How Good Banks are Getting to the Heart of the Matter

A week after the banking crisis in March 2023, we were commissioned to give a talk at Credit Suisse entitled "The Art of Connected Research." Our premise was simple yet profound. UX Research is connecting. It helps teams make decisions empirically. Research helps get directional information so everyone can connect around what needs to be done and facilitates collaborative conversations.

For Credit Suisse, all of this ultimately amounts to productivity, profitability, and performance. When teams can unify around goals, messaging, and strategy, people are more productive and waste less time arguing over personal opinions. And this is what quality research provides.

The design team at Credit Suisse recognized that people are productive when they feel seen and valued. And people are happy when they are connected: to one another, to themselves, and to the company's overarching goals. They took the time to gather, connect, and share personal stories. This showed the employees that they matter to the company's overall health. The Head of Product Design and leadership team at Credit Suisse knows that this changing tide is a time to foster community and to take good care of the people that work for them. Perhaps other banks will follow suit and remember that keeping people’s well-being at the heart of what matters the most will change the future of banking from the inside out.

Second Edition Now Available!

We’re beyond excited to announce that the Second, updated Edition edition of the book is now available on Amazon!

The Power of the Positive Question in UX Research

By Jon-Eric Steinbomer

Much of what we encounter in the practice of User Experience is based on a well-worn problem-solving approach.

A typical arc of problem-solving looks something like:

1. Identifying problems and deficiencies

2. Analyzing the causes

3. Analyzing solutions

4. Developing an action plan

We as UX researchers spend a lot of time at steps 1 and 2. Finding and analyzing the causes of problems is something we’re really good at. It keeps designers and product managers coming to us with their hypotheses of why something’s not working, and asking for our help to find out more.

There’s undoubtedly value to the answers and insights we provide in these interactions, but we need to take a step back and ask ourselves about the impacts of reflexively spending so much of our energy looking for and orienting around problems.

How does this orientation influence the kinds of data we’re collecting? How does this inform our interactions with participants?

We at Progress UX Research have been orienting towards what Appreciative Inquiry (AI) calls the positive core to see what is instead possible if we look for what is already working well, or has worked well in the past.

“Questions are fateful”- David Cooperrider

AI is based on the work of David Cooperrider, Ph.D., and is traditionally applied in the context of facilitating change in organizations. It’s also a method we’ve been integrating into our research projects and workshops as a way to mobilize friendly curiosity, creative imagination, and enlivened designing.

We need to consider the power of a question, especially in the fertile context of imagination and design. If we look for problems, we’re fixing based on what is wrong or missing. If we look for strengths, we’re creating something new based on what’s already working. How then can we think about conducting UX research in a way that orients towards this creative, positive core instead of chasing more problems?

Get Started with Positive Framing

An approachable way to integrate this into your research sessions today is by using a technique taught by AI called Positive Framing, a way of intentionally shaping a conversation to focus on a desirable outcome and energize others towards positive results. This encourages creativity, curiosity, imagination, and engagement by taking a negative, deficit-based frame and transforming it into a positive frame.

Positive Framing has three steps:

1. Name it — What is the problem, the issue, or the thing you don’t want?

2. Flip it — What is the positive opposite? The thing which you do want

3. Frame it — What is the desired outcome if this positive thing is true?

Here’s an example of how this may work in a research session with a participant. You hear your participant say something like,

I would never use this as a sign in for this app, and I’m already turned off to it. It wants to connect with my Facebook account and import all of my contacts, my posts…everything? You’ve got to be kidding. I hear there’s lots of people out there trying to get into accounts and steal things. I don’t like it at all.

Okay, the negative thing is pretty clear, so let’s begin with the Naming step. Using your reflective listening skills, you may say something like,

I hear that the security of your private account is really important to you and you feel like this is asking for too much permission, is that right? Look for affirmation that you got it right and didn’t miss anything.

When you affirm that you’ve captured what they don’t want, move to the Flip step, where you now name the positive opposite. You might say something like,

So what I hear that you do want is a way to log in that doesn’t require access to your private accounts, like Facebook. Right? Again, check for agreement.

So now we have a conversation rooted in the positive. You can ask the participant to name the best positive outcome, or even ideate together about it, moving into the final, Framing step. That may sound something like,

Tell me how you would like to see this work instead, allowing you to sign in easily while also keeping your personal data safe.

And then off you go, this time in a positive, creative direction, from which it’s much easier to collaborate and dream solutions together.

Try out this technique the next time you hear someone, even yourself, speaking from a negative, deficit-seeking place. With your self-awareness on board, notice the effects on the body, your energy, their energy, and how this may change when you instead flip the conversation towards a positive desired outcome.

By owning the responsibility for the questions we ask as researchers and especially, the way we ask them, we enter a reality where the strength of a system creates the most positive and effective change. We reverse our old ways of thinking from a problem-based to a solution-focused approach, and open to a new realm of possibility.

JON-ERIC STEINBOMER, Co-Founder and Research Director at Progress User Experience Research, is co-author of the book Heart of UX ™ second edition, in print September 2020.

Mastering the Art of the Remote User Interview

The current climate of Social Distancing is changing the way we work and the way we do qualitative UX Research. Researchers have closed the lab doors and are looking to remote methods to continue their projects.

Even before the current necessity to do so, conducting remote moderated research sessions has been one of our favorite go-to methods, for a few key reasons:

• We can talk to people from all over the world without needing to go any- where. This greatly extends our reach and capabilities and enables stakeholders from multiple locations to observe the sessions as they happen

• People are often more comfortable speaking with us as they’re in their own environments.

• We benefit from the “ethnographic bonus” of seeing people’s homes, offices, etc. as well as their computer desktop, mobile apps, and so forth when they share their screens with us.

Despite these benefits, video can be more complex to do well in a remote context and it’s something that’s a central topic in our new book The Heart of UX: The Way of the Connected Researcher. A major complicating factor is the fact that we have no control over the participants’ setup. They may join your meeting with premium sound and a high-definition camera or using their computer’s microphone and a built-in camera with dark lighting, looking like an FBI informant. In these cases, the only thing we can really control is our half of the conversation. The following guidelines are tried-and-true based on thousands of hours of conducting remote research sessions using a wide array of online conferencing platforms.

Implementing these techniques and making seemingly minor adjustments will have outsized effects and lead to conversations and videos that are just as engaging as anything taking place in person.

Video

Good video starts with investing in a high-definition webcam. The built-in camera in your laptop is likely quite good but it can’t match the quality and flexibility of one of the readily available external webcams that offer 4K Ultra High Definition and support for diverse lighting environments. You will of course also need a high-bandwidth connection to easefully manage the amount of video data being passed between you and the participant. A crisp and smooth image directly impacts the ability to establish and maintain a resonant connection with our participants.

Place the camera so that it is at the top edge of the screen and as close to your own eye level as possible in order to facilitate an approximation of eye contact with your participant. This may necessitate your conducting remote sessions from a standing desk orientation, or otherwise positioning the camera and desk to achieve this effect.

Maintaining the camera at eye level makes the interaction feel a lot more natural

When you’re speaking with the participant, try to keep your eyes aligned with the camera in order to maintain relative eye contact. This is not a trivial detail — even looking somewhere else on the screen for only what feels like a small amount of time has a large effect on the interaction. One technique that we’ve found to be effective is to place the participant's video as close to the webcam as possible, near the top of the screen. This helps you keep your face and eyes oriented with the participants.

Audio

You’ll want to use headphones if you can so that you can hear your participants more clearly. Most quality headphones and AirPods also now provide at least acceptable audio microphones as well.

If you want podcast-quality audio, you’ll also want to invest in a quality microphone as a companion to your external webcam. Again, we don’t recommend relying on your laptop mic, doing so will result in a distancing effect that your participant will notice, either consciously or subconsciously and this will have a felt effect on the interaction. We really like the Yeti Pro for its relatively low price point compared to excellent quality and versatility. Most pro-quality microphones provide different polar patterns to choose from, tailoring the range of audio input to your context of use. For remote research, set it to shotgun mode and orient the microphone towards you, as it’s just your audio being captured.

For a one-on-one remote interview, set your microphone to “Shotgun”

Orienting your body

We’ve already discussed the importance of keeping your camera at eye-level. Another factor to consider is your background and lighting. We’ve seen many remote conversations take place in someone’s dark kitchen with a slowly rotating ceiling fan in the background. Trust us, this is distracting and ruins the mood. Be mindful of what is behind you. Ideally, there’s a nice wall or bookshelf that can serve as a tasteful backdrop.

If you have a beautiful view and window behind you, that’s great, but be sure to fill your light in front of you with an added light source, like a desk or floor lamp so that you’re not a dark silhouette with a beach scene behind you.

If your working from your spare bedroom don’t have a nice background available, consider a small investment in a backdrop. A simple white background, or even a tasteful patterned background, goes a long way with overcoming any effects that an otherwise distracting room may have on the conversation.

Your attention — the most important orientation

A final note about positioning in remote meetings. This one is subtle, but it has to do with the position of your attention. It’s very easy to get distracted in an online conversation. It may be your third session of the day and you’re not really feeling the conversation. You might be tempted to glance at that email or check those Slack notifications that keep bouncing in your dock. As much as you can, resist the urge to peek at your other windows or interact with others during your conversation.

In our book, we talk about the importance of being a “Connected Researcher” — one who always strives to focus on the connection with the person directly in front of them, above all else. Although it seems like they don’t, the other person notices when you peek at a distraction, especially if you’ve already attuned with them and have established a connection. They’ll feel your attention drop and know that you’re not paying attention. This situation is recoverable, of course, but it’s important to know that dropping attention has an impact on the interaction.

There is, of course, no substitute to the experience of speaking with someone in person but, by starting with these techniques and being mindful of how you interact with those on the other side of the camera, you’ll have a solid head-start to mastering the finer points of making the interaction feel as connected as possible.

7-week Connected Researcher Skills Training Series in Austin

Are you looking to move your work or career to allow working from home?Do you want to be able to do your work, from the comfort and convenience of home, and enter a new career or revamp your current one? Want to deepen your skills as a researcher? We have now made an online comprehensive, experiential certification course in the very latest in UX Research: The Heart of UX Comprehensive Training Series.

Find out how the latest in neuroscience, authentic engagement, and embodied empathy can enrich user research and product design. Learn how to connect to people in a human-to-human way that creates ease for both you and them as well as eliciting rich, insightful data for product design. 

The main objective of this certification training is to provide you with strategies, foundations and practices for becoming a Connected UX Researcher. Now more than ever, learning remote moderation skills as a UX researcher can support you through these changing times. The skills and techniques learned in this course will prepare you to plan, organize, and implement any UX research project with confidence, compassion and competence.

Design Thinking our 2020 Business Strategy

Where to begin when there's so much to do and everything feels equally important? We're sharing our process for how we've gotten clear on a strategy for launching our new book, online course, and associated training materials. See how we've used the same design thinking methods we've used with our clients to help propel us into our next phase!

An Appreciative Coffee Talk - Designing from strengths, not just problems

Details

We as UX professionals have a problem. We have lots of problems in fact. We're accustomed to reflexively looking for what problems exist as a path to improvement and that in itself, is a problem. By focusing so much on what's not working and then designing from there, is it possible that we're only finding and solving problems?

What's possible if we dream and design from a place of what is alive and working for people?

We're excited to share with you our experiences incorporating techniques from Appreciative Inquiry into our research projects. Appreciative Inquiry is an evidence-based innovation system that assumes and maintains a positive bias from the beginning and looks for what strengths exist as a foundation for design. It's not just more enjoyable to do so; there's lots of neuroscience behind the benefits of creating from a positive orientation. We've found from experience that shifting the conversations in this intentionally positive direction has dramatic, far-reaching effects on the resulting interactions and solutions.

Join us for an enlivening coffee chat where we'll introduce the method and provide some experiences to try it out for yourself. Hang out after for some live acoustic music!