Improving the focus on users at a large ScaleUp
Typical issues with understanding users
Many organisations have a loose idea of who their users are. User personas are a technique that allows you to model these groups of people. As user personas have become more popular, more organisations have produced them. Unfortunately, these are hard to do well. I have personally seen (and fixed) these persona anti-patterns:
Poorly or incorrectly segmented user groups
Not based on research
Contain a lot of superfluous information
Not integrated into the development process
Please see this blog post if you want to know more about personas.
This scenario
In this case, personas weren’t defined, and the teams typically designed for skilled users. By making this assumption, the software became very functionally rich but, in some cases, hard to use.
Working alongside a lead user researcher, we set about improving our understanding of the user base. I introduced a user persona template and taught segmentation techniques. The research team already had a good insight into the users, which meant the initial persona creation wasn’t too difficult. However, the researcher decided to validate these user groups. Following this exercise, a third persona emerged.
By understanding there were large differences in capability:
The number of process steps required to perform an action were reduced
Screens were redesigned for ease of use
Advanced information was available as an option for more skilled users
User personas were linked to strategy, meaning the target persona for functionality was clear
Want to learn more?
Does this problem resonate with you? Please feel free to get in touch.
