User Centered Design to Achieve 4 Common Business Objectives

Continuing the theme of “focusing on business objectives,” it is possible to architect a plan to improve a user experience by tailoring the design approach to the specific need of the objective. Fine-tuning an approach to this level of specificity can only be accomplished if both Information Architect and client have reached a common understanding of what it is the business is intending to achieve with the design. Further, there should be agreement as to how the design will be measured to gauge its success in achieving these business objectives. Making this happen may require the leeway to expand the scope of the engagement with the client after an initial “Discovery” phase has been completed. The Discovery phase should be used to gather, document, and confirm the business objectives from the client. The additional scope may be required to take the necessary steps to plan for success, after discovering the exact goals of the business.

The following are common business objectives for interactive design, and a User Centered Design (UCD) framework for achieving them:

Drive Engagement – Engaging a target audience is all about having the right content to entice them to interact, and providing them enough relevance and value to frequently return for more. In order to understand how to engage a target audience, conduct a preliminary behavioral research study to identify relevant content, digital tactics, the most adopted competitor experiences, as well as tools that may provide the greatest utility. In parallel, use a strategist or business analyst to perform a competitive analysis to identify gaps where competitors are missing opportunities to engage the target audience. Combine the ideas generated from both studies, and begin prioritizing these “features” on a product road map based on their potential to drive customer engagement, in addition to the level of effort to implement them.   

Improve Utilization (internal application) – Improving the utilization of an internal application requires an understanding of how the application would best accommodate essential tasks in a target employee’s daily workflow. An information Architect should focus on developing a research study with target employees, that attempts to identify common workflows associated with tasks that the application is intended to facilitate. Contextual Inquiry, research in the context of the work environment, works best here, as it allows the IA to see the important documents and information kept “on-hand” when key tasks are performed.  After defining key tasks in the workflow, redesign the application to facilitate access to functionality that appropriately accommodates these tasks.

Improve Usability – Improving the usability of a web site or application requires an identification of the likely points of user frustration with an existing design, taxonomy, information architecture, or interface elements. Begin by conducting a heuristic evaluation to identify usability issues that are “easy to spot.” By doing so, and correcting these right away, you’ll be saving the client money upfront, by not wasting funds on user research to identify issues that any trained Information Architect might have caught right away.  Investigate the “hidden” or unexpected usability issues by conducting a qualitative usability test on the new design, post implementation of the Information Architect’s initial recommendations.

Improve Conversion – Conversion is a key ecommerce metric that generally refers to the completion of a sale from a shopping cart, but this metric can also be applied to any desired action that the business wants a user to take from any key page in the user experience. What it requires, then, is the identification of the ideal “user path” and set of actions, in the context of a page-to-page flow. Using the site or application map as a guide, ask the client to identify what conversion means at each key page in the hierarchy. “What actions should the user take on this page?” “What page should the user visit next?” Etc.

The best way to optimize the design of key pages to improve conversion is to perform “A/B” tests on different design concepts. Using wireframes, provide two distinct interaction design models. Next, work with visual design to maintain the distinctness of the concepts when producing two different visual design comps based on the wireframes. Finally, work with developers to build two versions of each key page and decide, with the client, which users will see which version of each key page. Even better, prior to development, perform a qualitative usability test on each page concept to fine-tune the design of each approach, as well as predict the effectiveness of each design concept. When deploying two versions of each page, make sure that each individual user will only see one version, so that you can compare the effectiveness of one approach vs. the other. Remember that the effectiveness of each approach is based on its ability to increase conversion. In other words, how effective is the approach in achieving the specific objectives that the Information Architect and the client identified.