Having access to the specialist subscription-based tools you need to do your work is a reasonable thing to expect. But what if you’re relying on someone else’s SaaS account to access what you need? Sounds like a good solution but think again. It’s risky - even fraught. Here are 3 good reasons to avoid shared login credentials and why you need your own.

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1. Safety first - sharing account login credentials is a risky business 🔐

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If you don’t know who’s signed up and using the subscriptions your organization pays for and holds, how can you protect their data once they’ve gone? As the account holder, you’re responsible for keeping the personal data of anyone accessing your subs safe and secure. That’s not only the right thing to do - it’s pretty important from a legal perspective too.

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In today’s data-driven world safeguards around privacy and security are essential. You only need to look at the fallout from serious data breaches around the world to see the damage they can do. There’s a myriad of privacy laws around personal data out there but they’re based on the universal principle of protecting personal data.  One of the better-known laws is GDPR the EU’s data protection law. 

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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulates and protects the processing of the personal information of EU citizens and residents by establishing rules on how organizations such as companies and governments can process this personal data. It’s important to note the GDPR applies to those handling the data whether they’re EU-based organizations or not.

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Avoid encouraging shared logins in your organization to ensure peace of mind that you’re doing everything you can to keep people’s personal data safe and secure - as well as keeping on the right side of the law.

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2. Ease of administration - save time and energy managing multiple users 🎯

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Having single logins rather than shared logins saves time and energy and makes the whole administration smoother and easier for everyone.

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For instance, maybe you need to delete data as part of honoring GDPR rules. This could be tricky and time consuming if there are multiple users on one email as a generic email isn’t specific to a person. 

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Generic email addresses also make it harder for SaaS providers to understand your account activity and implement the changes you want or need.  For example, customers often ask to retrieve information for account billing.   Having multiple employees using a single login can make this problematic.  It can be a real struggle to identify the right owners or users.  

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And if the ‘champion’ of the tool leaves your organization and you want to retrieve information on the account, your SaaS provider won't be able to do this without proof you’re the real owner of this account. 

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Another added benefit ,(which your IT & security team will thank you for), of having a personal login, is the way it makes setting up functionality such as single-sign-on (SSO) so easy. Given the way single sign-on works, shared emails just don’t cut it anymore. Also if your organization uses SSO it means you’ll be able to log into tools more quickly and easily.

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3. Product support - access it when you need it 🙏

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When things go wrong or you just need help using products or tools from your friendly SaaS it’s important for them and for you, that they’re in the best position to support you. Supporting people is a big part of the job and generic emails make it harder to connect with customers and create the people to people relationships that enable the best outcome when problems arise or training or help is needed.

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You may be surprised to hear what a blocker multiple users on a single email can be. For instance, generic email addresses can make it harder for us to get to the right person and communicate with you.  We won’t know if you have another email active in the system we can use to help you.

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Wrap up 🌯

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We’ve given you 3 good reasons not to account share - still, need convincing?  

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What about getting the right plan to meet your organization’s needs - so you don’t need to share in the first place? There could be all kinds of reasons why you’ve ended up having to account share: maybe a workmate signed up, shared it, and got you hooked too.  Or your organization has grown and you need more subs.  Whatever the reason there’s no need to account share - get in touch and sound us out to find a better, safer solution.    

If the title hasn’t already given it away, we’ve just launched the third issue of our UX magazine, CRUX. I say this every time, but it really only feels like yesterday that I was announcing the first and second issues. Soon we’ll be announcing issue 4!

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Looking back on CRUX #2 🪞👀🎀🦋

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Crafting a magazine is certainly fun, but that’s only half of it. Part of the enjoyment for us is tracking the readership growth over time. Yes, we’re nerds.

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Using the first issue as a baseline, we saw a definite improvement in the numbers of CRUX #2. The second issue also drove up readership of the first issue, which was pretty neat to see!

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As for readership time, the first issue saw an average time spent reading of 10 minutes, but we managed to blow past that with a read time of 15 minutes for issue #2! Numbers are obviously always important, our other important metrics include the number of shares, positive sentiment in qualitative feedback and future contributor engagement. These all increased with the second issue.

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What we’re trying to say is that as long as there's an appetite for CRUX, we’ll keep making it.

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Mirror image 🪞🕊️🤍✨

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CRUX is starting to become a bit of a reflection of the worlds of research and design at the time of publication. Specifically, a reflection of the unique problems that researchers and designers are trying to solve. That means people like you.

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It’s important to note that whenever we use labels like ‘researcher’ or ‘designer’, we really just mean ‘people who do the thing’. At least at Optimal Workshop, we all do research. It’s just part of our DNA.

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What you’ll find in CRUX #3 🪬🫧🫶🏻🤍

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With that in mind, we’ve got a number of interesting topics in this edition of CRUX:

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• Looking at the pyramid of trust and why you need to start thinking about the basic trust needs of users.
• Alia Fite from Figma talks about the best ways to evaluate design tools, including a number of actionable steps.
• Jennie Leng from Digital Arts Network (now Bendon, Australia and New Zealand) talks about design maturity and what this means in a business context.

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Want to contribute to CRUX?

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We want to create the best UX magazine – as long as people like you want to keep reading it. But we need your help! We’ve had a whole lot of great people contribute to CRUX #1, #2 and #3, but we know there are countless more people out there who don’t have a platform to share their voice.

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If you or someone you know wants to share their ideas with the UX and design communities, drop us a line here.

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But for now, please go and enjoy the third issue of CRUX! We work hard on it, and it’s all for you.

Time really does fly when you’re having fun. Rewind to November of last year (2020) and we’d just launched the first issue of our UX magazine, CRUX. If you haven’t read that inaugural edition, you can still find it right here. It’s digital, so there’s little chance of it disappearing. Anyway, I digress.

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I’m here (and very eager) to tell you that, as of today, we’ve just launched the second edition of CRUX! It’s an exciting day for all of us here at Optimal Workshop, as well as the fabulous bunch of intelligent, creative and amazing people from the research and design communities who helped us to put this issue together.

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Before we delve into what you can expect to see in this next issue, let’s recap on CRUX #1.

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Creating a UX magazine: A brief retrospective

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As you can probably guess, publishing a magazine is a bit of a labor of love. This is especially the case at Optimal Workshop where creating a magazine isn’t the only project we’ve got going on (we’re pretty busy down here in Wellington, New Zealand).

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But, we managed to get the first issue of CRUX out the door and by all accounts, it was a tremendous success. In the 30 days following the launch we had just over 1500 readers, with an average page per reader count of 27 (out of 34), and an average time spent reading of over 9mins. It has been viewed in over 62 countries worldwide. So, a success!

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Four people also spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day tucking into CRUX, with one reader based in Ireland managing to flick through 109 pages.

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With these results, your feedback (we appreciate it) and an appetite to create an even better second issue, we stuck our heads down and got to work. Now, CRUX #2 is here!

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What you’ll find in CRUX #2

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It’s important to keep pushing yourself. While the first issue of CRUX got a great reception, we knew that we could do even more if given the opportunity to publish a second issue. While we talked about the idea of each future issue focusing a different theme, we instead decided to keep the brief broad – we wanted diverse opinions from a range of contributors. We think that the end selection reflects this goal.

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Here are just a few of the topics that you can expect to find in this issue:

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• How user research helps product teams to move faster and work more effectively
• Tips for making your participant recruitment process more efficient
• The case for a new role in the world of UX
• Building great content design teams
• How to start your own UX practice
• What the future holds for conversational user experiences

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There’s all of the above and so much more to discover in CRUX #2, so go ahead and read. We’ll be waiting and we can’t wait to hear what you think.

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Put the word out: We want you!

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Finally, let’s talk about the future of CRUX. We want to keep creating the best UX magazine as long as people like you want to keep reading it. But we need your help. We’ve had a great bunch of people contribute to CRUX #1 and #2, but we know there are more people out there who don’t have a platform. If you, or someone you know, wants to share their ideas with the world, drop us a line directly here.

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But for now, go and have a read of CRUX #2. We worked hard on it – and it’s all for you.

The Age of the Customer is well and truly here. In every industry and vertical across the globe, UX professionals now dictate the terms, placing customers at the heart of every design decision. Or at least, this is the new reality that’s unfolding in the organizations and businesses that don’t want to be left behind.

Make no mistake; simply claiming to be the best is no longer enough. To survive and thrive, people need to be placed at the heart. The golden key that will allow organizations to pivot to this new reality lies with that of the user researcher.

But it’s not enough to simply “do user research”. Sure, some customer insight is obviously better than none at all, but to really be useful it needs to be effective research. That’s what this article is all about.

Get comfortable, because this is going to be a long one – for good reason.

Why (effective) user research is so important

You are not your user. As much as you may like to think that you are, you’re not. It can be a tricky proposition to get your head around, especially when we regularly assume that everyone thinks like us. There are 8 billion people out there who have a vastly different set of experiences and perspectives than you. With that in mind, when we start to generalize based on our own personal experiences, this is what’s known as availability bias.

Unfortunately, solving this is issue not as easy as getting into a room with customers and having a chat. People don’t always tell the truth! This isn’t to say that the participant in your last user interview was flat out lying to you, but the things that people say are different from the things that people do. It;’s your job (as a user researcher) to intuit the actual behaviors and actions, and identify their needs based on this data.

When you’re doing your job correctly, you’ve given your organization the best possible chance of success. Everything  – and I mean everything – starts with a solid understanding of your users. Doors will open, paths will reveal themselves – you get the idea.

The qualities of an effective user researcher

Let me preface this section by saying that you don’t have to have all of these qualities in spades, the list below is really just a way for you to better understand some of the traits of an effective user researcher, to get you thinking and on the right path.

• Curious: User research can be quite repetitive, especially when you get to the 6th user interview and need to ask the same questions. A genuine curiosity about people, the challenges they face and their behaviors will go a long way in helping you to push through.
• Pragmatic: Being an idealist has its uses, but it’s also important to be pragmatic. As a researcher, you need to operate on a fine line and balance your capacity to do research with business goals, finances and the desires of your stakeholders. Do the most with what you’ve got.
• Organized: It takes a lot to plan a research project, from scheduling testing sessions to assembling large slide decks for presentations. You’ve got to manage a large number of complex components, so it’s important that you can organize and prioritize.
• Collaborative: User research is most effective when it’s carried out collaboratively. This means working with your team, with the organization and with other disciplines. Think outside the box: Who stands to benefit from your research and how can you involve them?
• Empathetic: Real, natural empathy is a rare trait, but adopting an empathetic mindset is something everyone can (and should) learn. Beyond just uncovering insights from your participants, consider what these insights mean and how they all connect. This will truly enable you to understand your users.
• Sociable: You don’t have to suddenly adopt an extroverted persona, but being actively interested in other people will help you build relationships both inside your organization and with customers.
• Perceptive: User research means listening and observing. During a user interview or usability test, you need to be able to filter all of the data entering your mind and extract the most relevant insights.
• Analytical: In a similar vein to perceptiveness, being analytical is also key if you want to understand all of the data that your research will produce. Filter, examine, extract and move on.

How to run user research effectively (and at a low cost)

There are innumerable methods for user research, but many are resource- and time-intensive. What’s more, certain research methods come attached with significant costs.

But, research doesn’t have to be the time and money sink that it can often first appear to be. Certain actions before you ever step into the room with a participant can make a world of difference.

Conduct research at the start

User research is obviously valuable whenever you do it, but you’ll see the biggest impact when you carry it out right the start of a project. Conduct research to get the lay of the land; to learn how and why customers make certain decisions, and where the biggest opportunities lie.

Note: Don’t research in a silo, involve your team, stakeholders and other interested parties.

Have clear goals – and a plan

Every research project needs a clear objective, and that comes from a detailed UX research plan, which includes well-formulated research questions. Every project will have a different question, but they’re the best starting point to ensure research success.

Choose the right methods

There’s no shortage of research methods to choose from, but being an effective user researcher is all about being able to pick the right methods for each project, and use them correctly. Nearly every research project will benefit from using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in order to generate the most useful insights.

To understand which method to use, it’s a good idea to view them using the following framework:

Involve stakeholders

Bring stakeholders into your research project as early as possible. These are the people that will end up utilizing the results of your work, and chances are they’re the ones who’ll have the most questions at the end. Involve them through consultation, regular updates, the all-too-important presentation at the end of the project and by letting them take notes for you during research sessions.

Wrap up

It’s not enough to simply run a card sort now (although that’s still a very useful exercise). You need to think cohesively about the role of your research in your organization and make sure that you’re as aware of your bias as you are of the various methods and tools available to you. Happy researching!

Discovery research prior to the design and development of products, services and features nearly always leads to better results, whether that means a better reception from your target audience or product/market fit.

But you already knew that.

You’re likely well aware that this all-too-important research phase helps you to gather a broad range of insights about the opportunities in front of you, better define exactly what problems you need to solve and get stakeholders and other parties involved early on.

With this in mind, which methods should you use to generate the best discovery outcomes? Let’s find out.

Interview your stakeholders

You’ll no doubt be familiar with the process of interviewing your users, but it’s now time to apply that same skillset to the stakeholders of your project. This is a fairly common user research practice, and can give you a good idea of the following:

• Organization goals: What problems is the business trying to solve?
• Constraints: What factors could stand in the way (whether technical or otherwise)?
• Current insights: What do your subject matter experts already know about the problem you’re trying to solve, and what do they know about your users?

Stakeholder interviews are an excellent place to start if you’re planning to build an entirely new product or build a substantial new feature for a product that’s already being used.

Analyze business data

You don’t always need to go outside of your organization to gather information about the problem space. Chances are (especially if you’re in an established company) that there are already reams of useful data just waiting for the right analytical eye.

When we talk about business data, we basically mean any data that the organization already has about the product or feature that you’re working on. This could come in many forms, for example, qualitative anecdotes from customer service teams, or quantitative data about usage from development teams. Analyzing this sort of quantitative and qualitative data will give you useful context about key stakeholders, user pain points, opportunities and even broader issues such as alignment.

Depending on when you start this process, you may find that digging into business data is also a good opportunity to introduce yourself to the stakeholders most closely aligned with the data.

Carry out competitor analysis

Competitive analysis is the process of comparing the products and services of one company (typically yours) with those of another company. You carry out competitive analysis by comparing different types of data. For example, when we here at Optimal Workshop redesigned our blog, we carried out a significant amount of discovery research, which included a large amount of competitive analysis of other blogs. We focused on things like functionality, types of content, target audience and design.

Competitor analysis is a great way to work out where you stand alongside your competitors. You can get an idea of opportunities that they’ve missed, things they do well and potential areas of innovation for your own organization.

Run user interviews

User interviews are a research method designed to get qualitative information directly from your users. Typically, user interviews involve asking people questions related to how they use a particular system, their behaviors and their usage habits.

This research method is useful across the lifecycle of a product, but it’s particularly relevant in the discovery phase. At this point in time, you can use the results of user interviews to build your customer journey maps and personas and segments.

Host a diary study

In a diary study, users log activities of daily activities as and when they occur to generate contextual information about their behaviors, wants and needs. You can then use this data to better understand feature and product requirements.

This method has obvious advantages when used in the discovery phase of a research project. By casting a wide net and having at least 10 participants involved, you can get a broad range of insights over a long period of time. Once you’re finished, you’ll have access to useful self-reported information about usage behavior, usage scenarios, habits and more.

Wrap up

Hopefully, this guide has given you a good introduction to some of the methods that you’ll want to use during your next discovery project. Once you’ve wrapped up your discovery work, you (and your team) should have a clear understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve as well as the opportunities and potential areas of innovation. Oh, and stakeholder alignment of course!

Keep in mind that it’s OK if the outcome of a discovery project is a dead-end – or a completely new direction. Discovery now helps you to avoid running into those issues after you’ve built a new product or feature. 

Happy discovery!

Anyone who’s ever been involved in user research knows that the process takes many different forms. Organization size, research maturity, stakeholder buy-in, budget and many other factors all play a part in how various teams and individuals approach the process of learning how users think and, consequently, how to build products and services for them.

One of the most important steps you can take is to move from tactical (evaluative) research to discovery (generative) research.

Tactical versus discovery research

If you need a brief refresher on what these two terms mean, here’s a handy breakdown:

• Tactical or evaluative research: Assessing an existing solution to work out whether it meets people’s needs. This could be running a tree test on a website that’s already widely used.
• Discovery or generative research: Developing a deeper understanding of a problem or a group of users to identify opportunities and areas of innovation. This could be running a series of user interviews to speak to users directly.

I want to be clear here: We’re not saying that you should never carry out tactical, evaluative research, just that it’s vital to carve out time for discovery.

An issue of time

Time waits for no one. When speaking to user researchers, a common theme is that they’re underresourced and time-poor. Typically, the smaller numbers of researchers in comparison to other roles means that their skills are in high demand, all the time.

What does this mean for the types of work that researchers are often tasked with? In many organizations, researchers are constantly in lock-step with design and development teams, carrying out necessary tactical research alongside prototype development, or testing finalized versions of products and services.

This doesn’t leave much time (if any) for generative research.

Discovery research: A deep dive

Making time for discovery in the UX design process is not about testing hypotheses, prototypes or solutions. This type of research is firmly focused on framing the problem, developing an understanding of the problem space and gathering data.

Discovery, by its very nature, should be broad and have no particular leanings with regards to solutions or technology. The focus here is about learning how people live and act, what their environments are like, and getting a detailed understanding of their behaviors, thoughts and opinions.

If you’re running a discovery project on a product that’s already been developed, then it’s not discovery. It’s essentially validation that what’s already been built is the right solution.

Discovery research should help you build up a solid understanding of your users, the problems to be solved, opportunities available and success metrics that the team and stakeholders can rally behind.

How to get started with discovery research

You can use a number of different methods to carry out discovery research. Let’s take a look at a few of the most common ones.

• User interviews: Ideal for learning about people’s behaviors, problems, habits and perspectives, this method is a great way to collect qualitative data as part of the discovery process. 
• Diary studies: In a similar vein to user interviews, diary studies allow you to collect qualitative data from a group of people. Diary studies differ in that the insights are self-reported, thus giving you a different perspective.
• Field studies: Instead of bringing users into your organization for an interview or usability study, head out into the field to observe how they work and behave in their environment. 
• Stakeholder interviews: Looking internally, stakeholder interviews are a great way to get a unique perspective on the problem you’re investigating. Stakeholders typically know a lot about internal processes, user behaviors and what solutions have already been tried.
• Assumption-mapping workshops: This type of workshop is all about prioritizing your assumptions based on certainty – and risk. The idea is that by identifying the riskiest assumptions you’ll have a better idea of where to devote your energy.

Nielsen Norman Group has an in-depth article on discovery that covers some of the other common activities. 

The outputs of a discovery project

After you’ve run a discovery project, you and your team will have a much more comprehensive understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve – and where you should start to focus your efforts.