A transcript of S02E09 (319) of UX Podcast. James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom discuss articles about UX strategy design and focusing on delivering value rather than solving the right problem.

This transcript has been machine generated and checked by Harinie Gunasekera.

Transcript

Computer voice
Season Two, Episode Nine

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
You’re listening to UX Podcast coming to you from Stockholm, Sweden,

Per Axbom
Helping the UX community, explore ideas and share knowledge for over a decade.

James Royal-Lawson
We are your hosts, James Royal-Lawson.

Per Axbom
And Per Axbom.

James Royal-Lawson
We have listeners in countries and territories all over the world from China to Cameroon.

Per Axbom
And today, we have a link show. Two articles found on the internet. we unpack them, we talk about them, we discuss them, and try to figure out what how we feel about these topics. And the two articles today,are. The first one is

James Royal-Lawson
“Don’t, get stuck in discovery with insights no one asked for” by Martin Sandström.

Per Axbom
He’s a product and service designer based in the UK. He’s been doing this for a long time. And despite his very Swedish sounding name. Now I feel like. Yeah, we were saying Martin [Swedish pronunciation]. But maybe we should say Martin [British pronunciation] based on the Swedish.

James Royal-Lawson
He is, Swedish.

Per Axbom
Right, But everybody calls him Martin [British pronunciation]

James Royal-Lawson
He’s getting Martin [Swedish pronunciation]. [Laugh]

James Royal-Lawson
The second article today

Per Axbom
is “UX strategy – What is it” by Eddie Rich?

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, experienced strategist and designer with 20 years of experience building digital products.

Per Axbom
And also a long time friend of the show, we have to say.

James Royal-Lawson
yes, he’s been on the show. Whats that now, seven years ago, and we met him even longer ago than that.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
Article one.

Per Axbom
By Martin Sandström “Don’t get stuck in discovery, with insights no one asked for”. And I think there is a lot to talk about here. But let’s get to the gist of what Martin is saying. Essentially, as designers, we want to do good work. We want to do things the right way, we want to follow the design thinking process. We want to do the correct research. We actually do want to find out if we are solving the right problem. So when we get problems handed to us, we feel that we need to figure out well, is this the thing that we should be working on? Or should we be doing more research. And, in effect, we spend a lot of time doing more research. And what Martin is saying here is that sometimes we spend a bit too much time doing the research and trying to figure out if we’re solving the right problem, rather than helping the person who came to us in the first place, solve their problem in the best possible timeframe, from their perspective. So there’s like a communication issue. There’s a clash here.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, he’s also talking about the fact that you, that whole thing, where we get high hopes, as designers. You kind of, you’ve done the discovery, you found things and “oh, look at this, we’ve got to fix that”. And, sometimes those things that we discover, are big asks, they’re, you know, they’re going to be a lot of effort to get over the line, because they’re not, as he puts it, they’re not low hanging fruit. They’re not small tweaks and changes that you can get over the line quite easily. They’re big things. So he’s talking about being pragmatic in your discovery work and what you try to do.

Per Axbom
Exactly not doing too much. I have to read this quote, I love this paragraph. “So off, we go to run workshops, create hypotheses and research plans we create how might we statements and test prototypes, it’s messy and chaotic. And although the unknown scares the heck out of us, we feel so good about uncovering the untold truths about the industry, we’re helping. And this feels so good, because this is what we really want to spend time on”. But as he then goes on to say, “in the meantime, our business stakeholders are starting to get impatient”. And I think there’s so much here that I feel I identify with because I also always want to do the right thing. Whereas I can always become acutely aware that doing the right thing means that I will uncover issues that will never get fixed. Because there is a timeframe in most projects I work with. And there is a specific piece of a solution or product or service that I’m working with. But I will often uncover things that are beyond that, which is part of UX to go beyond what I’m currently working on to understand the context of that. But often times what’s been happening is that well, there’s so much information there’s so much research output that we’re are not getting, or solving the problems that we were asked to solve. Well, perhaps as quickly as we could.

James Royal-Lawson
But also you’ve got the situation where, you know, when you’ve been part of a discovery process, and you have discovered things, and you’ve become enlightened. Then, you know, you are, you’re ahead of the curve, you are at the front of the pack here now.

Per Axbom
Yes.

James Royal-Lawson
And an organisation, especially the larger ones then, you know, they’re an established system, they’re a thing. And it’s moving, it’s continuing, it’s doing stuff, it’s got strategies, it’s got plans, it’s got, you know, five year strategic goals, and so on, it’s got shareholders, stakeholders, it’s got all this stuff going on. And, and you’re there at the forefront of this discovery. And, you know, you’ve had the light bulb moment, and you’ve thought my word, we’d need to do something about this. But you can’t just slam on the brakes, you can’t, you know, you’re not going to be able to just rip everything else up and rebuild it and put the world to rights.

Per Axbom
Exactly,

James Royal-Lawson
You’re going to need to Oh, I suppose wait. That’s maybe not the right phrase. You’re going to have to, if you really think that discovery is important, then you’re gonna have to be in this for the long haul. And you’re gonna have to work on how do you get the organisation to move to where you are in your enlightened state of understanding.

Per Axbom
And then it comes down to communication. It comes down to helping others understand what you’re trying to achieve what you’re seeing. Because failing to do that, you will get the type of disillusionment that Martin talks about in the article where, where people, when you present your findings, they’re going like, well, we know that that’s a problem, we can’t really do anything about it, or there’s no budget to solve it this year, or whatever else excuse they may come up with, because they don’t truly there aren’t enlightened in the way that you’re that you’re saying, James. They haven’t seen it yet. But for me, that’s kind of a communication issue as well. But Martin is correct in that, well, maybe we won’t be able to solve this right now. But then I agree with you, James. If you’re you have to be in it for the long haul.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah,

Per Axbom
You have to talk about these things over time over a broader space of time.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, and Martin his idea here is that by respecting the project goals and where they’re coming from, and where you are in the project, and finding the smallest, most substantial insight that or the biggest impact on on the situation. Then he’s aiming to build trust, and grow reputation over time, which presumably will allow him in his organisation to make a bigger impact further forward.

Per Axbom
Exactly. Yes, so Exactly. So I agree with him as well. [Laugh]

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Per Axbom
There is, there’s something to be said for the fact that you, it’s a balance, as always, you need to figure out the balance, how much do I do with each part? And sometimes we’re trying to do too much, is essentially what he’s saying.

James Royal-Lawson
One thing I did think about, though, in reading through this Per is, is this dilemma, I guess, about. If you. Well, the situation you might be in, is that you are as a designer, in this team, this project, you’re enabling something to continue, that you’ve effectively discovered should stop. So you end up with, faced with the question, is making the wrong thing slightly less wrong? Is that as good as it gets, in this situation?

Per Axbom
I thought about that as well, it really becomes an ethics dilemma in the end, in that, should I quit this job, if I fail to see any purpose in it based on the fact that I think we should be doing other things? Or should I be spending time to help people see what I see? If that’s the right thing. I mean, you always have to be a bit open to the fact that you may be not seeing the right things, either. You’re always discovering new stuff. So there are many paths to dealing with something like this. And I completely agree with you, James, that in the end, if we’re constantly enabling the things that we don’t believe in, we’re not going to be happy at work and we will be contributing to something that we think is making things worse.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah. Yeah, no, there’s there’s a lot the that you said. There’s different routes you can follow and doing. Just getting on with your job is one path. Getting on with making small differences to hopefully make a bigger difference later is another path and then the revolutionist as in saying, No, we’ve got to stop, we’ve got to do something else. That’s the big one and you you might find yourself in that one anyway, definitely having to change job if you’ve, not getting anywhere at the speed that suits you and makes you feel good.

Per Axbom
Your right Yeah. And people, different people will choose different paths, because different people are in different contexts and have different experiences. So just, but the important thing then is, talk about it. Find someone to talk about these issues with, because if you don’t have someone, an ally, to be open to, so that you can talk about the things that are bothering you, then you will definitely struggle a lot. So I think just writing articles like this can help get things out there in the open and to talk them about them a bit more.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, I mean, one thing I noted down as well was the thing about doing like a backstory check. It’s something I try to do when I’m doing analysis and research. I want to know, what’s the story behind this request for me to do a certain bit of research. And in some ways, that’s one of the really important things you need to deal with. And what Martin seems to have got as well here, that, he’s realised he’s become self, he’s become aware of his organisation. And he’s understood the organisation and that, that there is a real key thing. He he’s looked at the landscape he’s working within, and got it. And that, I think, is what we can all do. You’ve got to, you’ve got to have that wherewithal to look at your organisation and understand the backstory. So you better frame, gives you a better lens to do your to make your own decisions and do your own work.

Per Axbom
Yeah. And check your own expectations and the expectations of the people that you’re working with.

[Music]

Per Axbom
And moving on to the to the second article, I think we will actually reference back to this because I feel there’s a bit of an overlap, perhaps.

James Royal-Lawson
I reckon we can connect these. Yeah. So Article two, “This is UX strategy. What is it? “And it’s by Eddie Rich, who we’ve known for a fair few years. And what to be honest, I stumbled across it. I didn’t actually see Eddie himself promoting this. I stumbled on this article

Per Axbom
Awesome

James Royal-Lawson
Outside of the regular ways, I would see posts and comments from from Eddie, which is quite fun to discover stuff a little bit more randomly, I guess. But basically, like so many, Eddie’s fed up with with UX being misused and misunderstood, particularly within the space of UX strategy. So what Eddie proposes in his article, I’m giving away the punchline a bit now, but I think it’s more to do with the stuff. He’s proposing saying, experience strategy, instead of UX strategy. Because what he’s seen is that this helps him articulate what he’s working on, in a way that makes sense to business executives, the business as a whole or product teams. Now, what Eddie does in the article, he starts off, quite sensibly, going back to basics and trying, like so many of us have done over the years, define user experience.

Eddie, of course, he goes back to Nielsen Norman Group, and Don Norman, who by and large, are attributed with being, the people who came up with the phrase “User experience”, Don Norman, of his time at Apple. And he puts it out on the website, there, “that user experience encompasses all aspects of the end users interaction with the company, its services and its products”. And he goes on to look about all that means, and also how it ties in with some of the examples that we use, like the particular example he uses is of Disneyland. Which he says maybe a lot of people would see Disneyland as a product. But he says, Well, no, if you if you look at Disneyland, actually as an experience that is underpinned and enabled and supported by a series of other experiences and products, then then you start to realise that the, the experience is the thing, rather than the products.

Per Axbom
Right, the product is part of the experience and not the other way around.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, yeah. So he’s trying to correct the lens in this article about, shift the lens a little bit, so that you’re, you know, rather than focus on your product and just the experience of that particular bit of user interaction, trying to get you to widen your lens and go look, your experience encompasses all these things. It’s kind of, using the Disneyland example, it’s everything from the moment you buy your ticket, all the way through to when you walk through the gate, to when you can have like sharing experience and as a family doing a certain activity, when you’re actually there. Memories afterwards. I mean, everything ties in together to be that that experience. So

Per Axbom
I think this is really important in the sense that what he’s also criticising is how, when people speak of UX today, it’s mostly digital, and digital interfaces. But it’s really, really key to the concept of UX that it’s about so much more than interfaces.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, exactly. And he, he goes on to eventually put forward his own definition of well, I say user, UX strategy, but actually, his definition is now for experienced strategy, to remove the product mindset, and to–

Per Axbom
but also, because as he says, because UX has been so misused and misunderstood, is what he’s saying. So he’s going to switch it out.

James Royal-Lawson
Yep. And because he is talking to people in the organisation, the C suite, the execs and so on, where I mean, they don’t get UX, they don’t know what it is, they think it is just the digital aspect. And to achieve your goals, your strategic goals, you can’t just focus on the digital side of it, you need to be the whole. It’s the whole thing, including the branding, the you know, the company goals, and so on. So he comes to the, to the phrase, or definition, “experience strategy, is a vision and evolving long term plan of outcomes to align every customer touchpoint with your brand position as part of the business strategy”. That’s again. That will be Eddie’s “drop mike moment”. And he leaves us and walks out. But, I think me personally, I mean, what Eddie says, and what he writes here is really good. And I really like it. But I actually actually don’t think it matters about changing it from UX to experience strategy. I actually think you can probably call it Floppity floop strategy.

Per Axbom
I don’t think you can, James?

James Royal-Lawson
I can, I just did. I am, we’re gonna call this Floppity floop strategy now? No, I am being silly, of course. But the thing is that Eddie, is the key here. The key thing here is relationships, and trusting relationships. And what Eddie has realised here is that experience strategy is something like he says himself, allowed him to articulate better, what he wants to achieve to his organisation and to build understanding, build that trust and ultimately success.

Per Axbom
So what you’re saying really, is that you can say anything you want, based on what context you’re in. So there is some organisation out there for Floppity floop strategy will work.

James Royal-Lawson
Yes, that’s that that is what yeah, in an infinitely large design world. Then there will be an organisation where Floppity floop does work. And this does tie us back to the first.

Per Axbom
I think if it was Douglas Adams, it makes sense. [Laugh]

James Royal-Lawson
This ties back to the first article, where Martin had a similar kind of thing. I mean, there will be like, I mean, in his organisation, maybe experience strategy would have helped him better rather than being kind of like double down on or product strategy, obviously didn’t work for him, because product strategy, end up being too, he was locked in product strategy. And he wanted to break out of that when he was doing incremental changes to make the change. It was Eddie rather than kind of like, you know, ignoring some of the the bigger things that have come up during discovery, he went, No, I’m going to fix this by changing it to experience strategy and get myself you know, better relationship, more trust with the executives in the business to achieve more that’s going on.

Per Axbom
And he obviously did this by understanding his organisation as well. And their needs. This is what I need to say, to help people understand where I’m coming from.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Per Axbom
So it’s almost like this is this is one of the paths that Martin could take as well. So it’s almost like a response to his.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, exactly. I think here, you know, Eddie has chosen as a design leader, this particular path, you know, to have that good understanding of the organisation how it works as a larger system. Now he wants to, he wants to play with the machine. And I think, putting words into Martin’s text here now, Martin wanted to be a better cog.

Per Axbom
Right. Exactly. And deliver as per promised. So–

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah,

Per Axbom
That’s also an ethical viewpoint. I mean, you–

James Royal-Lawson
There both right.

Per Axbom
for me, and I promise to help you. Yeah, exactly.

James Royal-Lawson
Just different ways of framing it.

Per Axbom
I have to say, though, because you brought up the Floppety floop. [Laugh]

James Royal-Lawson
As I do.

Per Axbom
From my experience, I’m feeling more and more that UX can sometimes be a hindrance and using experience as a placeholder for that instead, can work better in communication settings. But of course, you’re gonna be absolutely right. It will depend on the organisation. But in general terms, I try to avoid UX because people tend to think well, like, Oh, so you’ve designed buttons. And now I’m almost finding myself well, I’m almost using that term the way others are using it, because I’m falling into the trap of adopting the terminology that of others as well, which is part of doing UX. [Laugh]

James Royal-Lawson
It is and we’ve seen, I mean, there was a, there was things that we saw, I saw recently about it was Jacob Nielsen, wasn’t it? I think it was talking about how how the names of things change over time. Names of things change over time. And he was using about UX. And then like, the customer experience and other kinds of things. And, that got Jumped on a fair bit by saying, Well, no customer experience is actually older than user experience. You know, see what you end up in the kind of battle of terminology. When you do all these definitions.

Per Axbom
Those battles are are never good.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, yeah. So you know, who’s whose history is the oldest. And and if you’ve come from an organisation where the customer experience side of things has been a practice you followed maybe since the 80s, then you’re going to maybe frown on UX as like a, you know, annoying little sibling that kind of turned up and think they own the place. Whereas if you’re in a startup from from, you know, the last 10 years, then you won’t have been part of all that, you know, customer experience stuff of the 80s. And you won’t know what he’s about really. So your startup is not going to understand that angle.

Per Axbom
Right.

James Royal-Lawson
So the definition will be wrong.

Per Axbom
I can imagine that people that are reading Eddie’s article are just thinking, well, he’s talking about service design. Isn’t that what he’s talking about? I mean, it’s, we couldn’t, you can never win. It’s impossible.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah. Oh. So the way to win is just accepting that every organisation will have a different view on these things. And you’ve got to, I think you Per, you normally say you’ve got to be listening.

Per Axbom
Exactly.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Per Axbom
Don’t say anything, just listen and see, see what happens. And that works really, really well.

James Royal-Lawson
Well, it’s discovery of your own discoveries. I mean, you’re again, you’ve got to take that time to listen to your own organisation. To understand, you know, what, what language do they use? What habits? What exists already? And what can I influence? What can’t I influence? You’re doing your own UX project on your own organisation.

Per Axbom
so many people we’ve had on the show? Yeah, over the years, they’ve so many have said this, that you have to apply design principles to your own organisation, to cope better and produce better products.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, Kim Goodman, wasn’t it, we talked about the organizational values with her a few years ago. Going along these exact lines. It’s, this is where the frustration lies, I think for a lot of us.

Per Axbom
Because it is undefined, and it is evolving constantly. And sometimes, like you and I have discussed as well, sometimes we can get frustrated with how this terminology changes over time. And then we realise Well, a lot of the people who they weren’t around for the time when it was invented. And nobody has documented this in a way that is coherent. And there are so many different organisations teaching UX and different teachers with their own idea of what this is. So of course, it’s going to be very disparate.

James Royal-Lawson
But at the same time, it’s good to have people coming in who don’t have certain baggage with them.

Per Axbom
It is, exactly.

James Royal-Lawson
That’s your chance for for making change happen, having a clean sheet and maybe getting rid of some of the stuff you don’t really want to have anymore.

Per Axbom
And get rid of people like us. And so we we need to, we need to shut up more really, about these things, I think and be more open to the changes that come.

James Royal-Lawson
Or we see now that almost sounds like you’ve been a little bit mean towards it now at the end by saying Eddie, you need to shut up and there’s not a point to reading it.

Per Axbom
Well, he’s working within a specific context.

James Royal-Lawson
Yes,

Per Axbom
He’s explaining that context, and he’s solving the problem within his space. Whereas what I’m talking about now is all these arguments with people with definitions and the the older people saying “well that’s not right because back in my day”, well, that doesn’t really matter. Because now is now.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, I know the point you’re trying to make. I’m just trying to cause a fight.

Per Axbom
I know. I think love you. [Laugh]

James Royal-Lawson
Exactly

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
Recommended listening, I think we do this way too often now. I work out some recommended listening before we record. And then we start talking. And then things come up. And I end up with more recommended listening than we started with. So that we metioned

Per Axbom
There were a lot of things we referenced here, that wasn’t worth it.

James Royal-Lawson
Kim now in particular, we’ve mentioned which I will add the episode number to the show notes there. But what I actually did pull out was episode 88, which is absolute classic. Me, you and Jared Spool. Talk about you strategy and UX research.

Per Axbom
Is that the one where he talks about listening to us while he’s at the gym?

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, and the sheep.

Per Axbom
Yeah, exactly. And that was my biggest takeaway when I realised, so people actually listen to us.

James Royal-Lawson
The sheep. You took the sheep?

Per Axbom
No. [Laugh]

James Royal-Lawson
You said you didn’t touch the sheep. [Laugh]

Per Axbom
Now people do have to listen to that episode.

James Royal-Lawson
They do have to listen. They have no idea what we’re talking about. [Laugh]

If you want me and Per as part of your next conference or event or in house training, then just get in touch. Email. Hey at UX podcast.com And maybe we can help you get to the bottom of what articulates best for you and your organisation.

Per Axbom
Remember to keep moving

James Royal-Lawson
See you on the other side.

[Music]

Per Axbom
James, what did one hat say to the other?

James Royal-Lawson
I don’t know Per, what did one hat say to the other?

Per Axbom
You go on ahead.

James Royal-Lawson
Oh.

This is a transcript of a conversation between James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom recorded in December 2023 and published as episode 319 (S02E09) of UX Podcast.