Event Recap: Measuring the Value of UX Research at UXDX
Last week Optimal Workshop was delighted to sponsor UXDX USA 2024 in New York. The User Experience event brings together Product, Design, UX, CX, and Engineering professionals and our team had an amazing time meeting with customers, industry experts, and colleagues throughout the conference. This year, we also had the privilege of sharing some of our industry expertise by running an interactive forum on “Measuring the Value of UX Research” - a topic very close to our hearts.
Our forum, hosted by Optimal Workshop CEO Alex Burke and Product Lead Ella Fielding, was focused on exploring the value of User Experience Research (UXR) from both an industry-wide perspective and within the diverse ecosystem of individual companies and teams conducting this type of research today.
The session brought together a global mix of UX professionals for a rich discussion on measuring and demonstrating the effectiveness of and the challenges facing organizations who are trying to tie UXR to tangible business value today.
The main topics for the discuss were:
Metrics that Matter: How do you measure UXR's impact on sales, customer satisfaction, and design influence?
Challenges & Strategies: What are the roadblocks to measuring UXR impact, and how can we overcome them?
Beyond ROI: UXR's value beyond just financial metrics
Some of the key takeaways from our discussions during the session were:
The current state of UX maturity and value
Many UX teams don’t measure the impact of UXR on core business metrics and there were more attendees who are not measuring the impact of their work than those that are measuring it.
Alex & Ella discussed with the attendees the current state of UX research maturity and the ability to prove value across different organizations represented in the room. Most organizations were still early in their UX research maturity with only 5% considering themselves advanced in having research culturally embedded.
Defining and proving the value of UX research
The industry doesn’t have clear alignment or understanding of what good measurement looks like. Many teams don’t know how to accurately measure UXR impact or don’t have the tools or platforms to measure it, which serve as core roadblocks for measuring UXRs’ impact.
Alex and Ella discussed challenges in defining and proving the value of UX research, with common values being getting closer to customers, innovating faster, de-risking product decisions, and saving time and money. However, the value of research is hard to quantify compared to other product metrics like lines of code or features shipped.
Measuring and advocating for UX research
When teams are measuring UXR today there is a strong bias for customer feedback, but little ability or understanding about how to measure impact on business metrics like revenue.
The most commonly used metrics for measuring UXR are quantitative and qualitative feedback from customers as opposed to internal metrics like stakeholder involvement or tieing UXR to business performance metrics (including financial performance).
Attendees felt that in organizations where research is more embedded, researchers spend significant time advocating for research and proving its value to stakeholders rather than just conducting studies. This included tactics like research repositories and pointing to past study impacts as well as ongoing battles to shape decision making processes.
One of our attendees highlighted that engaging stakeholders in the process of defining key research metrics prior to running research was a key for them in proving value internally.
Relating user research to financial impact
Alex and Ella asked the audience if anyone had examples of demonstrating financial impact of research to justify investment in the team and we got some excellent examples from the audience proving that there are tangible ways to tie research outcomes to core business metrics including:
Calculating time savings for employees from internal tools as a financial impact metric.
Measuring a reduction in calls to service desks as a way to quantify financial savings from research.
Most attendees recognise the value in embedding UXR more deeply in all levels of their organization - but feel like they’re not succeeding at this today.
Most attendees feel that UXR is not fully embedded in their orgnaization or culture, but that if it was - they would be more successful in proving its overall value.
Stakeholder buy-in and engagement with UXR, particularly from senior leadership varied enormously across organizations, and wasn’t regularly measured as an indicator of UXR value
In organizations where research was more successfully embedded, researchers had to spend significant time and effort building relationships with internal stakeholders before and after running studies. This took time and effort away from actual research, but ended up making the research more valuable to the business in the long run.
With the large range of UX maturity and the democratization of research across teams, we know there’s a lot of opportunity for our customers to improve their ability to tie their user research to tangible business outcomes and embed UX more deeply in all levels of their organizations. To help fill this gap, Optimal Workshop is currently running a large research project on Measuring the Value of UX which will be released in a few weeks.
At Optimal Workshop, we're dedicated to building the best user research platform to empower you with the tools to better understand your customers and create intuitive digital experiences. We're thrilled to announce some game-changing updates and new products that are on the horizon to help elevate the way you gather insights and keep customers at the heart of everything you do.
What’s new…
Integration with Figma 🚀
Last month, we joined forces with design powerhouse Figma to launch our integration. You can import images from Figma into Chalkmark (our click-testing tool) in just a few clicks, streamlining your workflows and getting insights to make decisions based on data not hunches and opinions.
What’s coming next…
Session Replays 🧑💻
With session replay you can focus on other tasks while Optimal Workshop automatically captures card sort sessions for you to watch in your own time. Gain valuable insights into how participants engage and interpret a card sort without the hassle of running moderated sessions. The first iteration of session replays captures the study interactions, and will not include audio or face recording, but this is something we are exploring for future iterations. Session replays will be available in tree testing and click-testing later in 2024.
Reframer Transcripts 🔍
Say goodbye to juggling note-taking and hello to more efficient ways of working with Transcripts! We're continuing to add more capability to Reframer, our qualitative research tool, to now include the importing of interview transcripts. Save time, reduce human errors and oversights by importing transcripts, tagging and analyzing observations all within Reframer. We’re committed to build on transcripts with video and audio transcription capability in the future, we’ll keep you in the loop and when to expect those releases.
Prototype testing 🧪
The team is fizzing to be working on a new Prototype testing product designed to expand your research methods and help test prototypes easily from the Optimal Workshop platform. Testing prototypes early and often is an important step in the design process, saving you time and money before you invest too heavily in the build. We are working with customers and on delivering the first iteration of this exciting new product. Stay tuned for Prototypes coming in the second quarter of 2024.
Workspaces 🎉
Making Optimal Workshop easier for large organizations to manage teams and collaborate more effectively on projects is a big focus for 2024. Workspaces are the first step towards empowering organizations to better manage multiple teams with projects. Projects will allow greater flexibility on who can see what, encouraging working in the open and collaboration alongside the ability to make projects private. The privacy feature is available on Enterprise plans.
Questions upgrade❓
Our survey product Questions is in for a glow up in 2024 💅. The team are enjoying working with customers, collecting and reviewing feedback on how to improve Questions and will be sharing more on this in the coming months.
Help us build a better Optimal Workshop
We are looking for new customers to join our research panel to help influence product development. From time to time, you’ll be invited to join us for interviews or surveys, and you’ll be rewarded for your time with a thank-you gift. If you’d like to join the team, email product@optimalworkshop.com
UI and UX are two terms that are often used interchangeably and confused for one another, but what do they actually mean? And is there a crossover between them?
These two terms have only grown in use in recent years, thanks largely to the exploding technology sector. This is great news. For organizations, effectively harnessing UX and UI enables them to build products and services that people will actually want to use – and continue using. For users, they’ll have access to products designed for them.
What is UX? 🤳🎯
User experience (UX as it’s commonly called) refers to the experience that a person has with a product or service.
We can determine whether a user experience is good or bad based on how easy (or difficult) it is for users to interact with the various elements of a product or service. Is the sign-up flow easy to use? Does the CTA button on the homepage encourage users to click? UX design exists to answer questions like these – and here’s how.
At the core of UX design is user research, which you can use to understand customer pain points and actually build products designed for the people using them. Typically, user research involves the use of a number of different research methods designed to answer specific questions. Card sorting, for example, can show you how people think the information on your website should be arranged.
Designer and information architect Peter Morville came up with the user experience honeycomb, which demonstrates the various components of UX design.
Don Norman of Nielsen Norman Group defines UX as “[encompassing] all aspects of the end-users interaction with the company, its services, and its products”.
If this seems broad, that’s because it is. UX actually extends beyond just the digital products of an organization and can be used for areas like retail, customer service and more. In fact, there’s actually a growing movement to replace UX with customer experience (CX), as a way of encompassing all of these disparate elements.
What is UI? 🪄📲
User interface (UI), in the most stripped-back definition, is the interface by which a user and a computer system communicate with one another. This includes the touchscreen on your smartphone, the screen on your laptop, your mouse and keyboard and countless other mechanisms.
With this in mind, user interface design is focused on the elements that users will see on these interfaces, such as buttons, text and images. UI design is all about layout, look and feel. The objective of UI design is to visually guide users through an interface so they can complete their task. In a nutshell, you don’t want a user to think too hard about what they’re doing.
Shown here: The user interface of the Tesla Model S. Source.
UI has its origins in the 1980s, when Xerox developed the very first graphical user interface (GUI). Instead of needing to interact with a computer through a programming language, people could now use icons, menus and buttons. The rest, as they say, is history. Apple came along with the Macintosh computer in 1984 (bringing with it the first point and click mouse), and now we’re all carrying smartphones with touch screens that even a baby can operate.
Like UX, UI has grown significantly – going far beyond what you’ll see on a computer screen. Those involved in the field of UI design today will work as much on the interfaces of computer programs and apps as they will on the user interfaces of cars, wearable devices and technologies in the home. If current trends continue, UI design is likely to become an even bigger field in the years ahead.
What’s the difference between UX and UI? 👀
UX and UI are both essential components of a product or service. You can’t have one without the other, and, as we’ve explored, neglecting one could have serious consequences for your product’s success.
The difference between UX and UI is that UX is focused on the experience of using something and UI is focused on the look and feel of the interface.
“User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are some of the most confused and misused terms in our field. A UI without UX is like a painter slapping paint onto a canvas without thought; while UX without UI is like the frame of a sculpture with no paper mache on it. A great product experience starts with UX followed by UI. Both are essential for the product’s success”. - Rahul Varshney, co-creator of Foster.fm
The difference between UX and UI is that UX is focused on the experience of using something and UI is focused on the look and feel of the interface.
Or, if you’d prefer a statement from venerable Nielsen Norman Group: “It’s important to distinguish the total user experience from the UI, even though the UI is obviously an extremely important part of the design. As an example, consider a website with movie reviews. Even if the UI for finding a film is perfect, the UX will be poor for a user who wants information about a small independent release if the underlying database only contains movies from the major studios”.
With this in mind, let’s now take a look at the people behind UX and UI. What do the roles look like in these fields? And, more importantly, what do they involve?
UX and UI jobs guide 📱🧑🏻💻
Visual designer: This role works with other design roles in the organization (brand, marketing, etc) to ensure designs match brand guidelines. Visual designers also work with UX designers to verify that designs meet accessibility and usability requirements.
UX strategist: At the core, a UX strategist should act as a champion of good UX. That is to say, work to ensure the principles of usability and human-centered design are well understood and utilized. They should also assume some of the responsibility of product-market fit, and work with product managers and the ‘business’ side of the organization to mesh business requirements with user requirements.
UX designer: The most common UX profession, UX designers should have a strong understanding of the principles of UX design as well as some research ability. Essentially a jack of all trades, the UX designer will float between all stages of the UX lifecycle, helping out with usability tests, putting together prototypes and working with other areas of the organization.
Service designer: The service designer looks at the entire end-to-end process and works with other designers, pulling them when required to liaise on visual designs and UI work. In a smaller organization, the responsibilities of this role will typically be absorbed by other roles, but eventually, there comes a time for the service designer.
Wrap up 🎬
UX and UI as terms are only going to continue to grow, especially as technology and technology companies continue to proliferate across the globe. If you want to make sure that the user experience and user interfaces of your product or service are fit for the people using them, there’s no better place to start than with user research using powerful tools.
There are over 5000 certified B Corporations around the world, including new recruit, New Zealand based SaaS company, Optimal Workshop. The ‘B’ in B Corp actually stands for ‘beneficial’, to reflect the founding vision behind the movement: ‘make business a force for good’. B Corp seeks to help companies balance purpose and profit, while also serving stakeholders by building a global community of like-minded organizations. We asked Andrew Mayfield, CEO and Julie Reddish, Head of People and Culture at Optimal Workshop about becoming a B Corp, the journey so far and why it’s so important.
Why did Optimal decide to become a B Corp?
Andrew: I’ve been interested in aligning our reporting with our purpose and values for years, so becoming a B Corp felt like a huge and natural step in this direction. Our ethos of placing people at the heart of decisions extends to the way we treat our own people, not just our customers. So I saw B Corp as a way of enshrining this thinking into the company and making sure these aspects were considered in future decision making.
Sounds as if being a B Corp was already in line with your thinking. What’s it mean in terms of action?
Julie: One of the things we’ve always cared about is ‘how do we show our real commitment to people, to the environment, to sustainability, to doing ethical good work?’ Finding out B Corp existed as this global initiative, this reputable, recognized way of measuring yourself against other companies was compelling. It was a way for us to metrify or codify ‘the optimal way’ of doing things in a way that does good as a company and does good in the world.
Andrew: Practically it means writing up more policies to ensure the things we do for the good of our people and the planet, which we consider normal are actually written down and therefore, in effect, protected. Our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct, Whistleblower policy, Breast feeding and support policy and Environmental sustainability policy are some that spring to mind.
Tell me about the actual journey to becoming a B Corp - what’s it been like?
Julie: Oh my gosh - it’s been a big project. Little did we know how much work it would take to get accredited! It requires six different categories of certification which have, like 50 or 60 questions or areas you can gain points in and you need a minimum of 80 points to get certification. A lot of the questions weren’t really applicable to us so we really had to look closely and think, ‘what is there already that we do inside Optimal that actually equates to saying yes to that question?’ We had an awful lot of thinking to do about which questions to put our time and our money into.
Andrew: There were a lot of things we did that weren’t fully documented, that was the hard part. We didn’t have to change much of our actual behavior to be honest. We have been for years looking at a people-centered approach - our three values are Approachable, Bold and Curious. We had to write things down, make sure they were where people could find them. There wasn’t a lot we had to change to get our entrance score as such. If we want to continually improve each year then we will need to make continual changes for sure, like anyone trying to self improve.
Julie: We thought we were quite close, then there was this massive surge of interest and eight months to even see a consultant, then another six months before the verification process even started.
That’s when the rubber really hit the road. We were working away on different bits of the B Corp certification like there’s one for having an office set up for breastfeeding. Do you have a lockable door? Do you have a place that is private? Does everyone know? Is it communicated? Do you have a policy on breastfeeding? You had to look at each of those things and make sure that you could back it up with evidence. And that might be worth 0.2 points.
Sounds like a detailed and rigorous journey - but also quite meaningful and actionable?
Julie: We already had thoughts on what we could do to make our organization great like sourcing local produce and local suppliers but the process of becoming a B Corp really flushed it out for us. Some of the suggestions and categories were things we were already looking at within the bigger picture of being a good employer and being a good contributor to our communities. Going through the assessment helped us identify a whole other layer of things that we could and should be doing.
Beyond measuring female representation, what else could we be doing for diversity? What about our indigenous representation? What could we be doing for people with disabilities? It got us into deeper thinking about what diversity actually means. It’s pretty amazing.
What does being a B Corp mean for your employees?
Julie: As an employer it’s reaffirming a commitment to treating people well and human-centered work practices. So the real nuts and bolts come down to individuals thinking how might I get involved with this: If I see something I don’t feel is right I call it out. I can also advocate for what is right.
Andrew: More and more I think people are interested in working for companies that care for more than simply enriching their shareholders, that care about taking care of their team and of their environment and of their impact more broadly, of the change they seek to make on society, knowledge-sharing and all this sort of thing. People are more aware of considering this on choice of where to work, where to stay and just generally where to spend their time. We all have scarce time these days and strong choices to make and it does play into where people choose to work.
Does this extend to customers? What impact, if any, does being a B Corp mean for them?
Andrew: B Corp certainly takes into consideration who you choose to use as suppliers so it becomes a bit recursive in that way. If our customers value the fact we’re a B Corp then they need to be thinking about choosing suppliers who are also B Corps - so it would gradually happen over time I’d imagine.
Julie: It’s about thoughtful practices. Not just following trends. It’s about what works, not what’s popular.
What’s it feel like to be part of this global community called B Corp?
Julie: I think it's a really cool company to be in. To share our thinking, to share policies and resources with somebody who’s traveled that road before us, with its dragons and potholes, to actually follow in someone’s footsteps, but also make it our own ‘Optimal’ way.
Andrew: Being part of a community of B Corps supporting each other with new ways to manage these obligations we choose to put on ourselves to be better corporate citizens as such is valuable. While there’s no desire to make it hard, sometimes it is hard to make sure you’re doing the right thing. It requires extra research and extra conscientiousness when making decisions so sharing ideas and experiences. Feeling like you’re not the only one who’s been there can help.
Becoming a B Corp is quite an achievement however the work doesn’t stop there does it?
Andrew: My understanding is the requirements get harder and that’s a good thing. We can all get better. The biggest areas for us to improve are things like sharing information in decision-making, we’re already pretty transparent but haven’t formalized that so there are things we can do there.
The next checkpoint is in three years and we’re expected to improve plus the requirements get more onerous - so we’d better improve!
