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Why Designing for Customer Intentions is the Future of Business

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Sign that reads "come in we're open"
Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

Summary: Customers pay attention in many different ways, and it is up to them how they use said attention. Businesses need to cater to this fact or else suffer the consequences.

In the first post of this series on Designing for Intention, I introduced the need for businesses to change the way they decide on, and structure, the information they include on their websites, apps, and digital products. (It should be noted that deciding on information and communication for ANY product or service should tie back to customer intentions, but for the purposes of this discussion we’ll focus on the digital realm.)

I also stated that currently too many businesses, when including information in their digital mediums, only house information and content their business needs and wants, instead of showcasing more information which aligns their business values and their customers’ intentions for conducting business with them in the first place.

Said more simply. Businesses talk far too much about themselves instead of focusing on helping customer reach their goals.

One topic I introduced, but didn’t delve deeply into, was my thoughts and evidence around WHY I claim businesses need to make a change and design their information for customer intentions. In this piece, I aim to do just that.

We start the argument with a discussion on customer attention. An arena all businesses, especially those who either sell their products digitally (i.e. selling physical products through a website) or who sell digital products (i.e. selling a subscription to an application), compete in is that of earning and securing customer attention.

Customer attention, more generally human attention, is a tricky thing. We often think of it as two dimensional; either you have someone’s attention or you don’t. But, there are more than two modes of customer attention businesses need take into account when considering their customers.

I’ll provide a quick synopsis here:

One scale of attention is that of voluntary versus captive attention.1 Voluntary attention is the type a person pays to things they “find innately interesting. These are items you’d focus on even if explicitly forbidden.” On the other hand, captive attention “is thrust upon you”.

A second scale of attention is that of aversive versus attractive attention. People pay aversive attention to items to “avoid negative consequences”. They pay attractive attention to items because they believe whatever they are paying attention to may bring on positive experiences.

A third scale of attention is that of front-of-mind versus back-of-mind attention. Front-of-mind attention is conscious, focused, and explicit. People use this type of attention to write reports, pay taxes, and have a conversation. Back-of-mind attention is tied to “things that may never come into your conscious awareness unless something unexpected appears”. People use this type of attention when driving but paying more attention to a side conversation instead.

Hopefully you can see that when a customer is using your website, application, or other product, they could be applying, or not applying, any of these types of attention. Couple these dynamics with that of human brain function, and you’ll see there’s a lot more going on in the head of your customer than you may be giving credit for.

In a recent article2 aimed at discussing, and disproving, the myth that customer attention spans are decreasing given the increase of technology, several quotes showcase this human brain function piece.

First is this one by Dr. Briggs, “How we apply our attention to different tasks depends very much about what the individual brings to that situation”.

Meaning, your customer may come to your website one day with a certain set of life experiences behind them (maybe it was a calm day), and then arrive the next with a completely different set (maybe they arrived stressed from a long day at work and home). You can imagine that what kind of attention they pay to your information will depend greatly on these experiences.

Another quote takes this a step further; “We’ve got a wealth of information in our heads about what normally happens in given situations, what we can expect. And those expectations and our experience directly mould what we see and how we process information in any given time.”

This means that not only are there different types of attention customers pay, and not only does their environment influence how they use these types of attention when interacting with your information, but their human brain also has a great deal of preconceived notions about how certain information and products/website should work. So, in addition to all the aforementioned points, your customers are also applying their preconceived notions to how they pay attention to your information.

As you can see, it’s not simply about putting your information out on your website, application, or product and customers understanding it. The equation is much more complex due to all the dynamics at play. To make matters even harder on you, there is one final factor to consider; maybe the most important factor.

Your customer is the one in the driver’s seat determining when and how to use their attention.

That’s right, it’s your customer’s decision, not your’s. And, your customer will make this decision based off all of the previously discussed factors, and then will pay attention only to what they want or need from your business. If they don’t see something that they want or need in the moment this decision is taking place, they will go elsewhere.

It’s that simple.

We see customers going their own way with business content all the time3. Whether in doctors’ offices or when using websites, customers make the call that benefits them.
Therefore, your business’s philosophy for deciding on and structuring the information you communicate needs to take all of these factors (types of attention, environmental influences, biological functions, etc) into account then design its information for these factors to be successful.

This is what designing your information for customer intentions does.

It’s a process for determining and communicating information that first meets customer needs, and then aligns the information to showcase your unique business values. Following this process ensures your content is captivating, attractive, and front—of-mind.

These are the qualities of customer attention you want to trigger, and you don’t do so by meeting your needs, you do so by meeting theirs.

What’s the bottom line then for you and your business?

If your business chooses not to go the route of determining and designing information for customer intentions, you will continue to overload your customers, and they will choose to go elsewhere to get their needs met.

We need no further evidence than these cases to prove my point:

If your aim is for your business to be successful and survive in this digital world, you need to secure customer attention. Updating how you choose and design information from focusing on you to focusing on your customers is the key to earning this attention.

By considering then designing for customer intentions, you move from yelling information about your business at your customers to having a conversation that satisfies their needs and meets yours. Not only is this more morally sound, but it’s a foolproof way to secure happy customers who keep returning to your business to get their needs met.

The best part is all making this change requires is you putting your business ego aside and bringing your customer’s views to the forefront.

Surely the ends, a successful, long-term business, justify those means.

Customer Intentions vs Jobs To Be Done

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“The plan of this world is infinite similarity and yet infinite variety.” ~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

In this series we introduced Designing for Customer Intentions and talked about how to Define Customer Intentions. We discussed the importance of putting your Unique Business Values First and described the practice of Putting Customer Intentions to Use. Throughout, Customer Intentions remains a subject we’ve been excited to experiment with and develop further.

It was with this excitement that a few months ago I found myself explaining the theory to a close colleague. Instead of responding with the same excitement, she countered with, “Oh I get it. That’s like Jobs to Be Done, right?”

“Jobs to be what?” I answered.

This interaction led me to question:

Is Designing for Customer Intentions really just a replica of the Jobs to Be Done method?

I swallowed my embarrassment, opened Google, and attempted an answer.

For those of you like me who haven’t yet run into Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), it’s a method which became famous through the 1997 Clayton Christensen book, The Innovator’s Solution. I haven’t yet read the text, but through my research I found a few summaries helpful in explaining JTBD further.

To elaborate, the Jobs To Be Done theory basically says that any company which describes itself as “technology X for demographic segment Y” is eventually doomed. If you tie yourself too closely to a technology, you’ll get blindsided by the next big thing. Similarly, if you define your customers by their demographic attributes, you learn very little about how you can help them better. On the other hand, if you get under the lid of the jobs they are trying to do, and understand their Psychology – i.e. their needs, goals and mental models around these jobs – then you’ve defined the problem in a way that brings the solution into focus, and it isn’t tied to a particular technology or approach. ~ User Experience and Jobs To Be Done, Harry Brignull

It’s a straightforward principle: people “hire” products and services to get a job done. For instance, you might hire a new suit to make you look good at a job interview. Or, you hire Facebook to stay in touch with friends on a daily basis. You could also hire a chocolate bar to relieve stress. These are all jobs to be done. ~ A Practical Model for Jobs To Be Done (JTBD), Jim Kalbach

These sources and a few others began to illuminate the JTBD world for me. They also helped relate the concept back to Information Architecture and User Experience Design. I highly recommend reading these works further if you’re interested in applying them to your own business and/or practice.

After my research, I could see how the idea of a product or service being “hired” to do a job for a customer sounds similar to:

“Focusing on customer intentions starts with considering what customers intend to accomplish when interacting with a website.”

I could clearly visualize how one could consider the website a service the customer hires to get one to many jobs done.

Still, I fought giving in to the idea that the methods are the same. I read article after article to prove my intended narratives; i.e. “Customer Intentions is based more on the actual customer, whereas JTBD only focuses on products”, “Customer Intentions has a deeper emotional angle than JTBD”, and “JTBD can only be used for simple feature and task definition whereas customer intentions can be used for larger strategic initiatives”. Unfortunately for me all of my resistance was for not once I landed on this piece.

Reading it, I saw my battle was lost.

Designing for Customer Intentions and Jobs to Be Done are in fact almost one in the same. I’d say they are the same, but the Intentions theory isn’t nearly as robust as JTBD so I won’t pretend they are equivalent.

However, I won’t stop using the Intentions language anytime soon either. Nor will I stop utilizing and developing the theory further.

Why?

I hypothesize using the Customer Intentions language may be better in some scenarios, while Jobs to Be Done may be more effective in others. For example, some business partners may respond better to JTBD language especially if they are familiar with, and have already bought into, the method. Others may be more favorable of the Customer Intentions language due to it’s direct tie to customers.

I have further theories on when these cases may apply and a few data points to back up said theories, but I’m afraid these aren’t yet ready for center stage. Though, I do plan on sharing them as we gather more evidence.

As to why I don’t plan on ceasing my exploration of the theory, I believe that in seeing the theory through just a bit a further, the potential of new insights may arise. I’ll be sure to keep you updated in this regard as well.

For now, I aim to continue my research as well as focusing the language I use for the method based on both the Customers I’m working with and the Context in which we are working. An idea which I’m sure rings a bell with you other Information Architects out there.

Image Source

After-all if the language we use can serve our customers better, why not make it more specific and tailored to their needs? We could even look at the language as a product or service that does a job for the customer.

Too soon?

Maybe. Either way, I’m grateful for my colleague pointing out these similarities when she did. Without her insight, I’d still be in the dark on a theory that holds much promise and exploration in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned!

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Putting Customer Intentions to Use

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Our journey through understanding designing for customer intentions, defining said intentions, and communicating unique business values has hopefully been informative. However, despite whatever knowledge you may have gleaned I’m sure one question still remains:

Once you have customer intentions defined, how do you put those intentions to use?

There are a myriad of ways one could and should use intentions when designing their website. In what follows I’ll share a few of the ways we apply intentions in our work. I do so simply for inspiration’s sake, as I encourage you to use intentions however and wherever you can. After-all, you’re in business to make your customers lives better. One surefire way to do so is to ease their path to success by designing a website that’s aimed at helping them satisfy their intentions.

More on that another time. For now, let’s talk answers.

For these answers let’s bring back the example Customer Intentions list defined earlier in the series:

When a customer goes to the website they intend to…

  1. Buy an item
  2. Stay up to date
  3. Understand what (our business) makes
  4. Understand what (our business) does
  5. Find a retailer
  6. Investigate / research a better solution
  7. Return a product
  8. Get questions answered

Allow me to walk you through some example exercises and outputs we’d create using this list. I’ll start with the most abstract/strategic exercises, then work down to the concrete/detailed.

1. Concept Modeling

One of the exercises we do at the start of any website project is to create a concept model. We use this model to define the overall groups of information which need to exist on the site to communicate the unique business value while satisfying customer intentions. Here is a concept model based off our list:

Example Concept Model
Example Concept Model

If you compare the list to the model you can see where intentions overlap with groups of website information. I’ve mapped this out below:

When a customer goes to the website they intend to…

  1. Buy an item – Products
  2. Stay up to date – Company
  3. Understand what (our business) makes – Products, System
  4. Understand what (our business) does – Company, System
  5. Find a retailer – Company
  6. Investigate / research a better solution – Stories, Products, System
  7. Return a product – Company, Products
  8. Get questions answered – Company

In this example, we know when coming to the site one intention the customer has is to understand what the company makes. Using intentions here means we ensure our concept model includes one to many groups (i.e. “Products”) that will contain the information necessary (i.e. a list of products) to satisfy this intention. The important point here is to be sure each intention can be mapped to a group, and all the groups map to at least one intention.

2. Content Modeling and Mapping

Another way we use intentions is when we define the details of the concept model groups. These details include the pages and content/features that will need to exist on the site. There are many detailed steps we take during this time, and below are just a few examples which show intentions usage:

Example Content Map
Example Content Map

To get to the above content map we’ve asked ourselves questions such as “If a customer intends to ‘understand what the business does and what it makes’, what type of information or features do we need to have in our groups to meet these intentions?”. The answers become a long list of content and/or features. We take this list and organize into pages to create the content map.

At the same time, we organize our long list of features and content into a content architecture spreadsheet. Example:

Example Content Architecture
Example Content Architecture

We map each page (Levels 1, 2, and 3) directly to one / many customer intentions ensuring all website content and features related to at least one intention and vice versa.

Full Disclosure: Be sure to brace yourself during this exercise as for most teams it is the moment of truth.

During this time each page of the site and each feature or piece of content that exists on a page needs tie back to satisfying one to many customer intentions. If an intention isn’t represented in a page, in the content, or in the feature list we know something needs to be added. Easy enough.

Here’s where it gets difficult. If a page, piece of content, or feature exists without a matching intention it probably isn’t needed and should be discarded. This is usually very hard for business to accept. Yet, this is the most critical piece in creating a site geared towards meeting intentions. Miss this and your business is back to throwing too much information at your customers which means your site and your unique business value re-enter the realm of confusion. This is the exact situation designing for intentions is meant to avoid.

I encourage you to stay strong and have faith in your business value and your customers’ intentions. They won’t fail you.

3. User Flows

A third way we bake intentions in is when modeling how the customer could move through the site to satisfy an intention.

Example User Flow
Example User Flow

Understanding that customers are humans who don’t move linearly through sites, we’ve been inspired to update our model. This model aims to capture the many dimensions of navigating a website. The center hexagon represents the page a user is currently viewing. Surrounding that spoke are the potential pages the user can click to based off of the content or features are available. We model out as much as needed to visualize and validate users can indeed satisfy their intentions using the pages and content we’ve defined.

4. Interaction and Interface Design

With this foundation we move forward into interaction and interface design. For us this means looking at our content map to see which pages needed to be created, looking at our content architecture to figure out what goes on each page, looking at our user flows to understand the interplay between pages, and then constructing an interaction model which serves as the template for our interface design.

We’ll then use the customer intentions list to fact check the resulting outputs. This ensures the design and development deliverables line up with the strategy we’ve defined.

5. Content

Lastly, we’re sure to keep intentions in mind when reviewing the content of the site. This means we work to check that the messaging, tone, and voice all communicate what the customer need in order to understand the unique business value, formulate their intentions, and use the website to satisfy those intentions.

In Conclusion

By now you’ve gotten a few ideas of how you can utilize the customer intentions you’ve defined to help your customers more easily meet their goals. As we’ve said time and again, working through this practice is key to increasing customer loyalty and your business’s bottom line.

Something we haven’t yet discussed is how designing for customer intentions is also key to aligning your site with how the web has shifted, and will continue to shift, the ways we humans take in information.

More on this point in our discussions to come.

Values First

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Rope coil
Photo by Matt Haggerty on Unsplash

Before I talk any more about defining and designing for customer intentions, you must know none of this talk matters if you’re not ready for your business’s website to clearly communicate your unique business values with every word, image, interaction, and feature it contains. This may seem obvious, but I assure you it is not common practice.

In fact, the behavior I more often see is businesses replicating parts of other businesses’ websites. They try to mimic other websites’ structures, interactions, and features, assuming that by doing so they will see similar business success. What they don’t see is by replicating these items, they choose to use their website to communicate the values of other businesses, as opposed to their own.

Why do businesses choose this path? I tend to go with the evolution angle to validate the reasoning. One of the scariest things in the world for us humans is to find ourselves alone. Being alone makes us vulnerable and being vulnerable opens us up to defeat. This is why we tend to band together with others, or why we follow the lead of other more successful people. Doing so seems a better assurance of our own survival and of making sure we stay alive long enough to prosper.

The same can be said for businesses. After-all, they are made up of humans. I think this fear of vulnerability and being exposed is probably why many tend to mirror certain facets of other more successful or well-known businesses. They believe by doing so, they are more likely to find their own business success, and nowhere does this seem more easy that on the web.

There are countless examples of a business taking endless hours to prepare their offline brand, product, or service offerings to be unique and provide competitive advantage, but when it comes time to put their offerings online, competitive advantage goes out the window. Instead of trying to design their website specifically for their offerings and their values, they say things like “I want the homepage to be like .”

Many times, these statements can be helpful in directing the tone of the site. However, when businesses simply copy the features of other websites thinking this will equate to their own online success, they are missing the point.

Your website is not just a place where people can find information about your business or where they can buy your products and services. Your website is the online version of your business. Therefore, it needs to reflect your unique business values in every way possible. This includes words and pictures, yes, but it also includes the way your menus work or the way you organize all the information. Each and every decision you make needs to be a reflection of your unique business values and needs, and sometimes this means making decisions which go against what all the other other more successful or businesses are doing online.

Making these decisions is where the fear comes in.

Due to the large number of business websites out there who are copying each other, it can be pretty intimidating to choose to go against the grain. We’re humans, right? We believe there is strength in numbers. We believe more numbers ensure our survival.

The fact is there is only one business like yours, and your business values alone are why people do, and keep doing, business with you. Defining customer intentions is for not, if people don’t know who you are, and there is no way for them to know who you are, if you are defining your online presence by copying other businesses.

The mantra of “A lot of other companies designed their website this way, so it must be the best way” won’t stand, especially not in this brave new world. Why? Because the companies whose websites are successful, the ones that all the other businesses are copying, aren’t being anyone else online but themselves. They don’t care how anyone else is doing it. They do it their way.

By you treating your business website as a reflection of your business’s unique values, and displaying those values in all that your website does and says, your customers can know your business and what it stands for within seconds of visiting.

It’s only after they know this, that they’ll be able to set intentions that you can design to exceed.

Defining Customer Intentions

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“Let your intentions create your methods, and not the other way around.” ~ Peter McWilliams

Now that you’ve been introduced to the idea of updating your website by Designing for Intention, you may be wondering what exactly is meant by the term “Customer Intention.” Further, you may be curious as to how you can get started bringing this type of thinking, and this methodology, into your business. One way to get the ball rolling is to start defining customer intentions for your website.

Before we talk about defining customer intentions, allow me to explain what I mean by the term “Customer Intention”. A Customer Intention is simply: a task a customer aims to complete when coming to a website. It may seem self-explanatory. In fact, it is. However, as you’ll see later on, the term can very often be misunderstood.

When going on to define customer intentions for your website, there is no way around it, you have to start by talking to your most loyal customers. This is truly the key to determining not only customer intentions, but many other facets of customer loyalty.

In regards to intentions, the key information from these conversations you’ll unearth include an understanding of how and when customers interact with your business (i.e. their touch points), and, more importantly, why they interact with each of these touch points. (For example, maybe you find out customers go online to gather research about your products, but they buy brick and mortar because of the customer service.)

After the conversations have concluded, you’ll need to gather and list out all of the website specific Whens, Hows and Whys. Once you’ve listed them, you’ll summarize the list into clear, mutually exclusive, bullet points which each finish the sentence “When a customer goes to the website they intend to…”.

It’s a simple list really. Here is an example we recently created for an e-commerce team redesigning their Dotcom site.

Customer Intentions for the Website

When a customer goes to website they intend to…

  1. Buy an item
  2. Stay up to date
  3. Understand what makes
  4. Understand what does
  5. Find a retailer
  6. Investigate / research a better solution
  7. Return a product
  8. Get questions answered

The list seems pretty straightforward, right? Of course this is what customers go to an e-commerce site for. But, be warned! Getting to the list above isn’t as easy as it may seem. Below is an example of what the list probably looked like before the team checked it against findings from conversations they had with loyal customers:

Customer Intentions for the Website — What Could Have Been

When a customer goes to website they intend to…

  1. Buy an item
  2. Sign up for the Newsletter
  3. Visit the Blog
  4. Update Account Information
  5. Find a retailer
  6. Investigate / research a better solution
  7. Return a product
  8. Get questions answered

Notice something different? Check out the bold items in the second list. Notice how subjective and feature specific they are.

It is highly likely you are going to try to put items like “Sign Up for the Newsletter” on your list. This is normal as often times business owners try to squeeze in feature specific items which represent the parts of the website they wish people were coming online to access, instead of being honest about why customers are really going to their site.

This is why it’s important to talk to your most loyal customers. There’s no disputing actually hearing these intentions first hand. Without this insight, your list will undoubtedly lean towards satisfying business goals, which means your website will be designed for business intention rather than customer intention. This means the odds of your website fostering customer loyalty go way, way down.

Knowing this, your final step is to review and edit your list with an eye toward, and an urge for, actual customer insights and extreme honesty. Your goal should be to keep your list of intentions as objective and non-feature specific as possible. How do you know you’ve done it right?

Ultimately, if your list of customer intentions reflects what you heard in your research, and, makes you a little (or a lot) uncomfortable, you know you’ve defined it well.

Once you have created an honest list of Customer Intentions, you’ve started the process of making your website a place that can assist in cultivating customer loyalty, instead of a place where you inundate customers with information you hope they pay attention to.

What’s next after you have the list defined? You can begin to design a user experience that meets, and hopefully exceeds, Customer Intentions, of course. And, you can be sure there is more information on doing so to come.

Designing for Intention

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In today’s business world having a website is practically equivalent to being in business. There is no question in regards to IF your business should have a website. There is, however, still very much a question in regards to how best to structure and position that website and the information it contains for maximum business and customer benefit.

As an Information Architect, it is my job to help businesses understand purpose. More importantly, it is my job to help others understand how to structure specific information on their websites (and apps, and anything else that has information that needs to be communicated) to meet that purpose.

Recently, we have developed some interesting viewpoints in this endeavor. Before I share those with you, it is important to understand what I mean by the term “structuring a website.” It is also important to understand a bit more about how and why websites are structured today.

Back when the web was first born, there was no rhyme or reason to what information was strewed across it. As more and more information was put on the web (NOTE: By the word “information” I mean content, videos, images… anything.), it became harder for people to find their way around. People not finding their way around meant that they weren’t able to connect with businesses in the ways they needed to become customers, let alone loyal customers. This not only frustrated users, but it was also not so good for business.

This issue birthed the field of Information Architecture. Started in large part by those who studied and worked in Library Sciences, Information Architecture was created in order to help organize all the information that was floating about on the Internet. Since then, Information Architects have been helping businesses figure out which information needs to go where on their websites. They have also been helping to organize and structure said information into nice, neat taxonomies. These taxonomies work to catalog each piece of a company’s information so it can easily be found on the web.

You may have worked with one of these people before, and evidence of their hard work is everywhere. One of the most popular examples, as of late, is the mega menu. Here are some screenshots of the mega menu in use:

Patagonia’s mega menu
Patagonia’s mega menu.

Amazon's mega menu
Amazon’s mega menu.

These menus are organized to give each piece of a company’s information a “home” in the hopes that customers will seek out and find what they need.

There’s just one problem with these sites, and most other sites regardless if they have a mega menu.

Expedia.com menu
Expedia is an example of a site without a mega menu, but with a large amount of menu items still showing.

These structures don’t allow the sites to be optimized for their necessary purpose. Instead of helping customers to meet their goals, the structure of the website is actually creating more noise for customers to sift through, which is bad for the bottom line because customers aren’t able to find the information they need in order to complete the transaction.

This brings us back to the customer’s intention.

Focusing on customer intention starts with considering what customers intend to accomplish interacting with a website. Instead of doing things the old way, i.e. designing a site by starting with all the information a company wants to put on their website and organizing a structure around it, we first think about the customer’s intent.

With these intentions in mind, we can then sort through all of the information the company has that can fulfill those intentions. This is ultimately the totality of the information that will live on the website. Being sure to leave out any extraneous company information that simply adds noise to the equation. Because, after-all, the last thing a customer needs in today’s world is MORE information thrown at them.

Structuring for intention is one of the very first steps needed in order to aim your website toward cultivating customer loyalty. The above looks to provide the basic outline of a much grander idea. There is a lot more to the process to share, and you can be sure that I will be doing so soon.

But for now, it’s important for us all to realize that the old way of thinking about what information goes on our websites and how that information is organized no longer works. Yes indeed, it’s time for a change.

How to Love What We Do… Again

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There’s something troubling that I’ve noticed happening with many people (not all, maybe not even you) in our industry over the past few years. It’s something that I want to bring to light in hopes that A. I can be enlightened to the necessity or trivialness of this thing, or B. I can help others to enlighten themselves and stop the thing’s progress. So what is the thing? Simply… that we are stuck in our ways, and if we don’t start moving, our industry will never change. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Newton didn’t lie…

Portrait of Sir Isaac Newtorn
Godfrey Kneller’s 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton (age 46). ~via Wikipedia

Our World, Today

The current state of where we are is not really a revelation to many of us. We are working doing design or architecture or web “stuff”. Some of us call what we do UX. Some of us claim UX doesn’t exist. Some of us wireframe. Some of us claim we don’t. None of this will be addressed in this piece, for this is what it is, and the arguments will rage on. Instead, I want to point out the bigger issue that I have seen. That is that many of us, no matter what side of the fence we are on in these arguments, HATE where our industry is. We hate our clients (“Two weeks for a complete overhaul of documentation that took us months to put together. #ClientsGottaLoveEm”). We hate our co-workers (“When can you get the UX wireframes done for this project? #UXIsntWireframes”). We hate our careers (“Hired as a UX Strategist, but they just asked me to make a screen ‘better’. #WhatsThePoint”). In short, we hate our state of being, and this causes us so many problems.

What’s the big deal?

First off, in many ways, we aren’t progressing as an industry. What does that mean? It means we spend so much time focusing on the negatives of doing what we do, that we don’t save brain space to focus on how to change the negatives into positives, and, therefore, change ain’t coming.

Secondly, all this negative energy actually zaps our ability to see that WE ARE THE TALENT THAT EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS TO SUCCEED. Obviously, we can’t do it alone, but come on guys, this is our TIME! Everyone wants to be the next Apple. Everyone talks about how facilitating great user experiences will make the business more successful. WE really are in control. But we have beaten the idea of our profession down so much that we believe that we can’t change our environments. We talk to our clients in words that mean nothing to them, and wonder why they don’t “get it”. We take jobs because they show us a glimpse of hope at being the real deal, instead of asking the hard questions that prove we’ll be doing the work we want, and turning down the gig if it’s not the work we want. We blame our lives, our clients, our coworkers, our cities, our companies for holding us back. And, we do this, simply because, we don’t have the energy and courage needed to do something about it.

Sign that reads "take courage"
Take Courage ~ via Nathan William on Flickr

Third, and perhaps worst of all, we isolate ourselves from other disciplines and industries. This is the gravest problem of all because it means we don’t educate ourselves about what information or context these other disciplines and industries need to really understand where we can be of use. We don’t learn about business (yuck, suits), and then wonder why we get screwed in negotiations. We don’t learn about company process, then wonder why our ideas are labeled as being outside of the process. I can go on.

Four, this all means we perpetuate our cycle (wait did I go back to number one again? That’s meta.) The crappy jobs keep getting resourced with talent (us) that is too good for the jobs. The crappy companies keep getting resources (us) that are too talented and smart to work with people that don’t want to hear how we can help. Then we blame the company, the clients, the co workers for the crappy jobs existing… and the cycle persists. We continue to hate the work that we are supposed to love, and live in misery complaining to each other how bad we have it.

Hope Exists

But fear not dear reader, there is hope! And to inspire this hope we turn to none other than Sir Isaac Newton (you may have heard of him). As many of us may remember, Newton was a famous physicist who is known for proving three laws of motion. For our troubles to be cleared, I’d like for us to remember Newton’s first law of motion:

An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Put more simply. Things won’t change unless you act, unless you exert some kind of force. Try this… an object at rest (let’s say the environment we work in, our industry, your clients or your co-workers) will remain as it is unless acted on by an outside/unbalanced force. Here’s the secret… you have to be the force in order for your luck to change.

Now, you may be thinking, “But, wait, what if I don’t WANT to change.” Or “But I have to take these crappy jobs I have a family to support.” Or “I’m not you, Lis, I don’t have the people skills to do it.” Or whatever other argument you can think of. But, I’m here to tell you that all of these are invalid, yes even the family one. Why? Because the definition of the force is flexible. Doing any one of these things can change the environment:

  • Ask more questions during interviews to discern if the job meets your goals. Things like “How often do you do usability testing and why?”, “What does user centered design mean here and how is it implemented?”, “Does, and how does, my role help bring a user centered focus to the company?” will help you know if they are for real.
  • Network more with people like you to let people know that you are an awesome person. Go to industry and non-industry events that spark your interest. Talk to people about what it is you want to be doing with your knowledge and skills even if you aren’t doing them “for real” at your current job.
  • Choose to interview or work for companies whose mission you believe in, and whom believe in a user centered mission. If those companies aren’t in your area, at least start to follow companies whose mission you believe in and try to meet others who work at them when at the next conference or event. Ask these other employees, designer or not, how they got the gig, or get advice on how to manifest your career in the same way.
  • Choose co-workers who are awesome like you. Obviously we can’t choose who we work with, but we can choose who we cooperate with and provide favors or extra help to, etc. Prop up those co-workers that you see as awesome.
  • Choose to believe you have a choice in your career, because we are all free beings, and we always have a choice.
  • Insert any other type of force here.

Further, if you are thinking about how you have already exerted force and created change, but it hasn’t worked… then I would argue that you need to exert a different type of force in order to manifest change in a different way. I’m by no means assuming that none of us are acting, but instead hoping to give you ideas on how to exert force, or act, if you currently are not exerting force, and if you are exerting force and it’s not working, giving you ideas on how to exert force differently.

The main point I want to make is, it’s not all about completely throwing away every part of your career and starting fresh. Instead, it’s simply about using whatever amount of force you can use to affect change in your environment. Even a little force will create some change (it’s a law of physics, remember?!). Of course, Newton’s second law says that the greater the force the greater the change, and that is to be expected. But, the happy news is, the laws of the universe tell us that as long as we are exerting a force, no matter how small, there will be a change in return. Anyone can assess the level of force they are able to exert and then start manifesting change, no matter what your situation is. Newton said so!

It Keeps Getting Better

And, guess what? The more we see the change, the more energy and ideas we’ll have to exert more and better force. It’s a cycle that gets better and better. Then the more force we exert, the more change will come. We’ll venture out and learn more about other disciplines and industries and become better integrated into cultures we like. We’ll stop with the cycle of taking crappy work, complaining about that work, leaving that work only to find more crappy work. We’ll instead force better jobs, ones where we can actually use our talents, to be created. We’ll force jobs that have a better understanding of the help we can provide, thereby using our talents to the fullest. Best of all, with all of us exerting force, our industry gets better. We don’t do it alone! By all of us exerting even a little, itty-bitty bit of force, we are all, in culmination, exerting a lot of force. And, that means, we’ll all see a lot of change and reap a lot of benefits. It means we can finally help in the ways we’ve always known we can.

In the end, it really is about taking responsibility of our fate, and then taking action to change that fate if we are unhappy with where the object is at rest. It really is just about not being the object at rest, if we don’t want to be, but instead being the force that moves that object in the right direction. And once the object is moving, it can’t be stopped… unless, of course, another force is exerted on it :-).

There and Back Again, An IA’s Tale

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This summer has, so far, proven to be a very busy one (music to an Independent’s ears!). I had the opportunity this June, to travel to 3 different cities, present 3 different talks, and, in the process, I got to meet, interact with, and learn from many different people.

My first trip was to San Francisco for the UX Strategies Summit. There, partner in crime Donna Lichaw and I, unleashed our Adaptable Product Roadmaps workshop. Although the workshop is one that we prefer to give as a full day, we were able to successfully present our points and exercises to an eager group in a 3 hour format. The workshop is one that we use to help both clients and practitioners alike, to figure out new products, features, updates to old products, etc, in a prioritized, organized, and engaging way.

My next stop was in Chicago for ConFab for Nonprofits. There, Donna and I teamed up again, but this time to present our Storymapping: A MacGyver Approach to Content Strategy talk. This is also something we usually present as either a full day, or a few day workshop, but at this event we presented an overview of our method, how it works, outputs from a real-life case study, and then, of course, fielded some great questions. This talk also seemed to be a big hit with the group, and we learned alot from all the feedback.

Chicago
View from my hotel room in Chicago.

Lastly, I headed over to Las Vegas for Future Insights Live!, where I debuted my Why I’m Sick of Calling Myself a UX Designer talk. I was extremely excited and nervous for this one. Luckily, I got the intended response from the crowd. That being, an ongoing conversation about the validity of our job titles, and how the topic as a whole effects this industry. I look forward to, hopefully, sharing this talk with many more groups in the future.

Wordwall at Future Insights Live!
One of my quotes on the word wall @FILive

So, if you’ve been wondering where I have been for the past month or so, wonder no more. Apologies for not keeping up the writing, but there will be more to come later on this Summer and Fall. What am I going to do in the meantime? Well, I finally realized just how exhausting all this travel stuff is. So, besides working on some awesome projects that I hope to write more about in the near future, I’ll be looking to catch up on some sleep. I do hope that you all get to do the same!

And, lastly, here are some slides for your viewing pleasure. Thoughts are, of course, always welcome.

UX Designer Just Doesn’t Make Sense… Or Does It?

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As I pour through my spreadsheet of blog ideas, I keep happening upon (probably not by accident) ideas that I have had over the years around the term UX Designer and, more specifically, whether or not the term makes sense (I.e. means something). Now, I realize that the title UX Designer DOES in fact “mean something” to many people. I think what has sparked this flow of ideas for me, however, is that the title means so many different things to so many different people. This space between the meanings is where I’m finding both internal and external conflict around the title’s purpose. Today, I want to dive into this even further, and, hopefully, get your thoughts and feedback as well (Yes, I’m adding another log to this fire. So, all you old school UXers can stop rolling your eyes now.).

Tina Fey rolling her eyes
I know many of you are doing this right now.

This topic is nothing new. Most of the known digital technology industry walks around having a firm belief in the validity of the term UX Designer. Many people think things like “User Experience is, of course, the most important part of the product AND you need to have a UX Designer to have a ‘good UX’”. Or, other people think things like “UX Designers. Those are the people that make sure the product’s UX (but really they mean interface) is great!”. Or, they may think “UX Designers. Those are the people that are glorified visual designers.”. Whatever anyone thinks, it’s obvious that the title UX Designer is something that exists in a myriad of ways. In the digital design community, many times it’s a lauded profession; one that you acquire after knowing everything there is to know about “the UX” including interaction design, information architecture, visual design, and more. For this last point I can admit that I have also thought that UX Designer was a lauded profession. I bought into this concept… hell, I built a business around this concept! But today, I wonder, is the title UX Designer really all I, and many others (those that think it’s the *ish title), have made it out to be?

Why Lis, Why?

Why am I even pondering beating this dead horse? Well, as I was pouring through said blog idea spreadsheet, I found an idea I had back in early 2013. Seems I was scouring the web (read wasting time) and I found this quote, and I realized I needed to get this thought out of my head.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.
Today’s Thought ~ Simply Stated March, 2013

Although this quote was not targeted at the field of UX Design, it still stopped me in my tracks and caused me to reflect on the profession. Why? Because it brought to the surface, again (at least for me), the question of whether or not an experience can be designed. Of course, this quote that I found is not based on scientific or academic research (although if you have some to share I’d love to see it!), but the meaning of it felt true to me. So I’m going to move forward in this post assuming it is true (this, dear reader, is what is called fair warning).

The Debate

The debate on whether or not an experience can be designed has been raging on since, what feels like, the beginning of the field. The following are just a few of the many pieces out there on the topic:

Can Experience Be Designed – IA.net
Yes, Experience Can Be Designed – UXmag.com
“Can experience be designed?” Yes. No. Wait, yes. But. – adaptivepath.com

The way that I see it, is that each side is looking at the User’s Experience as one of two things. Those that agree with the idea that an experience can be designed often conceive the user experience as an input into a product or service. It is something that happens before the product or service is created and a user uses it, i.e. something they “do” to make a product or service better – “I do UX!”. On the other hand, those that say that experience can’t be designed, but can be designed for, see that the user experience as an output of the product and service, i.e. something that happens because of using a product or service – “How can you do something that happens later?”.

The Realization

I’ve somehow found myself a part of this debate, and, have recently realized that I firmly agree with the latter, UX is an output NOT an input. Meaning I believe that the user’s experience exists when a user uses a product or service; i.e when they undergo it. I don’t think it can be argued that, to an extent, we can predict when a user will have a better experience if everything and everyone shown here has been accounted for in the creation of that product or service the user is using. However, I no longer believe that User Experience is something we inject into the creation of said product or service.

Given this new realization, I asked myself: If UX is an output and not an input… can the title UX Designer make sense? Can there be someone whose job it is to design the user’s experience IF the user’s experience it not something that goes into the product or service, but something that comes out of it.

I would argue that No, this title does not make sense (I.e. mean something) given this point. And, to be honest with you, I don’t have much more to say on what my new viewpoint means (so I suppose my good friend Donna Lichaw might say that this piece is a cliffhanger).

And Now It’s Your Turn

Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the battle that never ends. Do you think the UX is an input or an output? Given your opinion does the title UX Designer still make sense to you and why?

Whew ok folks there you have it. Another piece of wood added to this fire. Let the flames rage on!

What to hear more about this topic? Check out my Why I’m Sick of Calling Myself a UX Designer talk this June at Future Insights Live! in Las Vegas. Get 15% off with promo code: FILSPEAK15. Hope to see you there!

I'm speaking at future insights live

IA Is the New (Old) UX

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I keep a list of ideas, buried deep in Google Drive, of blog posts that I mean to write. This is a great way to ensure that I never lose a spark of inspiration. However, this list only works if one takes the time to go back and look at it (which I rarely ever do). But, today I did take the time to go back to that list and I found an idea from almost two years ago that happened to catch my eye. And, even though I have written about this topic before, it has been etched into my brain so deeply, that I decided to write about it again today. What is that idea? That Information Architecture is, and always has been, about creating for the user’s experience.

3 circles of information architecture
The Three Circles of Information Architecture can also relate to User Experience Design – Semantic Studios 2004

This idea may not be new to many of you (I hope). UX has been the new IA for some time now, and all of us who started out by calling what we did Information Architecture knew that it involved the user’s experience. Problem was, at least for me, we just didn’t know how to describe it very well, or did we?

Is it IA, or is it UX?

Like what happens to most everyone, when I meet new people they often ask me what I do. For a long time I told them I practiced Information Architecture. Then, as the UX tide came in, I started to surf as a User Experience practitioner. But, more and more I have found myself back riding the Information Architecture wave. I tell you this not to show you what a flake I am, but to show that it’s obvious, and has been obvious, that something was missing in IA before, that enabled one to confidently say “I do Information Architecture which means I model user experiences.”.

And so, two years ago, I think I found that missing statement. I logged it in the back of my mind, as well as in my ideas for blog posts to write, and it has been festering ever since. And, although what I’m sharing with you today about Information Architecture is not all together new, I did want to share the link with you, to hopefully implant the idea of what Information Architecture is in your brains so that it festers and grows.

Idea growing

The Article

Ok then, enough suspense! The article I read two years ago was called A. Ames & A. Riley on info experience models at STC12 from Kai’s Tech Writing Blog. In this post, Kai gives a recap of Andrea Ames and Alyson Riley’s presentation entitled Modeling Information Experiences: A Recipe for Consistent Information Architecture.

Of course, all of the material is interesting, but the line that stuck out to me, and that began my road back to IA was this:

“Information architecture relates to science as its models draw on insights and theories of cognition. And its models relate to art as they aim to create a meaningful experience.”

The Reckoning

Whoa. There it was, again, in black and white. Information Architecture models aim to create a meaningful experience. Duh! How could I have forgotten this in my aim to describe what I did while saying I practiced Information Architecture? You see, those practicing Information Architecture create models which aim to create a meaningful experience for the users of those models. Brilliant!

Thus, all those years ago, when User Experience came on the scene and sounded so much easier to describe than Information Architecture, I abandoned my IA post for the promised land of UX. However, I realize that the words I was looking for to describe my value were right in front of me all along.

I share these thoughts with you today, dear reader, in the hopes that you begin to understand this:

The User Experience is not an input or a discipline, but is, instead, the result of modeling information in such a way that creates meaning in an experience.

AND, That modeling of information… that’s the job of someone who is practicing Information Architecture.

Polar Bear
from http://salehudinsaid.wordpress.com/ 2012

What to hear more about this topic? Check out my Why I’m Sick of Calling Myself a UX Designer talk this June at Future Insights Live! in Las Vegas. Get 15% off with promo code: FILSPEAK15. Hope to see you there!

I'm speaking at future insights live