One of the most important parts of my job is helping my clients to see the world from the perspective of their customers.
This gives my clients a better understanding of how their customers see the world, what problems they have and how they live their lives.
This understanding helps them to make better product and service decisions that should ultimately result in better outcomes for their customers.
One of the most effective methods we have to help communicate stories about people is photography.
Think how impactful and deliberate the photography that is chosen to accompany news stories and how that influences your understanding, compassion and interest for the people in those stories.
Over the years I’ve played around with using photography in different ways to help clients gain a better understanding of their customers.
One of my favourite examples was inspired by Nick Hand’s excellent Photofilms.
Nick has made hundreds of short (typically 4 minute) photofilms consisting of a series of photos accompanied by the voice of the subject.
They are incredibly powerful, easy to consume and really help you to understand someone in a very short period of time.
We used this method to tell the story of victims of flooding in the UK years ago and it remains one of my favourite projects.
We asked victims of flooding to share their own personal photos of the flood damage in their houses we recorded the stories they told us about the experience.
We combined the photos with their stories and created photofilms creating one of the most impactful user research artifacts I can remember.
They were a real joy to put together and relatively easy to do in proportion to the impact they had.
I’ve been mulling over easier ways of doing these and love the idea of people using their phones to edit and create their own stories (to remove the researcher bias when editing peoples stories – ideas welcome!).
Another great example is shown within this film of a digital anthropology student who is sharing a photographic record of her research with the Mohawk nation who live on the border between USA and Canada. I think books of photographs like hers could be such powerful research artefacts for service design work.
While reading the wonderful ‘The Old Ways’ by Robert Macfarlane I was struck by how much of my digital work borrowed metaphors from geography and wayfinding.
In our work we regularly talk about maps (sitemaps, service blueprints) signage (menus, labelling, links) and journeys (user journeys, journey maps, desire paths and happy paths).
During a recent project with the NHS there were regular conversations about treatment ‘pathways’, service ‘maps’ and how people get lost within the system.
Much of our work is about trying to get people from A to B in the simplest way possible within a landscape (of sorts).
The parallels are clear.
Footpaths in the landscape are created and reinforced by the physical pressure of walking upon the soil. In digital we still create the same pathways through page ‘impressions’ that mark our progress across a digital environment.
Desire paths in the landscape that show the short cuts that people prefer to use over ‘proper’ paths also appear in digital as bookmarks, quick links and algorithmically generated short cuts that reflect the hacks we use to get from A to B more quickly.
It got me thinking what we might be able to learn from established pathways found in the physical world that could be applied to help improve wayfinding in the digital world.
Perhaps ‘The Old Ways’ can be used to help guide how we design the ‘new ways’ of digital wayfinding?
I was in my garage recently and noticed a fascinating trail that an insect had made as it moved across the (very) dusty window.
The shape of the trail reminded me of a meandering river.
It made me think about how many branching patterns like this are found in nature such as tree branches, root systems, frost, river systems, lungs and nervous systems.
As Roger Deakin wrote – ‘A tree is a river. A river is also a tree.’
It reminded me of the shape of many website architectures with their similar patterns of hierarchies of root and branch pages.
This pattern is also found in web analytics, where popular paths through systems are denoted by thicker ‘branches’ whereas less ‘trodden’ routes are shown as much thinner lines.
Presumably flow systems must be regulated by laws of physics that keep them functioning so surely there must be a relationship between the size of their constituent parts that creates these patterns.
After listening to a great podcast about the mathematics of beauty it made me think about using Phi to both design and predict usage of digital systems.
Perhaps web traffic follows patterns that we could predict by applying the golden ratio?
I love the idea of connecting and repurposing ideas from seemingly disconnected worlds. To me this is one of the absolute joys (and critical skillsets) of creative work that comes from an endless fascination and curiosity of the world about you.
It’s all got me thinking – what other patterns from the ‘old ways’ of nature can we apply to the new ways of digital?
Rory Sutherland must be one of the finest raconteurs we have.
On a recent appearance on the Diaries of a CEO podcast he talks about the importance of customer experience and perceived value as a key differentiator for brands today.
He argues that if Eurostar wanted to improve the experience of its service for its passengers one option would be to make their trains go faster.
This feels like the best thing to do that will result in the highest levels of passenger satisfaction.
This sounds great in principle, but to achieve it would require huge capital investment, engineering innovation and lengthy timescales.
Another option to improve the passenger experience would be provide great food, free wifi, comfortable seats, clean toilets, excellent service etc.
The latter would be much more achievable than the former and would probably yield similar results from the perspective of reported passenger satisfaction and loyalty.
So following that logic perhaps customer experience is one of the most cost effective strategic areas of focus for organisations because it provides a relatively fast and cost effective way of directly improving customers perceptions of the value that products and services provide them.
Sutherland also argues this has an environmental benefit too.
By improving their perceived value of an experience we are improving something through intangible means that manifest as how someone thinks about something – so it doesn’t exist per se and thus generates no detrimental environmental impact to create, maintain and dispose of.
Perceived value is a hugely interesting area.
Trying to get to the bottom of what people perceive to be the value that they will get from a product or service helps you to focus your marketing on the things that matter the most to people.
So much of this comes from the nuance of communication, the language and imagery that is chosen and the story that is told that creates the narrative around the value of products and services.
I see this a lot in my work.
Peoples behaviours and actions are hugely influenced by what they believe to be true and how they perceive things as opposed to what the actual truth might be.
I remember a research session where a customer of a food delivery service noticed a photo of a delivery van driving in the snow and said “They look great, they will deliver to my elderly mother whatever the weather’ – the truth was quite possibly a different story.
In a recent research session I asked someone how they wanted a financial report to make them feel.
They talked about wanting to feel like their life savings were in safe hands, that they could trust the company and feel like it was something that they no longer needed to worry about.
A well designed report will reinforce these feelings and beliefs whereas a poorly designed report will quickly raise questions, unease and possibly a loss of custom.
In order to design successful things we have to develop a deep understanding of the way that people perceive the world around them, their preconceptions and beliefs as these are the things that will ultimately drive their behaviours.
Once we uncover these sorts of beliefs we can get to the bottom of what people really care about, the questions they have and what they need from the products and services they use to meet their real needs.
When you create and manage products and services you face a number of risks that could result in undesirable outcomes such as:
Customers don’t value them enough to pay for or use them
Customers can’t use them
Your organisation doesn’t have the resources or skills to deliver them
They don’t result in the outcomes for your business that you need them to
They may cause harm and have unintended consequences
They may break the law
I like this idea of framing these as risks as much of the work we do in product discovery is about trying to reduce risk of failure.
It would be interesting to give stakeholders £100 each and asking them to tell you how much they want to invest in exploring each of the areas of risk.
This would to help to uncover what they are most uncertain about and where to focus you efforts in exploring further..
In Marty Cagan’s book ‘Inspired‘ he discusses how important it is to explore the threats posed by each of these risks in order to create a product that your customers will love and that also works for your business.
He identifies these as what he sees as the four biggest risks.
Viability risk – How confident are we that this product/ service will deliver what the business needs it to?
Value risk – How confident are we that people will value the benefits it provides enough to buy it or choose to use it instead of alternatives?
Usability risk – How confident are we that people will be able to figure out how to use it ?
Feasibility risk – How confident are we that we can build and deliver it with the resources and skills that we have ?
There are many other kinds of risks you may choose to explore but I think these two are really important additions:
Ethical risk – How confident are we that it will have no harmful unintended consequences for people, the economy or our planet?
Compliance risk – How confident are we that we are not breaking the law in any way?
The best time to start exploring risks such as these is as early as possible during your product discovery where you can begin to get a feel for what represents the biggest potential threats to the success of your new product ideas.
Interestingly, Marty identifies ‘value risk’ as the toughest risk to mitigate, which highlights the importance of getting ideas in front of potential customers as early as possible to understand if they solve real problems for people in ways that people value enough to find them useful and are willing to pay for them.
Over lockdown I had an idea for a book that was all about sharing the tips and tricks that I’ve found useful on UX projects over the years.
Survival skills for UX projects if you like.
It felt really relevant due to the difficulties we were all facing trying to work from home, while home schooling the kids and trying to avoid catching COVID.
I compiled a list of ideas in Miro and forgot all about it until I read a great article in the Guardian that both reminded me that I had created it and prompted me to do something with it!
The final list is not just relevant to UX’ers, I hope that people working in all sorts of professionals will find it useful.
Best of luck with it and let me know how you get on via @chudders
Photo Evaluation Framework
1. Legibility and credibility
Can you clearly see the content of the photo? (e.g. Focus, size, composition, exposure, crop etc)
Focus : Are the important elements of the photo in focus? Does all of the photo need to be in focus to communicate its message?
Composition: Has the composition been used effectively to draw attention to the relevant part of the photo and to create an aesthetically pleasing image? Would the photo be more effective if it was cropped in a different way?
Exposure: Is the exposure appropriate and are the key subjects of the photo correctly exposed?
Quality: Is the photo legible enough to see the important details?
Size: Is the physical size of the photo appropriate? Does the size make the subject of the photo clear enough?
Do the photos look credible? – (e.g. Does they look professional? Do they suit the brand? Are they appropriate and relevant?
Professionally shot: Do the photos look like they have been taken by a professional? Is this important given the context of what you are evaluating?
Brand alignment: Are they the kind of photos you would expect to see from this brand?
Appropriateness: Are the photos appropriate given the context within which they will be viewed?
Believable: To what extent have the photos been manipulated? Does this affect the credibility of what they depict or the message they convey?
Relevance: is the photo relevant to the content that it accompanies?
2. What message/s do the photos communicate?
What does the business or product owner want the photo/s to communicate? e.g. ‘Look how spacious our hotel rooms are’
What messages should the photo/s communicate to meet user needs? e.g. ‘I wonder if that hotel room is worth £150 per night?’
What messages do the photo/s actually communicate to users? e.g. ‘That room looks tiny, it’s not worth £150 per night!’
3. Usefulness and effectiveness
Do the photo/s result in the desired emotional response? e.g. Is the photo funny? Does it make me want that thing? Does it have a calming effect?
Desire: Does the photo represent something in an attractive way?
Aspiration: Does the photo communicate how a product may fit into someone’s life or help them to live the lifestyle they aspire to?
Aesthetics: Is it pleasing to look at?
Calm: Does the photo create a calming effect?
Others’ emotions: Does the content of the photo result in a direct emotional response from the viewer (for example, are people in the photo smiling, frowning or angry)?
Entertainment: Is the photo funny? Is it intended to entertain the viewer?
Do the photo/s help the user with their task? e.g. Does the photo serve a purpose or is it really just ornamental?
Useful: Does the photo serve a purpose or is it just ornamental?
Educational: Does the photo teach something or provoke thought about a subject in a different way?
Helpful: Does the photo help users with their tasks? Does it prevent them getting lost? Does it answer their questions or help them to make the right choice?
Instructional: Does the photo show someone how to do something?
Constructive: Does the photo help to mitigate a user anxiety? Does it answer a typical question or concern?
Prevent errors: Does the photo help users to avoid making mistakes?
Recognition over recall: Does the photo aid recognition to save people having to remember things?
Communicative: Does the photo communicate its intended message effectively?
Global suitability: Will the photo mean the same in different countries or cultures? Might it offend people from other cultures?
Complexity: Does the photo effectively convey something that would be difficult to put into words?
Will the photo/s influence the behaviour of the user in the way you intended? e.g. Does the photo have the desired effect it was designed to have?
Gaze direction: Should the people in the photos be looking towards other elements on the page or is it more appropriate for them to be looking back at the user? Service related websites benefit from eye contact with users, whereas product sites may benefit from gaze being diverted towards specific offers or buy buttons.
Prompting an action: Is the photo designed to prompt action such as to donate to a worthy cause? Do the contents of the photo encourage this behaviour? Does the photo encourage users to buy or to make a decision?
Changing opinions: Will the photo help to change our point of view?
Creating desire: Does the photo make its contents (and thereby the site’s products and services) desirable?
Sharing with others: Will the photo encourage the sharing of content with others?
Perception: Will the user attribute a particular quality to a brand having seen the image, such as quality, craftsmanship and heritage?
Message: Does the photo communicate the message to people that is intended?
James Chudley 