Dear Product Manager,
Here we are at the start of another project and while I love working with you, there are a few things I’d like you to see from my point of view.
First off (and this is a biggie), you are NOT the target user.
I know you know our subject matter inside out, and the presentations you give about the technology are impressive. I know you are passionate about our product and that you live and breathe everything related to what we do.
The problem is you know (and care, too much. Most of our users are not as passionate about our products as you are.
Yes, I know there are some and I know they sought you out at the last user forum to share their ideas with you. But most of our users aren’t like that. They use our product to accomplish a goal so they can move on to the next thing. They don’t understand all the industry jargon that rolls off your tongue with ease, and they don’t care about the flash and wiz-bang of the latest and greatest technological advances.
My point is that we can’t design a product that is perfect for you. We need to design a product for the typical user.
Secondly, you can’t do it all.
Yes, you are ultimately responsible for the success of this project. And that’s a lot of pressure. I understand why you want to talk to all of the customers, document all of those discussions,
You have too many budget meetings to sit through, sales projections to compile, stakeholder suck-up lunches to attend, and a million other things that have to be done as part of your day.
Let me help. I know that it takes as long to write up the summary of a customer interview as it does to do the interview. I’ve done it many times. I also know that if it isn’t done that information will be lost.
I’m not suggesting you hand over all of the customer insight activities to me. Oh no! You HAVE to be part of that. It’s crucial that you understand our users inside and out. Which kinda’ brings me to my next point.
You and I shouldn’t be the only user experts on the team.
I know it’s in your job description and mine that we talk to end-users and understand their needs. But the developers, QA testers, tech writers and everyone else will make better decisions if they fully understand the user’s needs as well. Let’s take some of them along with us on our next customer visits, and after that, let’s put together some lunch-and-learn sessions to share what we learned with everyone else.
Yah, I know we’ll have to drag some of them (especially a couple of the developers) with us kicking and screaming. But I promise they’ll come up with some great ideas when they are working with firsthand knowledge of our end-users instead of making decisions by guessing at what people really do and don’t do with our product.
And lastly, please, oh please, focus on the WHAT and not the HOW.
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Feel free to put together some high-level sketches so everyone can visualize the product – but don’t go too far. Some of our teammates are pretty literal, and they are going to fight against every change to your original idea no matter how much sense those changes make.
If you’re worried that I (or the rest of the team) will go off on a tangent with the design, don’t be. We NEED your involvement in our brainstorming and design sessions and we WILL get your input on all designs.
Speaking for myself, if I don’t do detailed design reviews with you or I don’t give you time to think about the workflows and interactions that I’ve put together, call me on it. This is a collaborative project after all.
Please understand that I’m not pointing these things out just to make my job easier (although that is part of it). It’s more about working as a team. The more in-sync we are about what our users need, and the more we understand where each of us is coming from, the stronger the end product will be.
Let’s talk. In fact, let’s make sure that in the future we’re talking even more than we are now.
Sincerely,
Your UX Expert