMETHING] so that [INSIGHT]. The trickiest part is that the end goal is often misconstrue. Is it so that they purchase a TV? Incorrect, it’s so that they find a TV that fulfils their needs.

4/5 Big Ideation- Visualising as many ideas as possible in a limited amount of time. The rules of ideation included: quantity over quality; defer judgement; show don’t tell and embrace the impossible.

5/5 Prioritisation Matrix- Assessing the value of the ideas, we plotted against axis such as impact to user vs technical feasibility. We also looked at long term business impact vs short term business impact to see if our quick wins and differentiating solutions rang true.

Overall, this was one of the most well-executed workshops I’ve seen. The exercises interlinked with one another showing exactly how the deep insights of the user directly led to a valuable, innovative idea (bring on TV Tinder!).

Day 2: Usability Testing

UT is often viewed as a nice-to-have but this course taught us how to articulate how vital it is. We got right in the detail on how to get the most out of your usability testing, everything from the right location, team members, tools and even down to the right words to use. It is important to set up your test in the way that elicits the truest results.The mantra of the day was a quote by Cultural Anthropologist, Margaret Mead:

“ What people do, and what they say they do, are entirely different things”

There are 3 key measures you need to differentiate between to ensure you’re testing the right thing:

1. Discoverability- We don’t mention the feature to the user, instead we tell them to explore and see whether they discover it by themselves.
2. Findability- We’ve told the user that, say, a calendar feature exists on a screen, how well can they then go find it.
3. Usability- We’ve given a user a set task, what is easy or difficult to complete and why?

Some other key takeaways

Source: Usability Geek

• How you word a task heavily influences how a user carries it out and can skew your results
• Tools for usability testing have really advanced. Previously I’ve used a cursor heatmap to see how findable or discoverable a feature is. But do people really move a cursor about to everywhere their eyes go? No. Eye-tracking goggles are much more effective for answering why they couldn’t find something.
• UT is not UAT! UT is validating the solution. Is it fit for purpose? Does it achieve what we designed it to achieve? User Acceptance Testing is more of a technical pass just before launch to check for any bugs. UT cannot be done with UAT, they are different activities with very different goals.

Day 3: Omni-Channel Journeys & Customer Experience

Omni-channel is often misunderstood as simply being present in lots of channels. In fact, it’s about how integrated those channels are with one another to create the best experience. Failing examples are siloed to channel. The tech lead is looking after the web development, the CRM lead is looking after the email campaigns, the head of staff is looking after physical channels, but who is looking after the whole journey? (Answer= Product Owners, but that’s another article in itself, watch this space!).Think about what comes before and after what you’re in control of. You’re not just creating a web page, you’re creating a touch point of an experience. Karen Katz, CEO of Neiman Marcus Group sums this up perfectly:

“We are one brand to our customers. Our customers do not differentiate between channels, and now neither will we.”

Nielsen Norman explain 5 key components to omnichannel experience. Upon this were many examples of brands who were excelling in one and not the other, and what components to focus on depending on your organisational maturity and strategy.

1. Consistent- How do we provide the same experience across channels and devices? Through functionality, messaging and look and feel, how do we deliver one consistent brand experience no matter the scenario?
2. Optimised- How do we provide the same core experience but capitalise on the abilities of mobile or tablet? For example, heroing different services depending on whether the user is at home or on-the-go. Or perhaps hosting rich media on tablet due to the high res, or leveraging the geo-fencing abilities of mobile.
3. Seamless- How are the transitions from one channel to the next as easy as possible? How do we remove inevitable roadblocks for users? How do we set expectations with them for the next step and pro-actively connect them to that step?
4. Orchestrated- How do we used data and automation to make the journey as effortless, personalised and contextual as possible?
5. Collaborative- How can we use multiple channels at the same time to enhance one another? For example, Adobe Nav allows the user to sketch on the touch screen of a tablet whilst viewing it on the large screen of a desktop.

To summarise…

All in all, the course gave deep insight into today’s state of user-centred design and customer experience. Nielsen Normans’ research makes my job as a consultant much easier, explaining not only the business case behind these methods, but how to apply them properly. In the short term, correct use of any of these tools can show immediate value but it’s the combination across best practices that will unlock maximum business impact.