Whether you are just starting your journey to Office 365, or you are expanding your usage of the platform, it’s important that you stop and define what you hope to accomplish in your project. User research is the most productive activity your team can do to define and shape your project. Many underestimate the value of investing time and money into user research when a team believes they already understand what needs to be built.
The Need to Define the Problem
A common misunderstanding with user research is that it’s intended to help create the solution. While it’s true that user research assists in this, the main purpose of user research is to define the problem you are trying to solve.
Often, in an attempt to save money, companies will reduce or jettison altogether user research. User research ensures a higher likelihood that your implementation will succeed and is well received and adopted. This makes end users feel like they had a voice in the project and that their unique challenges were considered. And the good news is that it’s not all or nothing. There are ways to do user research that will significantly help your project without breaking the budget.
An important distinction needs to be made that user research is not about asking people what their preferences are. While preferences can lend to insights, it is not the goal of user research. Erika Hall in her book Just Enough Research says:
“As you start interviewing people involved in business and design decisions, you might hear them refer to what they do or don’t like. ‘Like’ is not a part of the critical thinker’s vocabulary. On some level, we all want the things we do to be liked (particularly on Facebook), so it’s easy to treat likability as a leading success indicator. But the concept of ‘liking’ is as subjective as it is empty. It is a superficial and self-reported mental state unmoored from any particular behavior. This means you can’t get any useful insights from any given individual reporting that they like or hate a particular thing. I like horses, but I’m not going to buy any online.” (pg. 13)
What Can I Expect When Doing User Research?
Many companies that do not have in house user research experience are unaware of the key steps and activities used. Project goals and requirements vary, requiring slightly different approaches, but the core concepts are often the same.
The first thing that usually occurs is soliciting input from the project team or stakeholders before engaging end-users. These inputs can come in the form of workshops or interviews, but it is important at this stage to understand how the stakeholders involved in commissioning and running the project view the organization’s needs.
After gathering initial input, end-users need to be identified and interviewed to understand the many aspects of how they currently work, what their needs are, and how the various tools and processes they currently use do and do not satisfy their needs.
Below are some sample questions asked during a user interview for end-users regarding their existing intranet:
- Is there content on the intranet you looked for and were unable to find?
- What do you do when you cannot find the information you are looking for? Has this happened with the current intranet?
- What are other tools and applications you need to do your work?
- What are the most important things that the organization needs from you and you need from the organization?
The answers to these questions and the insights gleaned can be distilled to define the core issues that a new modern workplace solution needs to solve. From here, the team can work together on what specific solutions will address the issues, goals, and needs of the end-users.
AIS did this recently for the ACA Compliance Group in a project to help them roll out Microsoft Teams and Planner. Through systematic user research, the AIS team was able to identify opportunities to leverage these tools to address ACA’s collaboration and content management needs. Read more about our work with ACA Compliance Group.
Other Benefits of User Research
While the primary benefit of user research is to define the problem and help your team ultimately marry that to the correct technological solution, there are many other benefits of doing user research. Here are a few.
- It generates interest inside of the organization. When doing research, many people will get a chance to be heard, and often times those are the very individuals that are some of the biggest supporters as the project moves along.
- It helps with change management and ultimately increases adoption of the final solution. Change is hard and bringing users into that process greatly increases the odds that the modern workplace solution they receive will aid them in their work. Nothing will slow down the adoption of a new solution faster than those who receive the solution feeling like their challenges were not taken into consideration.
- It helps your organization communicate the value of the new implementation in a way that appeals to people across the organization. It is always more impactful to frame your new investment in terms that will appeal to users.
Start Now and Continue to Iterate
If you take away one thing from this piece, I hope you realize the value of user research and how it can bring unique insights to your project that are otherwise left untapped. User research is one of those activities that truly never finishes because an organization and its people are constantly changing, but the more research is used, the better the end result.
Nielsen-Norman Group, a well-known user experience firm publishes its best intranets every year, and it is no mistake that time after time user research is a core component of these successful projects. In this year’s report, it specifically mentions the value of bringing in outside firms to bring expertise and perspective. AIS has years of experience helping organizations do great user research. If you are planning your next Office 365 project, please reach out to AIS for a Modern Workplace Assessment and begin your journey to building a successful modern workplace solution!
