The Champion for UX
I built my companies research group from the ground up. When I'm not doing research, I'm fighting for it. I'm getting the word out, I'm demonstrating its value, and I'm teaching others to gather and use data.
This is a good project for you to look at if:
You want to learn about how I approach the strategic aspects of research and how I approached establishing a UX practice within an organization.
Main Impacts
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Built our UX practice from scratch, creating a culture of research within my organization
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Established a network of UX supporters and stakeholders who request and utilize research to spread the value of UX around the organization
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Conducted lightweight projects in order to solve pain points or answer questions
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Educated others on UX resulting in an increase of quality and specificity of the research requests
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Broke down internal silos of information through the creation of a research repository available to all employees
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Presented findings to senior leadership, including the directors team, executive directors team, and C-suite members such as the CEO and CTO.
Setting the Scene
Imagine: you're at a company and only a handful of people know what UX is. The company isn't in the habit of doing research, and data isn't being utilized to it's fullest potential.
I needed to get on my feet fast. I needed to learn the business, how the company runs, everything!
I realized, if UX was going to be successful at my organization, I needed to become more than just a researcher. I needed to become a champion for UX.
What's a UX Champion?
I view a UX champion as someone who advocates for UX in their organization. Research, user-centered design, gathering and utilizing data are all causes a UX champion might fight for.
Why was it important to champion for UX?
There was skepticism toward the value of UX. I had to face resistance: a low budget, reluctance to contribute, and skepticism towards findings.
It was a new and unproven concept at the company and yet another thing to get done. I needed to show the business why research should matter to them.
How did I champion for UX?
I used 5 tactics to champion for UX at my organization.
Cultivating a UX Network
to find other advocates
Educating Others
so stakeholders understood what research could do for them.
Presentations
To spread insights and gain support from leadership
Lightweight Projects
to solve people's pain-points
Spreading Research Insights
So that research was actually used
Tactic 1: Cultivating a UX Network
Goal 1: find the people who valued research, data, and UX
Goal 2: grow my network by demonstrating the value of research to others.
Networking with my coworkers
I wanted to know:
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Their roles
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Their needs
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Their pain-points
I used Notion to create a Personal CRM, essentially a spreadsheet to keep track of what I learned about my coworkers.
An example of what a Personal CRM could look like with fake data.
Why the personal CRM?
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It kept me organized
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It helps me determine what research would be valuable to which person
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Allowed me to come up with lightweight projects that could show the value of research.
With my CRM I was able to cultivate a network of UX allies who helped support research, tell me about research opportunities, and even bounce ideas of of.
Some Allies Joined Right Away... and some didn't
For those hard-to-convince allies, the Personal CRM was invaluable. It helped me know who would benefit from hearing about findings as I completed projects and understand what projects could benefit the most people. That leads to my second tactic, lightweight projects.
Tactic 2: Lightweight Projects
How do you demonstrate the value of research?
You show them how research can help make their lives easier!
Of course, my larger projects were valuable for gaining UX allies, but in the early days I typically worked with the same few teams. To have maximum impact, I needed UX allies across the organization.
A few hours of my effort could make a big difference to my coworkers and help me show people the value of UX. I kept my ear to the ground, listening for problems and unanswered questions and used my Personal CRM for ideas.
I made extra efforts to learn about my organization, how things run, who does what, and internal pain-points to be able to come up with effective solutions.
Here's a few examples of lightweight projects I did to win allies and create a habit of research
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Surveys to gather user feedback on products
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Quick Unmoderated Tests of a new dashboard
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A|B Testing to test CTA's on the website
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Lightweight Usability Testing to test a new LMS feature
These lightweight projects helped research gain more traction in the organization, as well as help with many small pain-points, leading to a big difference.
Tactic 3: Educating Others
"What's UX?" is a question anyone in UX has been asked 1000 times.
I love the question and feel it's my responsibility to help educate people on not only what UX is, but also how it can apply to them. While I worked to spread insights, I educated others on UX so they had a better understanding of what it could do and why they should request research.
Some ways I educated others (besides a simple conversation)
Mentoring
I mentored a member of my team and helped provide guidance as he took courses.
Workshops
I led workshops on using existing data in design, basic persona creation, and usability testing.
Guiding Interns
I provided support and guidance to the to UX interns working on a Learning Tool.
Tactic 4: Spreading UX Insights
Yet another problem I discovered...
As I completed projects, I found the group I did the research for benefited from the insights, but other groups didn't use the findings due to internal silos.
I began making it a point to distribute research effectively and encourage people to spread it. That was working well, but people needed an easier way to access research.
So, I created a Research Repository:
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It allowed us to have a central location for all research
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It helped spread research further
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It let people browse findings to discover interesting research
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It let people look at what was possible before making research requests
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It made a great conversation starter when people asked me what I do
My Solution
Tactic 5: Presentations
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They started small
My first presentations were mostly to the teams the research project was for. I started to spread those presentations to other interested groups.
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I got opportunities to present to larger groups
I started presenting at Lunch and Learns of about 50 people. This grew to Digital Showcase presentations, which are company-wide events held quarterly about the latest innovations.
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I began presenting to senior stakeholders
I received opportunities to present to leadership, including the directors team, executive directors team, and senior leadership including the CEO. This led to research requests directly from senior leadership.
These presentations gave me the traction to get better opportunities for research, including more organizational support, a larger budget, better ability to distribute research (and ensure it was acted upon) and bring research onto more people's radar.
Reflection
UX research is an important part of my job, but I also need to stay up to date on the current business needs, I need to think about UX strategy and how we're going to use the findings effectively. The efforts I took as part of the UX champion solidified my skills as a researcher, and increased the effectiveness of research within my organization.
I largely think I've won this fight, UX is going strong within my organization, and the findings from research have made large impact, including the design of our website, the planned features for our e-commerce platform, the design of the Learning Management System, the products we have, and much, much more.
This project changed the way my company thought of UX, but it also changed my thinking as well. I realized the business side of things was something I was missing. It influenced me to give myself what I like to call a discount MBA, I read a ton of great books about business to help improve my knowledge of the business side of the company.