Dr. Porter pointed out that while the health care industry is a science and evidence-based industry with regard to the products it brings to market, (i.e. hypothesis, testing, measurement, etc.),  when it comes to understanding how well those products actually work in the context of  patient care, the industry falls short of the mark. Why? Because other than cancer remission and organ transplant success, the health care industry as a whole does not measure outcomes of end-to-end patient care. I was surprised to learn that an industry rooted in experimentation, results and measurement does not routinely continue to track things beyond go-to-market. Interestingly, Dr. Porter noted that when the industry does measure, monitor, and optimize outcomes, the results are dramatic in a very positive way. Download Dr. Porter’s slides for details.

While Dr. Porter’s talk was specific to measuring outcomes in the health care industry, the principle is applicable to every industry and organization. While measurement is not a new concept, outcomes-based measurement is still very much an innovation; however, it won’t be for long. Because measuring outcomes has the “magical” affect of getting everyone concerned with metrics to care about what’s really important for both your business and your target audience.

Measuring Outcomes: Forecasting vs. Backcasting

All measurement activities begin by first establishing what you would like to achieve – a desired outcome. The difficulty many people encounter when trying to define and plan outcomes is that the process that works best is the opposite of what they are use to.

When it comes to planning and moving towards an objective most people use some form of “forecasting” techniques, which is the process of taking steps in a continuation of the now towards the future. For example, Apple predicted the sale of 2-3 million iPads in the first year. This estimate was based upon a number of market and industry factors and was heavily influenced by previous iPod & iPhone sales.

With outcomes-based measurement, you utilize a technique called “backcasting”, which approaches the challenge from the opposite direction. You first envision the future desired state and then define the steps necessary to attain that outcome. So, in the example used above, instead of predicting future sales based on past results, you would start with the desired outcome – how many iPads would we like to sell in the first year – and then work backwards to determine who is going to buy them, where they will buy them, how they need to be made aware of them, what types of pre-sales interactions are necessary to drive the level of awareness that maps to the sales target, etc.

The difference in this example might seem subtle, but it is significant. Forecasting looks at existing conditions and makes a best guess at the future. Backcasting establishes a future intention and determines, by design, how conditions and conventional plans need to change in order to manifest that intention. This process of imagining a desirable outcome and then identifying the various touch points/interactions, people, places, systems and technologies involved in connecting the desired future outcome to present circumstances is called Outcome Design.

About Outcome Design

Outcome Design begins by asking three questions that form the foundation of every well planned measurement program:

1. Where do you want to be?
2. Where are you today and how do you know?
3. How will you get to where you want to be?

The answers to these questions define an outcome, establish a baseline, and outline the steps you need to take to achieve your desired goal.

Outcome Design in measurement was developed by me and is a method of measuring, achieving, and balancing business and audience goals throughout an entire experience design process. Outcome Design is one of four standard measurement methods that MISI utilizes as part of our Measurement practice.

If you have any questions about Outcome Design or would like to learn more MISI’s Measurement practice or to engage MISI in a Measurement project contact me at mhurst@misicompany.com or leave your comments below.

To read and learn more about Outcome Design on your own, please view my keynote presentation from the NYC UPA. To get you started using outcomes, check out the Outcomes Worksheet on Slide 14 of the presentation – it is an example of a worksheet you can use to tie business goals, audience goals, scenarios, personas and outcomes all together.

1. Do You Need a Moose?  Yes – you all ready that correctly.  During our community intercepts a week ago, one of our participants offered the museum a taxidermied moose to add to their animal exhibit.  Apparently the participant’s father was a taxidermist who had donated a brown bear many years ago and in his recent passing, the kids found a moose that they could “just picture standing strong and proud next to the bear”.  See what you learn when you ask your audience how they would like to contribute?

2. Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: During our branding workshops, you may recall reading about the proverbial wall that appears to exist between the theater and the museum when it comes to their day to day operations.  Even though we have not finalized our blueprint or our recommendations around how the teams need to be doing a better job collaborating together – during our branding workshop some of the challenges of being as misaligned as they can be starting to come out.  A few weeks after a particularly challenging example of this misalignment, we are starting to see signs (even though they may be small ones) that they get the problem and know they need to start addressing it. The first step?  Talking more to one another.  Example that they are?   Co-developing a programming list for the Hollywood glam exhibit that ties the gala, theater performances, exhibit, and other social events together.  This may sound like a small and obvious step – but trust me, for these guys it is anything but.

3. Plasmas, Kiosks, and iPads oh My! For those of you who know me, you know I am closet techno junkie. That said – I am very conservative when it comes to introducing a shiny new toy to a client.  I do not believe in the me-too syndrome.  When it comes to the MM/ BT however, that is not the case.  They actually need to find ways to leverage the digital space to enhance and expand the experience their visitors, donors, and supporters are having with them.  Enter – shiny new toy.  Imagine being able to put that moose next to the brown bear in a virtual exhibit (something you probably would not do in the actual exhibit) and compare their respective sizes, colors, the apparent force.  Or better yet imagine trying on Elizabeth Taylor’s costume from Anthony and Cleopatra and posting the picture to your Facebook page as a way to entice your friends to check out the exhibit online.  The value of these kinds of interactions is that they pull the experience outside of the physical space into the virtual space so that anyone anywhere can engage with the museum (or theater) and in so doing – expand the footprint of these two establishments and their supporting programs/ exhibits.

 
As you can see – lots of exciting things going on!  Stay tuned for a more formal update in a week or so when we finalize our brand promise and start digging into our competitive research.

Cheers!

A few insights that got our attention from a local museum expectation perspective were:

• Going Local: Local is a key value proposition for most audiences when it comes to museums and theaters.  That said – while most believe that local museums and theaters can provide quality cultural experiences, there is definitely a vocal group that does not believe in this.  Finding ways to incent this group to “try us” and “rethink” their expectations will be key.
• An Intimate Experience: Many museum visitors (notably artists, educators, students and the 20-45 type age group) enjoy the intimate experience they have at a local museum.  They believe they can truly connect to the art and performances they are participating in.
• Discover and Explore: The need to discover and explore seems an obvious requirement of any cultural experience.  But as it relates to local museums – part of that exploration is internal; e.g. the realigning of personal expectations around what a local museum can provide and the type of experiences it can provide.

 One great thing about conducting interviews at the museum is having a unique opportunity to watch people “in their natural habitat doing what they do”.  For example, we noticed that one person appeared to be wandering aimlessly from room to room, not making eye contact (which made it difficult to get her attention for an interview).  After slowly chasing her through a few rooms, she stopped and let me introduce myself (yes, you read that right, I had to “chase her” for a bit).   About 3 questions deep, much to my surprise I discovered that she was in fact a volunteer who had been working there for years. When I asked her what her role was, she simply stated, “I don’t know – I just walk around”.  And in fairness – that was exactly what she was doing.  From an experience design perspective – this was an insightful finding given it’s relation to our work around brand impact touch points (e.g. Websites, print materials, physical space, press releases, personnel, etc).  In this case, the museum may not be viewing their volunteers as brand ambassadors and equipping them with the right tools to deliver a “branded experience” to the visitors who interact with them.  

Another key learning around brand awareness that has come out of our initial research is high level of awareness and presence that the Morris Museum has in the local schools.  For other target audiences (e.g. those 20-45 year olds), it is vague at best.  To help bridget this gap, we will be providing a strategic blueprint that outlines a plan to address core questions such as “how do you reach your untapped audiences?”.  We will help evolve the MM and BT brand to better engage and peak the curiosity of those who have never heard of the MM, or have not visited the museum since they were young.  In addition to the brand itself, we will look to where people interact with the brand (e.g. Train stations, local community events, and via larger museums and other artistic establishments).  To kick off this phase of our work, we have hosted a number of highly interactive branding workshops with museum and theater stakeholders (from the business side as well as the curator/ programming side).  The goal of these exercises is to truly understand the heart of what the MM and BT are  today and what their future aspirations are. With this understanding, we can begin to build a new brand promise, identify key value propositions and design the marketing messages that will appeal to the various audiences.  And of course, we’ll identify the right channels to pull them through.  

As you can see, we are deep into our SEA Experience Audit (or, phase 1 of our work).  Once we establish this baseline and desired experience, our work shifts to crafting the evidence-based, actionable recommendations that get us there.  We now turn to how we will to measure our success and ultimately, provide the right governance model and change management tools we’ll need to bring the rest of the museum and theater along with us.

Stay tuned for another blog post soon!  Next week we start the community intercepts and competitive research – I am sure there will be very interesting insights to share!

Cheers!
-Jerilyn and the MM SEA Team.

We must act in the customer’s best interest, not once in a while, but consistently. This means offering outstanding products and services and being helpful, courteous and quick to follow up. We need to be keenly aware of the competitive landscape and quick to act. The field – the employees closest to the customer – should drive this process and have ample resources and authority to be the best at serving customers. Our strength resides in the field. We must exceed customers’ expectations and constantly make it easier for them to do business with us. [My emphasis.]

This language may sound familiar. It may even echo the language of your own company’s mission/vision statement. Perhaps there are posters around your workplace boldly proclaiming similar corporate commitments.  As an advocate for your customer, I find these principles and posters admirable; however, I can tell you from personal experience that the mission articulated by the company quoted above and the experience of doing business with said company are in diametrical opposition.

So why does the actual experience of interacting with so many companies often belie the customer-centric principles they claim are fundamental to their success?  Here are six surefire causes we have identified as we’ve helped various companies improve their experiences.

1)      Senior leadership has got the talk but not the walk. Providing your customers with a highly valued experience requires self-awareness, discipline, consistent monitoring at the frontlines and prioritized processes for standards, governance and an imperative of constant improvement.  This level of commitment requires backing up the words used to describe the desired experience with both clear expectations regarding employee behaviors and with the resources your employees need to meet or exceed those expectations.   

2)      Customer Strategy is a long-term play in a short-term world. Truly understanding who your audience is requires ongoing vigilance. Unfortunately, many well-crafted customer-centric efforts designed to gain long-term competitive advantage are often sacrificed to meet short-term needs.  For example, a decision to cut costs by outsourcing “Customer Care” can distance your firm from valuable direct interaction with and feedback from your audience.  Implementing an enterprise-wide IT-driven change designed to reduce overhead without consideration for how it will affect the people using the new systems can lead to costly decreases in productivity.  Stuff happens. Things change. The one constant should be monitoring and reacting to how those changes are influencing your customers and employees.

3)      The business treats various customer touch points separately. Customers don’t care about the distinctions your organization makes between its traditional marketing and its digital marketing, or the organizational separation between your sales organization, your marketing organization, and your service organization, or that you distinguish new account activation from customer service.  All your customers care about is having their expectations fulfilled.  They are often frustrated because the various touch points are managed and measured disparately; thereby creating an experience that feels different one touch point to the next.  Exemplary customer experience sees all touch points as parts of a single overarching experience.  (Digital marketer Jim Sterne wrote eloquently on this topic recently.) The key is to understand what you want that overarching experience to be and make certain each touch point moves you closer to that goal.

4)      Leadership perpetuates an irrational gap between the Business and IT.  An excellent customer experience requires the alignment of all systems and people with a common vision of that experience.  Imploring your people to deliver exemplary service without providing them the resources necessary to do so will fail. Your various business disciplines and the technologists who support them need to be in it together.  They need to share the same vision.  They need to see how that vision manifests in real life.  And they need to be held to the same business-based measures of success.  Organizations that have cracked the customer experience code have done so in part by bridging the gap between the Business and IT.

5)      Customer experience reflects your employees’ experiences. When was the last time your company reviewed the experiences employees have of working for your company? When was the last time your company assessed how employees perform their respective roles in the context of what company leadership expects them to achieve? Are your various organizational units truly aligned around the principles your company has set forth in your mission/vision statements?  We have learned that behind every fragmented, inconsistent and unsatisfying customer experience can be found an equally fragmented, inconsistent and unsatisfying employee experience.  Great customer experience begins at “home.”

6)      The procedures your employees follow don’t align with the experience you want your customers to have. Policies and procedures are put in place for good reasons – e.g. security, privacy protection, consistency, regulatory concerns, efficiency, etc.  From a customer experience perspective, the problems start when your frontline people are trained to treat SOPs as inflexible. Companies that differentiate themselves through attention to customer experience provide employees with an understanding of the intent of the rules and with guidance on the how to bend them. Think about how you felt as a customer that time an employee accepted your return without a receipt, or took a little extra time on that service call to walk you through the online interaction because it saved you money, or ___fill in the blank. Frontline discretion combined with the training on how to use it in a way that aligns with the experience you want your customer to have are among the most important tools you can provide your employees.

Odds are one or more of these conditions exist within your company.  This list makes clear just how hard it can be to live up to the expectations organizations set with the grand words they put in their mission statements.  It requires a serious commitment from C-level and buy-in at street level to assure that people’s behaviors and the systems that support them are all aligned and measured in accordance with the goals set by the organization. We call this Strategic Experience Alignment (SEA)^SM.

Prototyping is an excellent technique that enables your development team to get valuable audience feedback and address issues pertaining to functional priorities and usability before they become costly downstream problems. Prototyping provides the additional benefit of allowing the team to share its vision and begin building a fan base among your audience members. These fans can become powerful allies in driving adoption of the completed tool.

Despite its benefits, prototyping and early stage audience testing can be perceived as slowing down the development process and creating unnecessary front-end costs. We believe that when done correctly, prototyping’s benefits far outweigh its costs. Here are a few things we’ve learned along the way to help ensure the process is efficient and effective.

1.     Determine the intent of your prototype before you build it

Determine who you are building the prototype for and what you hope to accomplish. Then make sure the prototype serves the intended audience and purpose. The last thing you want is for your audience to be confused because it is either too detailed or not detailed enough. Here are some basic guidelines for prototyping for your three primary audiences:

• Business (Project Sponsor) – Make sure the prototype can answer the big question: How does this experience map to the overall business objectives?
• Target Audience – Make sure it demonstrates how people will actually interact with the completed tool to perform specific, highly relevant tasks or functions.
• Technical (Developer) – make sure it can demonstrate how the tool will function with enough detail that the developer can use the prototype as a supplement to the functional specification documentation, e.g. when clicking on a link do we open a new window or an overlay?

2.     Build the prototype with functionality that is realistic and relevant

To paraphrase Dirty Harry, a design team has to know its limitations. Are you designing for a particular development platform that imposes specific constraints on your interaction design (e.g. SharePoint)? Is there an aggressive timeline for launch that will constrain how much custom development can be completed and adequately tested in the time allotted?  Designers need to work with the development team to ensure that the prototype is aligned with the overall project timeline and represents a feasible design.  

Also, if your prototype is being designed for the people who will be using the final product, it is important that you take the time to learn what is needed from their perspective. No matter where you are in the design process, anything you show to your target audience needs to demonstrate that you understand their needs and that the tool will be relevant and useful. (See tip #4 below.)

3.     Try to keep your prototype “black and white”

Remember that early prototypes are intended to demonstrate functionality and utility, not branding and other visual design elements. So don’t over design your prototype. Colors, imagery, and even real content often get in the way of the high-level intent of the prototype. For example, if you’re trying to validate that a particular interaction design is usable (end-users) and feasible (developers), you don’t want feedback that focuses on a particular color choice or that points out a block of copy is out of date.

If the intent of the prototype dictates the use visual design elements and/or actual content, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• If you need to visually distinguish areas of page or functional modules, try to get by with grayscale variations rather than actual colors. Click here for a sample grayscale prototype screen. 
• Only include content that is helpful in terms of understanding how the tool works (e.g. core navigational elements and terms, contextual help text, etc.)

4.     Have an audience advocate(s) contribute to the prototype design

Remember that prototyping is an excellent way to engage the people who will be using the tool in its development. Engaging them serves two goals: 1) It ensures that the end product is relevant to their needs and desires; 2) It begins the process of creating a fan base among your target audience; these fans can later be leveraged as evangelists for the end product because, as co-designers, they have a vested interest in its success. Having at least one advocate of your target audience participate in your prototype design contributes to both of these goals. One technique to consider is holding a collaborative design workshop with audience representatives.

5.     Keep it simple and think iterative

Unless you are creating the prototype as an end deliverable for the development team (functional specification), it should be seen as part of an iterative approach to design.  Whether you are creating the prototype for requirement review meetings or for audience testing, don’t attempt to get everything perfect on the first go-around. It’s easy to get carried away with your prototype and find yourself spending days, even weeks, making it look and function exactly as you envision (e.g. perfectly timed sliding effect for an expandable page component). But keep in mind that the purpose of the prototype is to test ideas and concepts. The feedback you receive will inevitably lead to changes in the design. Keeping your prototype as simple as possible while making sure it serves its purpose will help you keep your design process on schedule and on budget while providing opportunities to tweak it along the way as you receive feedback.

 
Traditional Approach:
During a website waterfall SDLC, users typically get involved during the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase. If they’re lucky, they will be involved (but limited) during requirements. As long as the application meets all the business, user, design, quality etc requirements while doing it on budget and on time, then the project was a success. However, project success should be defined by what happens post-deployment: inefficiencies, adoption issues, training issues, etc. all will cost you more time and money in the long run. Having users involved during the entire process would alleviate those more important success metrics.

Recommended Approach:
The Agile methodology shown here is essentially the waterfall method but with continuously repeated “Design Iterations” that are “Audience Centered”.

• The methodology begins with a Planning Phase followed by a Requirements Phase.
• The Requirements Phase involves heavy audience participation (focus groups, interviews, surveys etc).
• Once requirements are completed, the first Design Iteration begins. This iteration is “Time Boxed” and involves implementing incremental design functionality (i.e. functional logic, wire framing, page comping etc) onto an evolving prototype.
• Once the functionality is implemented, the iteration starts again and it will be validated with your audience.
• After validation is completed, the next iteration of incremental design begins (although design iterations are also done in parallel).
• This continues until all the requirements are implemented and fully validated in the prototype.
• Once the “Design Iterations” are completed, application development will begin (using the functional) and the remaining waterfall phases are executed (QA, UAT, Deployment and Maintenance).

There are different types of Agile methodologies such as SCRUM, XP, RAD, Crystal Clear, FDD, Lean SD etc. The diagram shown above is a basic Agile Methodology with iterations focused around the design cycle.

Benefits/Conclusion
Here are a few benefits of adapting this solution:

- Reduce the cost of future redesign by meeting the audience needs.
- Reduce user task times, time of training, help desk support & turnover as well as increase user productivity & quality.
- Show development results faster and keep project team members focused and communicating. You will receive feedback early so corrections are easier to accommodate.

Implementing this solution in your next application development project will exponentially increase your chances of project success and save you headaches, time and money down the road!

The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ

MISI Company is very excited to launch this blog series covering our work with the Morris Museum & Bickford Theater located in Morristown, New Jersey.  The project  is focused on delivering an end-to-end Strategic Experience Alignment (SEA) engagement in hopes of helping them resolve some challenges they are facing around brand, marketing, and communications as they seek to engage a new generation of museum and theater supporters.  And we would like to enlist you to join our project team.

Over the course of the next few months you will be privy to a behind the scenes look at what a SEA project looks like – who is part of the project team, what types of activities are involved, and ultimately – the types of deliverables and results that can be expected.

Throughout this series, we will be asking for your input on concepts/ideas we are hatching as well as your objective thoughts on how we are doing.  To kick this part off, please click this link to a 5 minute survey (and I really mean 5 minutes) about why you support cultural destinations near you.  Your input is going to be folded into our first primary research activity focused on identifying the key value propositions for different audiences when it comes to participating in museum and theater events.

For those of you who need a little more convincing before jumping in, here’s a little background on what we’re doing. In Phase 1, you will hear about the experience audit we are conducting which will include activities such as branding workshops, primary research with MM supporters and members of the surrounding community, a touch point analysis and competitive survey, and ultimately – identification of key brand promises and value propositions for their audiences, as well as what it all means to the staff members, who are tasked with getting the word out and engaging their supporters and community members at large.  In other words, we will begin to answer our key SEA questions:

• Who is your audience?
• What are they trying to do?
• How can we help them do it?

In Phase 2, we will start pulling through and implementing the strategy defined in phase 1 to usable assets and processes:  branding and design standards, conceptual and finalized marketing assets, a new website and social media strategy, and a supporting foundation of change management and governance strategies needed to ensure that we design and ultimately implement is sustainable over the long term.  

Finally, in Phase 3, you will learn about the fruits of our labor.  The new website will be launched, the new communication strategy implemented, and most importantly – the updated branding and end to end experience of how supporters engage with the museum and theater live and in steady state.  We will have a baseline of metrics in place that we can begin testing progress against to see where and how our path needs to be adjusted to ensure we meeting and exceeding the expectations of all of our audiences.

Phew – hopefully that is a good representation of the lofty project ahead.  I cannot overstate how excited we are to be embarking on this journey and we hope you will share in our excitment as you follow – and contribute to – our progress.  

Thanks and looking forward to our next touchpoint with you!
The MISI MM & Bickford Theater Team

Please click here to take our 5-minute survey.

Please click here to follow our progress…

You may well have left out the most critical component to your success: the people who will be most effected by the change. Failing to understand your workforce diversity and how your changes will affect the way various employees do their jobs can potentially result in significant negative impact on such things as work continuity, optimal work process adoption, productivity and morale.

Applying basic principles of customer-centric Experience Design (XD) to your game changing initiatives can help ensure your enterprise change management process is employee-driven and better positioned to realize the ROI you’re counting on.

1 – Know your customers…really know them

Truly knowing your customers can actually advance your cause. For instance, you can identify those individuals who are enthusiastic early adopters and can help drive behavioral change across your organization. You can also identify those “little victories” that your employees value and will galvanize their support for the larger, more difficult battles ahead.

If you don’t see your company’s employees as your customers, you should. Just as satisfied external customers are the basis of your organization’s revenue generation, satisfied employees are essential to efficient, competitive and profitable business operations. By understanding what the people affected by the change do, fear, like, dislike, aspire to, are motivated by, et cetera, you can be better prepared to assure the success of your initiative. For example…

• Understand how employees perform their jobs and you are better prepared to maintain the optimal employee work experience throughout the transition;
• Understand the different roles, preferences and concerns and you can better target change management messaging to your various audiences:
• Understand the impact of the change on the various roles and you can better prepare and present the training needed to ensure a smooth transition.

Perhaps most importantly, by making your customers part of the process you ensure that they understand the goals of the transition and remain actively engaged in ensuring those goals are met.

2 – Know what is before targeting what might be

Establishing a factual account of the status quo helps determine whether project sponsors all share a single view of the current state of affairs and are driving toward the same desired outcomes. It also helps provide benchmarks against which to measure the results achieved once the transition to the future state has begun. Here are a few tips on how to go about understanding what is:

• Listen to all internal stakeholders and remain objective. Internal analysis of data can be skewed by the biases of the people doing the analysis. Make certain you set up stakeholder meetings across business units, regions, roles, organizational levels, etc. 
• Leverage your existing data. Gather historic data for fresh analysis in the context of the anticipated organizational and behavioral changes. Remain critical: ask about the integrity and reliability of past data and the resulting conclusions; be ready to challenge them and ask tough questions. Quantitative analysis of data captured through the use of existing systems enables enlightening comparisons of what employees say they do and to what they are actually doing.
• Ask everyone at the executive level to answer the foundational questions that inspired the change in the first place. What is the business rationale?  What are the key success metrics?  What are the desired behavioral or cultural changes?

3 – Let your “customers” help you define what might be

Engaging a representative sample of your employee population pays a number of dividends. In addition to assuring that your customers have an instructive voice in the change process, doing so can prove invaluable in facilitating employee engagement, thereby smoothing transition and adoption. Use the appropriate blend of surveys, individual phone or in-person interviews, group sessions and analysis of system usage data to gather both qualitative and quantitative intelligence. In-person one-on-one interviews are particularly effective for gathering “soft” or “fugitive” knowledge not captured by more formal research methods.

4 – Brand the future state and infuse it with promise

Now that you know your customers you can create a matrix of messages that speak directly to them.  Think of this messaging as creating a brand. You are imbuing the impending change with a clear value proposition and brand promise based on your business goals. That brand should be nuanced by your target audiences’ vocabularies, hopes, concerns, et cetera. This exercise also serves to federate stakeholders around a single vision, to begin influencing behavioral changes, and to facilitate adoption. It helps employees picture themselves as part of the future state and understand what is expected.

5 – Measure what matters and follow up

The important questions here are: are your customers appropriately accounted for in you performance measurements?  Are you set up to measure behavioral changes and customer satisfaction? Do you have a plan in place to analyze and react to signs that something is falling behind? Better yet, are your customers helping you achieve your targets?

For example, while it is helpful to know how many people are aware of and logging on to a self-service application, it is probably more important to know that they are receiving the intended service.

6 – Integrate these principles into your organization’s DNA

The next and ultimate step is to place these customer-centric XD principles at the core of your organization’s change management processes. Adopting these practices will benefit change management initiatives and can change your organization in fundamental and far-reaching ways. Marketers will tell you, effective and timely communication starts with continuously listening to your customers and translating what you learn into strategically targeted action. The same holds true for effective internal communication. Listening to your internal customers is about continuously aligning company and employee goals so that the success of either is truly tied to the success of both.

No doubt you are aware of programs that were elegant, motivating experiences for their target audiences and returned compelling business results. The question is how can you ensure that the work your agencies are doing for you will result in such experiences? Do you know what good looks like when you’re watching it develop? 

If you’re not even thinking to ask that question, then here’s

Tip #1: Ask it

After all, something about this headline intrigued you, right? Whatever industry you work in, you have the responsibility to question what it is your agencies are creating and why. And not just questions like, “Are you using the right treatment of the logo?” Rather bottom line questions like, “Will I ever see a quantifiable or qualifiable benefit of that $80,000 Flash video you suggested we put on our site?” or “That 55-e-mail communication stream…how will we know it is working for us?”

Some agencies are questioning themselves. Take David Berkowitz and his Inside the Marketer’s Studio blog where he recently ‘atoned’ for sins on behalf of marketers and agencies. Included among his confessions was, “We have killed ideas that were spot on in favor of pet projects that we wanted for our portfolios.” If you’re not lucky enough to be working with an agency that has developed this level of self-awareness and self-evaluation, I’ve provided some tried and true tips for ensuring your agency is gives you good design.

Tip #2: Own the Cross-channel Experience

The ultimate experience of your product or service is only as successful as it is seamlessly integrated across all touchpoints your audience might encounter. You may have a digital agency doing your website, a print agency doing your print materials, an IVR firm doing your call center…the people you’re interacting with don’t care about that. Whether they’re interacting with a mobile device, learning about a prescription medication, paying a bill or booking a flight, they are simply trying to use your product or service to accomplish a goal. And all of their individual interactions with your people and systems across all channels add up to the complete experience of your brand or business. That experience can break down in any single channel/touchpoint and spoil the whole experience. So regardless of any organizational drama over channel conflict, or behind the scenes in-fighting as you manage multiple vendors, someone (why not you?) needs to ensure that the overall experience is seamless and successful from your target audience’s perspective. 

Tip #3: Understand Your Audience….REALLY Understand Them

It will be difficult to do Tip #2 without doing this. No single research or insight gathering approach will give you a full picture of what you need to know about your audience. You may have a 100-page segmentation study that you paid $200K for and are wondering, “So how do I translate this into something actionable for my business?” The answer is to take that broad study and combine it with more targeted research and testing of specific hypothesis that hold promise of getting you to “good.” As David Berkowitz concedes, “[Agencies] have guessed at our target audience’s interests…rather than conducting research that could have provided real answers.” That research he’s talking about does not need to be terribly time-consuming nor expensive, yet it can significantly increase adoption rates, reduce rework and help prevent expensive missteps as you develop an engaging experience for your audience. 

Tip #4:  Make Sure the Customer has a Voice

Similar to Tip #3, someone from the agency’s Customer/User Experience group (research/usability analyst, information/interaction/experience architect, etc.) should be at any meeting involving discussion of the agency’s creative concepts or the desired experience of the design you are working on. If they’re not, explain that you want someone in the room who can be the objective voice of the customer (VOC). If only Creative is represented, you may fall victim to self-deceit or, as Berkowitz describes it, “Falling in love with ideas without considering what would provide value for our target audience.” While it is true that you can’t always rely on people to know what they will want or do at some future date under varying circumstances (how many people asked for an iPod before it existed?), you can construct tests that allow them to give you frank and actionable reactions to what you think they will want or do. And asking them can pay valuable dividends in loyalty and advocacy.

Tip #5: Get Educated

With new technologies and trends evolving every day, it can be difficult to filter through the collection of buzz words to understand where a smart investment lies (“Social Media?” “Web 2.0?” “You-Tube?” “Twitter?” “Web 3.0????”… WT$%^&!!!).  As Mr. Berkowitz confesses, “Agencies have hurried into the newest, most-buzzed-about social spaces without developing a strategy….we have imitated when we could have innovated.” The more educated you are on whatever it is you’re asking your agency to explore, the better you’ll be able to speak the same language, ask relevant questions, challenge assumptions, ensure your best interests are being considered, and, ultimately ensure that you’re getting value for your investment. If you spend just 1-2 hours a week scanning articles and becoming more knowledgeable, you’ll find almost immediate relevance to your business…you’ll also grow more relevant and personally competitive in your chosen profession.

Tip #6: Take Control of Measurement & Evaluation

Chances are agencies pitched you a fantastic program that was going to deliver amazing results based on how you’ve defined “good.” The program likely included some form of ongoing measurement to be conducted and analyzed by the agency. The problem is there’s an inherent bias when an agency measures the effectiveness of a program they create.  Similar to Tip #5, the more you and your business can dictate benchmarks for success to your agency and ensure they are tracking progress transparently to you, the more you can be assured that your program is genuinely fulfilling the value promised in the original pitch. You should insist on participation in the development of an objective measurement strategy that is relevant to the bottom line goals of your business. Ideally, the implementation of the strategy will include both data analysis and access to the raw data so you and/or a trusted consultative partner can dig more deeply into suggested conclusions as necessary. The key is not to measure for measurement’s sake, but to measure with the intent of taking purposeful action to drive the results by which “good” is being measured.

Tip #7: Exhibit Self-Awareness (and Appropriate Self-Lessness)

Unless you’re Apple or one of a few other culturally iconic brands, your product or service probably isn’t all that to your target audience. As much as you might desire it to be a central focus of their day, or as much as your agencies might want to feed your ego (and theirs) with promises that they can make it so, it is much more likely that your audience has more important things at the center of their lives than that new launch you’re working on. Perhaps the most important trait of an effective experience designer (and, I would argue, business or brand manager) is empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. Take the time to figure out how they uniquely benefit from interacting with your brand, product or service. Only then can you create compelling experiences that provide value to them, and as a result, to you, and your business.

I’m sure these tips are easier communicated than accomplished, but I can assure you they work. If you’re serious about getting “good” from the work you and your agencies do every day, give these a try. You’ll get better results and save your agencies from having to make more embarrassing confessions.  

But I’ve gotten ahead myself.  This has been a long time coming. The last 10 years have certainly heralded our arrival.  Starting in 2000 with a butterfly ballot design that was the cornerstone of a disputed election, “usability” was bandied about in the public lexicon.  The years that followed were nothing short of revolutionary: a smorgasbord of digital media, online commerce, immersive gaming, mobile madness and social networking; all of which contributed to the radical and permanent change in the way most of us live and communicate.

Seismic shifts in our behavior, spread across a diverse global audience, have by natural extension brought the tenets of user-centered Experience Design as a strategic imperative to a growing number of companies ranging from LEGO to Ford to Merck.  Even at C-level, the role of Chief Experience Officer is far less exotic than it was just 5 year ago.  And as a portentous bookend to this first decade of the millennium, US News and World Report declared “User Experience Specialist” as one of the 30 Best Careers of 2009. Defining the evolution of this industry in a paragraph will never do it justice; suffice it to say it’s been a fun, exciting and enlightening ride thus far.

So, what makes me say that 2010 is so special?  We’re just two weeks into January and I’m seeing TV – yes, the 800 pound one-way push media gorilla - speaking to the same interactive XD principles I’ve been talking to clients about all these years.  Things like know your audience and undertand the broader context of the experience you’re designing.

The first example: a Domino’s Pizza commercial where they revealed … get this…customers think their pizza tastes terrible.  Their commercial hits you straight between the eyes, directly referencing customer feedback as the key to driving them to change. Executives hang their heads in shame watching focus group sessions where regular folks make acidic comments about how awful Domino’s had become.  And you can see it all, and the resulting “new” media buzz on the website they created to allow other media outlets’ and the general public’s commentary to continue.  Call it standard market research and a smart cross-channel marketing campaign if you want, but Domino’s didn’t just say “Check out Domino’s new spicier recipe.”  They let their customers do the talking…and they listened.

The second example is way more compelling.  About 10 minutes after seeing the Domino’s commercial, I was watching 60 Minutes.  The first story was Steve Kroft’s look into the multi-billion dollar Mexican border security project for the Department of Homeland Security.  Three years ago, Boeing won a project to implement a high-tech, virtual fence solution.  It involves towers, video imaging technology, field support laptops, and monitoring stations in a monumental three year effort.  The 2000 mile system was to be completed this month, but to date only 28 miles is complete, and that is still considered a prototype.  A typical 60 minutes expose, but what struck me was the punch line: the core reason cited for the failure of this project was squarely put to the lack of border patrol personnel involvement in the design.

To quote Mr. Kroft, “The biggest problem, and you might find this hard to fathom, was that no one at the Department of Homeland Security or the engineers at Boeing bothered to ask the people who would actually be using the surveillance system what they wanted, or how they wanted the system to work.”

I admit I was practically screaming at the screen when the new project director admitted, “We didn’t iterate with them…we didn’t do that and it should have happened.”  Steve Kroft saying, “That’s a pretty big mistake.”  And the director saying, “It’s a huge mistake!”

Later Kroft says, “Isn’t that one of the first things you ask?  What does the customer think?  What does the client want?” And the government auditor answers, “Well, you would think so.”

To illustrate one problem, Kroft shows a ranger in the field with a laptop installed in his SUV.  “If anyone had asked the agents, they would have learned that laptops are hard to operate bounding through the desert, and the dust would prove inhospitable to the equipment, and that the agents would be unable to get a signal over vast stretches of the desolate region.” Amazing -  Check out the story here. If you don’t have time to watch the whole segment, skip to minutes 8 through 10 of the archived show (after you watch the mandatory commercials, of course).

For those of you on large enterprise initiatives where your advocacy for iterative involvement of the people who will be interacting with your systems is still seen as a ‘nice to have’, I suggest you send this link to whoever owns the launch of your product, service or application.  When venerated TV journalists can speak the way we speak, encapsulating the core of what we do, calling out those responsible in such an elegantly public way, you can’t help but feel something good is coming.

NBC had a slogan to describe a solid lineup of shows: Must See TV.  I welcome the coming decade where more and more companies will introduce products, services and applications designed using methods that seek to create the best possible experiences for the people that will use them.  I call it “Must See XD” - Bring it on.