Business Objectives Meet User Expectations

Cheryl Myers

Nina Amato

Source: https://xkcd.com/773/

Who is CHEST?

Who is Cheryl?

• Director of UX, Mobile and Web

• Manage team which supports the website and marketing

technology

• Team includes Web Manager, Product Owners and contract web

designers.

• Have worked in web, digital marketing, UX, and application

development in both Marketing and IT.

Fun fact: My husband and I, being empty nesters, just moved from

Chicago to a small farmstead on the coast in Michigan.

Who is Brightfind?

Who is Nina?

• User Experience Designer

• Conducts research and designs experiences

• Research methods:

– Surveys

– Focus Groups

– Interviews

– Web Analytics

– Card Sorts

– Usability Testing

Fun fact:

My initials are NA. I need to include my middle initial when I initial contracts or else it looks like I’m saying “not applicable.”

Evolution

Not Revolution

Saying 'Yes' made a mess

Pick from safe choices

• Identified standard components

• Established a pattern library

• Adopted a framework

• Implement measurement toolset

False Consensus Effect

When people overestimate how

many people share our

understanding, opinions, or

preferences.

Usability Testing

• Test your revenue

generators.

• Ask testers to “think out

loud” and share their

thought process with you.

• Do not give away any hints

about how to accomplish a

task.

• Wait until the test is

complete to follow up and

ask questions.

Aligning User Needs

With

Business Goals

Define Goals

• Cross-divisional

exercises facilitate

communication of

goals from different

divisions in the

organization.

Cross-divisional teams

• Content owners

• Strategic stakeholders

• Executive Leadership

Cross-divisional exercises

Focus Groups & Interviews Help Build Personas

• Focus groups & interviews fill in gaps with personas.

• They tell us the “why.”

• Sometimes constituents make off-handed comments that tell us so much about what they need.

• Focus groups and interviews give us the opportunity to press further and find out more about these topics.

Focus Groups

• 6-10 people per group.

• Four groups are ideal. It’s the level of

saturation.

• Focus groups should be between 1-2 hours

long.

• Ask participants to sign a consent form if

you’re going to record the audio.

Focus Groups: How To Hear From Everyone

• You need to moderate alpha personalities and you need to

encourage shy participants to speak.

• We recommend this high tech tool:

Interviews

• Try to interview 3+ people per persona.

• Interviews should be an hour long.

• Dig deeper. Ask for a back story.

• Ask participants to sign a consent form if

you’re going to record the audio.

Constituents Appreciate Being Heard.

"I think the most important thing is that you guys

are looking for feedback. Or that these guys are

looking for feedback from you. That’s an

indication that they’re trying to build a better

system. I think most

people would appreciate that they’re doing

that. Because they’re not just saying 'you get

what you get.’ They’re trying to review and

improve."

Questions to Ask in Surveys

• Ask filtering questions such as:

– How often do you visit the website (daily,

weekly, monthly, yearly, rarely).

– How would you classify yourself (profession

or other criteria)

• We can filter the survey responses using

these criteria.

Questions to Ask in Surveys

• Rate the following content as either:

– Highly valuable

– Somewhat valuable

– Not valuable

– I didn’t know this existed

• Use the filtering questions to help filter these results. Look at

answers from those who visit the website daily and weekly.

Which content did they rank as most valuable? Then look at

answers from people who visit rarely. Which content did they not

know existed? If there is cross-over, that content may be a

candidate for the homepage.

1. Don’t overburden your users with surveys.

Especially pop-ups!

2. Have some go-to survey questions and don't bend

on adding random questions.

3. Think about potential outcomes and ensure your

survey results are actionable

Card Sorts

• Optimal Sort: www.optimalworkshop.com

• 50-100 participants

Card Sorts: The Similarity Matrix

Card Sorts: The Standardization Grid

The False Consensus Effect in Website Navigation

Measuring Aesthetics

• Who we are

• Who we aren’t

• Who we’d like to beStakeholders

• 5-second Test

• Part of a pop-up surveyConstituents

Microsoft Desirability Toolkit

Immediate Actionable Items

Set up Google analytics.

• Configure it to track the search terms entered into your

search box.

• Use Search Console to determine the terms people are

searching for to get to your site.

Check Google Trends for potential keywords.

https://trends.google.com/trends/.

Type the secondary level of your website navigation into

Excel. Choose 30 items from this list for your card sort.

• www.optimalworkshop.com allows a free card sort of up

to 30 items.

Immediate Actionable Items

Create a survey for your constituents.

• Create a free account on Hotjar.com or Surveymonkey.com

• Include filtering questions

• Ask participants to categorize your website content as: highly

valuable, somewhat valuable, not valuable, and “I didn’t know

this existed.”

Plan a cross-divisional exercise at your organization.

• Mix your teams to include people from different departments.

• Listen to the conversations around prioritization of content

• Assign content to personas, and organize your sitemap

• Buy some facilitation books and plan some workshops.

All life is an experiment.

The more experiments you make

the better.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Business Objectives Meet User Expectations

Cheryl Myers

Nina Amato