A New Role Emerging as User Experience Investigator
Evident as UX institutionalize and Competition Grows
UX Investigators are not UX Researchers. They Audit Multiple Products from a Portfolio & accredited UX maturity of a Company, reporting to CEO.
The number of UX Design Agencies are growing, so as the competition. Every UX Design Agency claim to be excellent. After all, no one ever survived by selling themselves short. Stakeholders, Business Owners, and Hiring Managers are not necessarily from UX domain, actually most of the time they are not. With the ever-growing number of UX Design Agencies in the highly competitive market its get challenging to evaluate and select the right one. These days UX plays one of the most important parts in timely delivery and the success of a product. UX is a costly affair, especially when coupled with User Research. I have noticed a growing number of cases where the budget is well claimed by the design agency but the product comes out faulty and incomplete. That only be realized at a very later stage. By this time most of the budget have exhausted and a new design agency been hired which first feed itself on the shortcomings of the previous agency’s work and then demands another round of hefty budget.
Is it the first Agency’s fault or is it because of Client’s Organisational constraint lead to restrictions at multiple levels, limit to exercise the authority to carry out the UX activities properly. What-so-ever may be the reason the bottom line is product has eventually failed.
In the middle of all this we need to think, as a collective UX industry how reliable and consistent we’are?
Rather than waiting till the finish of the product and then retrospective on our failure, could we bring in UX Investigators at intervals to provide an external viewpoint directly to the upper management away from the organizational influences?
In these past few years, UX metrics have improved by far. Universal Design Standards for each domain have been more precisely defined. Like for Healthcare, it’s International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Design Guide, for Automotive it’s Driver Distraction Manual, for Equal Opportunity to People with Disability under Section 508 Electronic and Information Technology (EIT) Accessibility Standards. Not all agencies are good in all of them and same goes for individual designers. It’s a vast field.
A team of UX Investigators can reduce this gap and provide valuable insight specific to the domain. Budget allocation for UXV could be made a part of the project plan.
I have tried to answer some generic questions here. What is the difference between routine inspection done in Government Organisations v/s the kind of Investigation I am talking about? Inspection is about the routine processes that are already been taken care by Project Management Office (PMO). Whereas, the investigation is about the core UX product strategies and discovering prospective pitfalls. Some of the Investigation aspects are Organisational, Regulatory, Technical and Communication with C-Level Executives to facilitate everyone in the team.
Isn’t it already being taken care by the Product Managers? They may not be completely from UX domain. They have other responsibilities. Also when you are part of the company unknowingly the company’s cultural blanket influence your outlook and professional behavior.
Can Center of Excellence (CoE) play the role of a UXV? I have never seen a company where CoE has one stop firewall influence over all projects. Every department has its own domain specific complexities and shaped around its own liberties. In a Vertical, Projects pops like mushrooms in a field. Some grow big other perish. Interpersonal relations between Bosses and Subordinates inside a Department have its own advantages passed to the projects. Agitating that is not wise neither practically implementable.
What is the difference between an UX Strategist and an UX Investigator? Strategist stays for an extended period of time. UX Investigator is like Strategist’s Life Coach. They bring in their external outlook and expertise to assist the UX Strategist to organize efficiently.
Let me clarify UXV positioning more accurately by comparing them with Client Partners which is a fairly old and established designation in IT. Client Partners if perceived correctly, bring mobility and key understanding about the client for the development team. If perceived wrongly seen as a traitor passing the information to the client being a part of the same company. Similarly, UXV must take a solution-focused approach than only uncovering the shortcomings.
Some words of Wisdom. Investigators have great power and with that comes great responsibilities. They should refrain from making a suggestion to a certain design agency for personal gain.
It would be suggested to refrain from taking a hefty decision unless extremely important backed by well-stated stats and design history in that domain. Understand the various adaptability constraints and appreciate the incremental escalation.
Be empathetic and understanding to your fellow UX colleagues working on the product. Their Thinking is Designed in a way, lead to the decisions they have made. So remember the same old quote by Don Norman in a new light which says, Human Error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called System Error.
Again, I would like to remind you. Do we need to wait until failure to Investigate?
