Understanding User Experience

I recently shared a valuable lesson learned in a Forbes Business Council post, about the need to truly understand a customer’s business challenges in order to really meet their needs. While there’s so much talk right now about user experience (UX), employee experience (EX) and the like, it really boils down to taking the time to walk a day in the life of a customer.Here’s an example. A while ago I was thrilled to receive an order for our DTG Workbench PowerStations from an electronic components manufacturer that was looking to help employees more easily perform assembly work, as well as traverse across the warehouse, picking parts and preparing items for distribution. They needed the battery power that our workstations provided to keep their laptops and barcode scanners up and running during shifts. Our workstations seemed to be the perfect fit – or so we thought. When the company rolled-out the workstations in its Texas plant, they were anticipating incredible responses from staff, except there was one minor issue – this particular site’s staff was mostly comprised of females, typically much shorter than their male counterparts. They needed to crane their necks to view their laptop screens on the cart.When we designed our Workbench PowerStations, we thought we took everything into consideration, to remove motion waste and allow employees to do their jobs more efficiently and safely. We tested out the workstations with real people to make sure everything ergonomically met their needs, but there was one small problem – those real people were men.With this situation, my company learned a valuable lesson. In order to truly deliver what customers need, we need to start with a human-centric approach, built on UX.Beginning with UX not only helps you design the right solution, but it saves inordinate amounts of cost and resources. How else can you embed design thinking, or UX, into your product plans? In the Forbes article, I shared a few tips.

• Get your boots on the ground. It’s not just management that has all the answers. It’s important to talk to the actual employees to understand the frustrations, roadblocks and concerns.
• Align design with development. Once you have a clear understanding of the needs, it’s important to have close alignment between designers and developers to make sure the specifications and features are feasible and incorporated into the solution.
• Prototype until you get it right. Before a customer solution is fully deployed and built out, a basic “test” version can be implemented to make sure it will meet the needs and allow time for tweaks.

In this industry I’ve learned that there’s never a one-size-fits-all solution to meet a customers’ needs. It’s impossible, because no two companies are alike. By carefully working to really understand them and their needs – and designing products flexible enough to accommodate them – now that’s where true business innovation lies.