ADDC 2019 - Matthew Eng - Everyone Does Research: A Case Study on Inclusive Qualitative Research Methods for Product Teams at IBM.

IBM Design’s mission was to shift how it approached product strategy, but it led to friction between multidisciplinary teams grasping for a unified vision. Learn lessons from assembling a research team that broke bad data analysis habits and started inclusive generative and evaluative techniques. When I started doing UX research as a designer, we often felt our work and results were ignored by developers, architects, and product managers. After a series of stressful releases full of heated arguments between our multidisciplinary teams, I invested the post-release downtime to better understand the questions sought by the whole team. This lead to reorganizing the research, so that we conducted to include design, product management, and development. The research team gathered and surfaced data that each of the disciplines where focusing on separately to help construct a clearer direction for the product.

Recordings & more: https://addconf.com/

Transcript

1. Research is the Glue Inclusive techniques to share data @engmatthew
2. IBM Design @engmatthew 2 @engmatthew
3. !3 @engmatthew
4. I do UX design and research @engmatthew
10. VS
11. VS
12. @engmatthew
13. @engmatthew
14. @engmatthew
15. @engmatthew
16. We like to think that invention comes as a flash of insight -Vaclav Smil “ @engmatthew
17. Allowing one person to believe that he or she is a vessel for creativity and (innovation) is too much responsibility. “ @engmatthew -Elizabeth Gilbert
18. It can also be beneficial to create a mashup of skills and duties -Lauren Marchese “ @engmatthew
19. Everyone can contribute to research Research can work in Agile environments Research must facilitate data inclusion @engmatthew
20. @engmatthew Not every can lead a research project Not all research can fit into agile sprints
21. How we work @engmatthew
22. Squads Embedded Research !22 Research PM Dev @engmatthew Design
23. Accounts Embedded Research !23 Research PM Dev @engmatthew Design Access
24. Qualitative !24 @engmatthew
25. !25 @engmatthew
26. !26 @engmatthew
27. Navigation Case Study @engmatthew
28. Tokyo Station Yoyogi Park @engmatthew
29. @engmatthew
30. @engmatthew
31. @engmatthew
32. @engmatthew
33. !33 @engmatthew
34. Accounts Help Docs Network Containers DevOps Security Compute AI @engmatthew
35. Accounts Help Docs Network Containers DevOps Security AI Help and Assistance Network Compute VM Bare Metal Storage Compute Security Learn @engmatthew
36. Customer 1 Customer 2 Customer 3 Customer 4 !36 @engmatthew
37. Green Olive Tree Avnet Indeed Ogilvy Arrow Kollacode Customer 1 Customer 2 Customer 3 Customer 4 Customer 5 Customer 6 37
38. Seems like it is laid out by lines of business in IBM. Not necessarily the way I would architect an app “ !38 -Customer @engmatthew
39. IBM is currently dealing with a major rebranding exercise which is hurting its positioning. It is in the process of phasing out the SoftLayer and Bluemix brands !39 “ -Forbes @engmatthew
40. Reflections @engmatthew
41. 41 Design PM Dev Discovery Validation Implementation Process How we worked together @engmatthew
42. 42 Design PM Dev Discovery Validation Implementation Process How we worked together Research @engmatthew Customer and user interviews
43. 43 Design PM Dev Discovery Validation Implementation Process How we worked together Research Analytic Trends Competition Adoption and Tickets @engmatthew
44. 44 Design PM Dev Discovery Validation Implementation Process How we worked together Research Analyst NPS Feedback New Shining Thing @engmatthew Leadership
45. Changes @engmatthew
46. 46 Design PM Dev Discovery Validation Implementation Process How we worked together @engmatthew Research Customer and user interviews
47. 47 Design PM Dev Discovery Validation Implementation Process How we want to work together Research @engmatthew Who are our users? Will this make sense for them? How is this performing in the wild?
48. 50% marketing content (benefits + overview) 50% technical content (features + use cases) marketing content (benefits with marketing tone) 100% Technical content (benefits with technical tone + features + use cases) 60% Pricing Info 30% Marketing content 5% Documentation 5% Marketing Technical Pricing Docs Competitive Analysis How is your competition addressing the problem space?
49. Heuristic Evals Guide your teams through end- to-end heuristic evals to get away from individual screens and more focused on goals, tasks, and subtasks. User one language for heuristic principles.
50. Test Prep Write the steps and tasks together. Show where design, PM, and dev have questions, and possible variations. Align on what we are asking users to do and what metrics we are going to capture.
51. @engmatthew
52. Open up the testing sessions @engmatthew
53. Open up the synthesis @engmatthew
54. @engmatthew
56. 56 @engmatthew
57. Takeaways @engmatthew
58. Find what your team needs
59. Invest time in an open process
60. Be a guide
61. Q/A !61 @engmatthew
62. Thank you !62 @engmatthew