Usability, the Corporate Secret Weapon

Are you part of a large organization that has a web site that is owned by multiple business units? If so, then I share your pain. I know from my years of experience at Fortune 100 companies that often corporate websites are “owned” by various business units. Each business unit owner has his or her own agenda for their section of the corporate web site.

Corporate Web Committees: Lots of Talk

It can be very difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible, to get everyone who owns a segment of a corporate web site to agree to wholistic improvements or changes to the web site, often because different business owners have different needs which may or may not be “helped” by the suggested changes. Committees that produce lots of talk but little action, endless meetings and countless emails seem to be the norm, with actual web site changes and improvements (work) being rather rare. And when the work is done, it is usually a fairly large endeavor requiring undue amounts of time and energy from both IT and business resources. Sound familiar? Yes, I feel your pain!

Conflicting Business Needs:

Many times, there are differing opinions about what improvements should be made, where and when. Conflicting points of view caused by conflicting business needs is one of the most common reasons it is difficult to gain consensus. Sometimes however there often additional compounded differences in opinion, caused by differences in basic understanding of whom “typical” users are, and what needs these users have. A further complication is not all business owners actually have expertise or even a basic education on the principles of good web or web-based application design. The good news is there is help for you, dear corporate reader, and it comes from (drum roll), usability!

Usability, a Neutral Point of View:

What many in the corporate world don’t realize is they have a secret weapon available to them, a weapon that cuts through the conflicting points of view held by various business units, and focuses the discussion on Users, not Business needs. By creating simple usability tests that record users as they try to complete basic tasks on your web site, you can bypass the endless business-needs discussion, and focus your owners instead on the needs of the user.

Usability Video, Worth a Million Words:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video of users failing to perform tasks on your web site is probably worth a million words. I’ve found that a short video with three users struggling on the corporate web site is the single most powerful way to eliminate most “I know my users, and they would NEVER (or ALWAYS) do such and such” comments from business owners who profess they know beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly what their users need and how they operate. It’s amazing how showing typical users failing on a corporate web site to executives will stimulate action. Politically, you have to be careful when, how and to whom you show the video, but assuming you know the layout of the political minefield that is your corporate organization you will at least have the ammo you need with which to stimulate action, and taking action to improve things is after all the purpose of usability.

Three Steps to Making a Usability Video:

There are three simple steps that you need to do in order to get your usability video. First, you must focus your attention on what to record to get ACTION to occur. Second, you must record and edit your video to demonstrate “typical” users conducting “typical” actions. Third, you must package your video with “suggested” next steps to address the situation.

Step 1 – Focus Your Video to Get Action:

Remember that what you are after is a stimulus to action, so by making that your goal it will become easier for you to decide what to focus on when deciding what typical tasks of your web site should be studied and recorded. Don’t try to do too much, just concentrate on what you need to show in order to get your business owners to move. DO make sure you’ve identified your “typical” users, and DO have supportive evidence ready just in case you are challenged by business owners who may claim, “well, your video is all well and good but those are not MY users!” You must be able to validate that you do know the users, and that you found “typical” users with which to create the video. Sidebar: Need help finding users with which to make your video? Just read my blog article, Free Usability Testing Participants to learn how you can most likely find usability participants that match your Personas among your very own friends and family.

Step 2 – Record & Edit Your Usability Session:

I happen to love and use Techsmith’s Morae usability testing software, but if you don’t have it don’t let that stop you. Simply set up a video camera (yes, you can even use your own, or one of your family member’s video cameras) to record the user as he or she tries to complete the typical tasks on your web site. Most computers today come with basic video editing software that will allow you to review and edit your video, to demonstrate what a typical user goes through to try to complete a task on your web site. Your video should NOT be too long, and by that I mean anything over 5 minutes. If your video is much longer than that, you are probably not focusing on the core Action items for your site and perhaps are trying to include too much. And don’t forget the Power of Three, show three users going through a task, and show them failing at the key points in which you believe usability improvements should be made. Remember, the point of this video is to get ACTION from your business owners, not to find and address ALL of the usability issues that need to be addressed on your web site.

Step 3 – Package your Usability Video:

This video has but one goal; to stimulate your enterprise to take ACTION. Therefore, be sure to package your video in such a way that you emphasize two things. First, users are having difficulty and you have videos that explain what the difficulty is and where the difficulty is occuring on the web site. Second, that you have some suggestions for how to improve the situation. Your video will only stimulate action if you provide your audience with next steps for how to address the situation that you’ve found. What you do not want is more discussion. Therefore, your video must be packaged with easy to understand, and simple action items that can be presented to your executives and web site business owners. If you only present the problems, you will only increase the number of discussions. Your point with this video is to gain action by cutting through the discussions and making clear for all to see exactly what the problem is, and what can be done to solve it.

Usability Videos, Your Secret Weapon:

So there you go. My tip for this week is to use the power of a usability video to cut through the endless corporate discussions to get action by showing real users, going through real struggles, in trying to complete tasks on your corporate web site. A video of your users will do two amazing things for you; first, it will focus your various business owners and executives on the issue at hand, and second; it will cut through most if not all of the discussions and provide clear evidence of what the problem is, and what the solutions are.

Good luck with your video, and if you like drop me a line and share me a link to your video, I’d love to see how you do with cutting the discussion and getting things done with your very own usability video.

Similar Posts:

• Usability and Passive Aggressive Clients
• Usability Testing Overview
• Usability Testing Makes Killer Online Marketing Campaigns
• eRetail & Usability: THE Perfect Definition
• The 5 Models of Corporate User Experience Culture