Don't make this mistake at work
Why you should talk about what you are going to do, not just what you have done.
Organisations shouldn’t just create and build things, and then focus on how to best communicate those things to prospective users.
In addition to that, they should also embrace the opportunity to communicate about things they are going to do, before they even do them.
Before, not after products, services, infrastructures, technologies, policies and programmes have been created, designed and even planned.
It’s a fascinating idea: and one that isn’t as obvious as it sounds.
Because most organisations almost never talk about what they are going to do.
Certainly not externally, to actual end users. They come up with ideas, internally plan new projects, and discuss how to optimally execute these plans. Then they launch, unveil or begin whatever they are working on. And then start to communicate about it.
But they rarely engage in an active dialogue with their users about what they hope to do. And whether their plans are the right ones. Or any good. Or even what their users, customers, clients and collaborators actually want.
And that’s a mistake, because talking to the consumers of your prospective new service, product, policy or other can reap huge benefits.
Allow your audience to not only become the users and end beneficiaries of your work, but also the architects of your work.
By communicating early, you learn what people actually want from you and what you are working hard to make. You will then build something that is far more usable.
That means if you work in the public sector, you will build public services that do what they are supposed to: better serve the public. Private companies will sell more products, or be able to charge more for services. Staff will better meet performance targets. Corporate reputations will be enhanced.
New research just published reveals how important it can be to engage in dialogue early, and allow your audience to not only become the users and end beneficiaries of your work, but also allow your audience to become the architects of your work.
Researcher Alexander Wilson of the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape at Newcastle University in the UK and colleagues were engaged as part of Metro Futures, an initiative to upgrade a public transport system serving northeast England, specifically the Tyne and Wear Metro light railway system.
They wanted to find out what users of the Metro actually wanted from their trains, so they could create a proposal for how the aging train fleet should be replaced. That involved trying to engage with as many of the 2.7 million residents as possible.
They did so using a series of real-world meetings, including workshops and pop-up labs to talk to passers-by, school activities and digital tools including social media polls, live video webinars, online workshops and creating virtual 3D visualisations of the new Metro trains.
But less important than the methodology, is the approach they took engaging with Metro users, and when they did so.
Rather than ask their audience to all contribute equally, they allowed people to scale their involvement depending on their level of interest, amount of time, and opinions of the new train.
They recruited co-researchers to help them gain an understanding of the diverse perspectives they gathered, including several disabled participants, including three with visual impairments, and one with a hearing impairment. The majority of the audience initially speaking up were men, so the researchers specifically sought the views of women and children.
They also encouraged people to contribute creatively to the discussion. For example, to draw the trains they wanted, to design the Metro’s layout, even add other passengers, wheelchair users, luggage, pushchairs and bicycles etc.
The result was impressive. By communicating ahead of the project, they discovered many things that would later inform the design of the new transport system.
Enabling people to communicate their complex experiences in novel ways helped generate a series of pragmatic design proposals, while raising new issues and sometimes unforeseen concerns.
For example, people engaging with wheelchair areas on trains through the physical mock-up discovered that handrails were poorly sited, and that the location of the passenger information screen directly above them was not visible.
Participants reported having to regularly ask people standing in the wheelchair areas to vacate the space, and highlighted how while this is a rare experience for many passengers, it was an everyday experience for them. They suggested that, to discourage this, perch seats in the wheelchair space should be removed.
People expressed how they can feel unsafe on transport systems due to antisocial behaviour, and they were then encouraged to explore how design decisions might influence similar positive and negative experiences that are part of everyday life.
This deep engagement raised many other issues; such as the layout of the trains’ interiors and seating plans.
Crucially, it also allowed the audience to consider other people’s experiences and to better appreciate some of the decisions and trade-offs that would need to be taken, making them better understand and appreciate how the final Metro system would be formulated.
The researchers conclude that understanding people’s experiences in greater depth ahead of the project’s implementation allowed them “to not only understand the issues people were raising but also to solicit their suggestions for how these might be overcome.”
Their approach is applicable way beyond building new transport systems.
As the researchers say in their paper published last month, the way that people talk about how they live in places, their feelings and aspirations, are often very different to the way places are governed - which is dominated by technical, abstract conversations, where professionals creating spaces often seek to measure plans and outcomes.
Predictably, it’s easy to see how these two groups, the people that live in spaces, and the people that plan, create and service these spaces, will struggle to have a meaningful dialogue. And any dialogue is rendered almost completely useless if people are asked about how they feel living in a certain place or space, long after all the important decisions have already been taken about how that place should be created and run.
Notice too how the researchers engaged on an emotional level with their audience - seeking out their feelings and aspirations as much as gleaning factual information from them. Crucially, as well as talking to people about the prospective transport system, they also listened to what those people had to say, and what they felt.
It’s a message we repeatedly reinforce, because engaging on an emotional and personal level is so important to effective communications, and because it’s one area of communications that organisations, corporations and companies are particularly bad at, or don’t even realise is required.
Most important perhaps, is to reflect on when the researchers began communicating with their audience.
It’s true that many companies attempt to communicate with their users about their products and services, including organising focus groups, public consultations and various other forms of audience and market research.
But these are often cursory communication efforts; isolated attempts to conduct a survey, ask for a form to be completed or have a brief conversation to gauge opinions. Rarely are they attempts at forming deeper, ongoing dialogues with prospective users, soliciting critical and constructive comments on what they are planning to do.
UXD experts do this. Accessibility experts often do this. They know they need to talk to users and understand their behaviours and needs before designing any product. But most professionals in most professional contexts do not.
And most companies put more effort into creating a dialogue about a new product or service AFTER it has been launched, not before.
Think of the ubiquitous automated feedback form you are asked to complete by almost every company you have bought something from, which arrives almost immediately after you’ve made your purchase or paid your bill.
In theory, any feedback you give is listened to, and acted on. But that’s the theory.
Most often your response is simply collated with thousands of others, with senior managers scouring the data, if at all, for some insight, that may never be acted on.
And if it is, it’s usually too late - as they’ve already created, built and launched the very thing you’re discussing.
So when most organisations communicate with their audience, they do so at the wrong time.
The best time to talk to your users is before, not after, your work begins or is completed.
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