Dancing Uphill

Involving users in a early stage of the redesign process is essential and valuable. It shows the bottlenecks in the redesigns and provides valuable insight in users’ needs.  This can contribute to a more efficient redesign process. It will decrease the costs and increase the quality of the final product. So what user centered design principles should you use while going through the redesign process ‘together’ with users?

Don’t redesign periodically…
…but make it a continuous process. Make sure new implementations are implemented on a subtle manner. Take little, but well thought,  steps. Evaluate your ideas with the help of your users and learn what works and what doesn’t. Websites like Amazon and LinkedIn are good examples. Amazon has transformed significantly over the years, but has done so very gradually. LinkedIn updates its website constantly thereby changing or adding new functionalities on a subtle way. These changes try not to hinder the user experience, which may affect the perception and use of the website and ultimately the conversion.

Don’t take  your own irritations as a starting point…
…a common mistake is to do a redesign because people within the organization got bored with the ‘old’ website. It’s an even bigger mistake to take this assumption as a starting point without looking at the users’ needs and miss out on valuable feedback which could improve the website.

Learn from users…
…and involve them in this continuous process. Ask for feedback on a regular basis. This can make the process more manageable and this will make you more efficient on the long term.  Try to create a method which can help you collect feedback on (early) designs in a fast and efficient way. Or try using one of the existing online tools like Usabilla.

React on ideas and complaints from users…
…and try to come up with solutions to satisfy their needs. This is also nice for users. They see directly what is done with their ideas and suggestions. Make sure to give users the feeling that their input matters and that improvements are made on the basis of their input.

Don’t think of users in terms of designers…
… so don’t ask about their wishes in terms of design issues. Do not ask users what the website should look like, because taste is something very personal. Ask them what they need in terms of functionalities and what they think does and doesn’t work right now. This type of research can be conducted by organizing a context and needs research or performing an online survey.

Set your priorities…
…based on the needs of your users.  A pitfall in the redesign process is to want ‘too much’ and all at the same time. Stakeholders and users have different and often conflicting wishes. Try to clarify what really matters and keep in mind the goals of the website. A method can be to let everyone (stakeholders) make a top 10 or 5 of things they would like to be implemented in the website. Stakeholders are forced to prioritize or even delete wishes. You will often see that that some ideas were less important than they seemed, and never make it to the top 10 or 5.  So what is wished for by stakeholders just because ‘it is possible to implement’ or because ‘the competitor has the same implementation’? And in what extent do the ideas of the stakeholders meet the needs of the users?

Make ‘low-fi’ prototypes…
…sketch out ideas and present these to users. Make use of methods like paper prototyping or concept testing.  Make wireframes or prototypes using tools like Microsoft Visio or Axure and test them with your users. This will quickly give a notion of how ideas are picked up, long before you start working on a (expensive) redesign.

Launch first an closed / open beta version…
…and gather comments from users. Make a full operational redesign accessible for a part of the users before making the redesign accessible for everyone. Or test the redesign on the A/B way. This way you can spot and fix minor issues before making the redesign accessible for everyone. A good example is Hyves. Before the release of their new website they made the new website accessible for their Goldmembers (members that subscription for Hyves) so that they could get used to the new website and provide Hyves of feedback. Besides, Hyves shared the redesigns of the main pages with all their users asking them for feedback at their forum.

Last but not least…
…give yourself sufficient time to improve the redesign. Keep in mind: this is a continuous process, a cycle. The most little and subtle changes can have an enormous impact on the experience and the conversion  of the website. So don’t underestimate this. Listen carefully to reactions of customers, take their input into account and look in what extent this affects the goals of website or not.

Written in collaboration with Ruben Timmerman, owner of EduHub.