User Experience in the Agency World
July 4th, 2008
After reading Subject To Change last weekend, I’ve actually noticed that my perceptions about certain projects have… well, changed. Maybe it’s because I’m far more conscious about the user experience we’re trying to create, and in the long run I think it’s going to serve me pretty well. One thing in particular jumped out at me though, which is that in many cases (and in the agency space in particular), you actually have two customers to worry about.
When designing an application strongly focused on UX, we too often fixate on the customer and not the client, even though the client has the proverbial power of the purse. By doing this we risk alienating them- what good is a simple, well designed customer experience if maintaining it is costly and unmanageable? Our client has just as much right to a simple UX as their customers do, and if an agency is incapable of delivering on that… well, I can’t imagine how they maintain positive client relationships.
Once I’d come to that conclusion, the natural extension was to realize that our client’s UX is as much process design as it is the design of the deliverable. An agency must be a joy to work with, from RFP to kickoff to design to delivery and post-launch maintenance. Finding the sweet spots on how many meetings to have and how much information to share is always tricky and requires personal skills worthy of a PhD in Psychology, and I as a developer certainly don’t have the wherewithal to analyze a client’s expectations (tacit or declared) in a 15 minute phonecall. Yet I do have control over the implementation and the deliverable, and to make absolutely certain future options are well researched and distributed. A solid knowledge of strategy and marketing are par for the course, since they assist communication of those ideas…
…and if it means that tech happens to be driving the project, who am I to complain!
I SOO have to read this book! Although it may make me even more eager to return to the UX space.
When I worked at LexisNexis, it was described to me that we were the user’s voice at the decision table. You have the business folks, the tech folks, the marketing folks, the PMs.. and who speaks for the user? That’s what UX is for.
It’s really what drives everything I do: when features are considered, I try to think if there are benefits for a user. A major one is authentication or registration for a service. It’s fine and dandy to create the functionality, but we have to think of why the user would be motivated to use the feature. You know those services you see (generally butt ugly, but that’s beside the fact), and you just know a developer built it? Because there’s all sorts of neat-o features he enjoyed building, but they may or may not be useful.
It’s funny you mention tech leading projects, because actually Jesse James Garrett’s diagram of the elements of UX doesn’t even include tech…
oh and P.S. 99% of the time the client doesnt know what the user wants, anyway.
Michael, You’re onto something that many still are not, despite the lessons of the dot-com. The quality of the relationship with, and depth of collaboration with the client is paramount. Even the most comprehensive user-centered design method and process, and resulting superior UX, cannot trump an ambivalent or poorly defined client relationship. Taking the time to build the day-to-day working partnership has little to do with our technical, design or craft expertise per se. If we do it well, it usually means many (many) years of happy marriage . . . indeed, when the “parents” are communicating well, the end-users have everything to gain. A lot of psychology, a lot of listening, and the building of trust over time. Have always liked Peter Block’s early business books as he had the courage to say that the bulk of our work within one’s own company or agency, or with another company or agency, has everything to do with personal skills. I know it initially disappointed his C-level readership, then they got it and pushed his books to the best seller lists. Keep up the great postings, kudos! - AS