User research. The secret of focus. Part 3: Research as a policy tool.

The picture on the right: "The designer before the boss."

The next time you read an article about the success of usability research, ask yourself this question for a start: “Which of the results are more than just common sense (or at least common sense in the understanding of interface designers)?” Ask also: “Can a good designer be able to come to the same solution?”

Then think about how you are going to explain this “common sense” to someone who does not understand anything in design. Someone who may even be hostile to your advice "expert."

How to explain the design strategy to customers, colleagues, bosses, who may have their own views and personal prejudices? This is where research can come in handy.

Mark Hurst, on the sincerely recommended Good Experience blog, describes his research project on a car information web site.

This site, in search of greater profit, began, as I understand it, unofficially, to follow the strategy of promoting its advertising partners at the expense of its other goals. They not only registered new partners, but also designed the entire user experience for them. [...] The site owners gradually forgot about the main reason for his visits by users - to find approximate prices for cars and read reviews.
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The last drop was another redesign of the home page, when there simply wasn’t a search form or links to car models, except for a small area at the bottom right of the screen. The rest of the space was occupied by affiliate links .. [...] And again the main purpose of visiting the site - to find approximate prices and get information about the cars - was neglected. It was at that moment that the site owners invited me as a usability expert.

We see that Mark was very clearly visible from the very beginning the main problem of the design of this site: the owners promoted advertising links to their partners at the expense of the main functionality. It seems to be all obvious.

Then they conducted a formal user research. The results from the visitors spoke for themselves:

... the site annoys them; they don't like perpetual affiliate links; they cannot find what they came for; they would gladly go to the competitors site ...

Wait, didn’t Mark notice these problems when he only looked at the site for the first time? I bet you noticed. He's a smart guy and has been designing for many years. So why do more research?

As a result, we were able to direct the client company to improve the experience of visitors to their site. But the political disputes in the company were so bitter that we had to use user research as a lever in order to convince them of the need for change.

Politics! It changes things. I believe that this moment is very suitable for research. Mark did not create the appearance that research solved the design problem . He used user research as part of his own business strategy, and the purpose of his business strategy was to convince customers, for whom the solutions “obvious to any designer”, were not so obvious. Here is what Mark writes about it:

User experience is primarily an organizational problem. If we simply provided our recommendations without taking into account the customer’s political situation, then our report would remain dusting somewhere on the shelf, in a place with reports from other “consultants”.

What follows from what has been written is not that user research is the basis for good design, but rather that research (as well as other methods) help the designer to explain and justify his decisions to people who do not have the skills or sense to design. In the worst case, protect them from making the wrong decisions.

As an expert in designing, you should not pretend that you do not have your own professional point of view or that your point of view is worth nothing if it is not justified by the results of research.