I recently finished an eight week engagement with a customer where we
had the focus start with user journeys. As we talked with the customer
and poked on the personas (or people groups) that might be targeted by
the organization and specific project, the customer realized that
additional work was needed to ensure the right audience was being
targeted and that their interactions with the organization were
understood and actually mapped to the long list of requirements that had
already been gathered.
Through the exercise of understanding the personas, a clear subset of
their marketing segmentation was understood. This in turn guided
understanding this particular set of personas interactions (or journeys)
with the organization.
As the personas began to take on lives and began to be used instead
of “set of requirements”, further clarifications to what the
organization needed were driven. This in turn drove out different
priorities and ultimately drove out a set of conceptual wireframes.
When all was said and done, every participant was glowing about the
user journey work and how it had driven everything about the project.
While a deep list of requirements and features had been gathered, and
not all of them were taken out of scope, the CONTEXT for WHY and HOW was
better understood!
I think context says so much about what we do as UX / CXers. If you
design the cool next thing, but the context is wrong, it’s bound to be
less successful.
I, too, encourage folks to try to get involved in persona and user
journey work. It doesn’t have to be glossy marketing looking slicks, but
even rudimentary drawings and charts can help bring to life the pain
points that cause barriers to adoption, but also to opportunity points
that can increase adoption and customer satisfaction.
When it’s all said and done, there is ALWAYS a set of customers/users
that, if made exceptionally happy, will result in high satisfaction and
high value to the business!
