Bringing user-centred design to small businesses

At the Innovation Lab, I get exposed to a lot of projects internally & externally. The bulk of external projects I'm involved with are with bank clients who have come to The Lab with a new design of their website that they'd like some assistance with. I consult with our clients to make sure the usability test we carry out with them is productive & useful!

The Problem. NB: Part of my own problem is that our clients are confidential - so I'm intentionally ambiguous when I describe the examples of usability testing we provide. But I do endeavour to describe our process & the value our clients get from testing.

There are a number of reasons a client will approach us:

  1. "We have a new design of our website that we would like to test";

  2. "We want to refresh our website but don't know where to start"; or

  3. "We need to run our website through UAT (User Acceptance Testing) before we launch it to production".

The Approach. Each client has their own goals for usability testing. They may be as broad as: "We want to see what problems customers are currently facing when they try to buy products on our online store" to as specific as: "We've redesigned the top navigation bar & some elements on the screen; we want to know if our customers feel that it's cleaner & intuitive".

As I consult with each client, I understand their goals & we agree on:

  1. Scope of testing;

  2. Estimation of costs;

  3. Date of the usability test;

  4. Need for recruitment & if so, demographics.

Between the consultation & the usability test, I go about:

  • Recruiting test participants;

  • Checking that their test site works with our systems;

  • Creating tasks for the participants to perform & compiling a line of questioning that achieve the clients' goals; and

  • Setting up the rooms with screenshots & stationary.

We provide reports to select clients for a fee. We encourage them to have someone who will be implementing the improvements to the site to attend the usability test, as they will take away with them the issues & actions required to be resolved.

As I facilitate each test, asking each participant to perform the required tasks, everyone observing in the adjacent room takes notes, capturing 4 distinct pieces of information:

  1. Things that the participant liked about the system;

  2. Things the participant wanted to change;

  3. Questions the participant had; and

  4. Comments or new ideas raised.

Each observation is written on a single Post-It Note & placed on the relevant screen the participant was looking at.

By the end of the day, we have a wall full of Post-It Notes. To unpack, we group the feedback into themes, discuss with the client how each one could be resolved, then go through an exercise of prioritising the actions based on how impactful it is to the user's experience & the ease in which it would be to implement.

The Outcome. Clients receive real-time feedback from their customers. We help them identify the problems & pain-points, as well as what’s working about their digital asset. They’re able to bring these insights back to their team & work towards resolving those issues with their designers & stakeholders.