Session Notes: Translating UX Terms into a Business Context

— Principal designer at custom ink and I’m here to focus on translating terms into business context

 

— I create custom products to promote deep engagmeent with communities, and have seen how language plays key role in alignment with disciplines
  • Soft skills essential for a strong design voice

 

— Why is it important to speak a shared language?

 

— Per Jakob Nielsen, unstable terms has a huge cost overhead, and not knowing what something is called, or what a newly created word means

 

— For the product person, translation is key

 

— And to earn seat at the decision-making table, you need to grasp business language

 

— All quotes reflect need for a common language that can be used in all situation, in all business situations
  • Less esoteric language builds trust and understanding

 

— Will list out  in this talk
  • Conflicts in UX language
  • Moments that call for translation
  • Tools to evaluate your language

 

— My first story relates to a card sort activity where people confused as to whether the sort was about a usability evaluation or for polishing a UI

 

— We had observed that there was an excessive number of stacked buttons on their page
  • Contradicts customer intention to experience

 

— Abundance of choices ovewhelmed customers, with too many actions
  • Customers were thinking one action would coordinate with others

 

— The compromised panel reduced conversion for other designs, and started to lose value of serving intended pruposes

 

— Project was used for UI polish and reducing number of buttons, but team saw need for broader usability issue

 

— There was card sorting to improve IA, and facilitate better customer decisions
  • The UX team had a different priority from just visual polish and graphical presentation
  • There was a need for effective wayfinding to engage with an action
    • Card-sort known to facilitate such a process

 

— In UX textbooks, we do have a clear definition of what a card sort is, and what it is most used for

 

— But let’s look at the underlying language
  • Makes sense to us, but what about a PM who needs to grasp the definitions
    • How can it be translated to business language for the importance of conducting the right activity?

 

— The UX team tried to communicate priorities through a plan for customer interviews and listing out hierarchy in mind
  • But under-estimated impact of three week long plan, which would disrupt engineering sprints
— What wasn’t considered?
  • From the PM’s perspective, a single sprint is hard to find solution, and hard to see what value would be delivered through the product document
  • So what now?

 

— Our project leader allowed a second pass, and offered two steps
  • Simplifed “card sort’ to arrangement of csutomer needs
  • Card sorting as part of broader research study and impact of decision making

 

— Evaluation of button arrangement was driven by assessing  needs and counter-evaluations that created un-necessary friction and value lay in simple actions for max number of situations
  • Activity represented value discovery

 

 

— So reduced number of buttons from six to two, and provided key contextual cues for buying and editing designs

 

 

— This led to positive outcome, and resulted in 10% increase in conversion rate

 

— Recognize importance of going beyond UX-language and clarify value and relevance, with language as tool for meaningful activity

 

— Two tips I got from this experience
  1. Translating UX for others is not betrayal of our discipline.
  2. Code-switching is communication tool at the end.

 

—  So reflect on what you will say, and how to express it with a bit more finesse
  • Prototyping and persona to convey a broader meaning

 

— Emphasize importance of standard language and reduce communication barriers and insist on correct terms when  they are used

 

— Example of tree test, being perceived as a prototype by the product team

 

— For context, our team proposed new sitemap for virtual workspaces, and proposed new architecture for various groups in community, including whether people involved in personal or professional capacity
  • Required intuitive navigation system that took account of unique contexts

 

— First option leveraged existing site architecture and apps to organize info between groups

 

— Same architecture, and duplicate manual options, and organize into categories for different groups

 

— Listed out all menu options in switchable view through dropdown that applied at site-level

 

— Between UX and Product, option 2 was hard to scale, so it was discarded

 

— Between Option 1 and 3, hard to choose which one, and unsure if they would appreciate separation of info in switchable views

 

— When customers invited to new virtual spaces, they might information that they might not own, but which team might
  • Our concern was that this navigation could cause confusion

 

— So the product and UX evaluated cons and pros of both options
  • Thought of compromised design of using Option 1 for shared assets and Option 3 for gated assets
  • This abstract proposal would be hard to validate with existing data
— In addition, timeline was tight

 

— To initiate process, we conducted a tree test for users to see how they found correct asset with Option 1 and Option 3
  • Could then evalutate for figuring out site structure

 

— Needed to level-set expectation for what team was reponsible for, and gap between tree test and prototype an
  • Prototype focused on end-solution, while tree-test focused on navigation

 

— As a result, we observed high success rate for Option 3, and reached agreement on type of artifact responsible for delivering and what not to use
  • This helped us start similar positions

 

— Tempting to sound new and innovative, and language adds prestige
  • For opportunity to leverage well established language for wider audience, stay with standard for a little longer

 

— And be willing to teach others user language, as there is a significant overlap in skills, to learn and speak correct language

 

— So when I shifted from designing for transportaiton, to e-commerce
  • I was shifting my language from safety to growth
  • This allowed me to improve my performance, and gain influence
— Changing a language helps us think like business owner

 

— Finally, I’ll ask you to notice wheich languages are being used and which ones are not

 

— And ask if any language has been forgotten?

 

— And can new language standards surpass what existed in the past?

 

— Thank you. Any questions?

 

Q&A
  1. Did you something beside card sorts for grasping customer value?
— Yes, broader ongoing studies to look at initiatives, and seeing parallel with different forms for different decision making
  1. What tool using to present?
— Used Figjam
  1. Evaluate level of effort for hypothetical reward?
— When doing evaluation, evaluate level of effort and what it needs for discovery, to make sure solution and discovery taken into account in a similar way,
  • Successful framing of problem space and what solutions are viable
  • Product people are always budgeting resources and need to measure away potential impact
  1. Expecting 10% conversion lift or suprised?
— Yes, part of key metrics we were monitoring
— But in general you want to do something in small scale to get accurate projection on participation
  • Start small and learn as you go
  1. Making case for learning other languages, but should we expect PMs to make the same effort for us?
— Good question, and my thinking is not to expect the effort on behalf of the PM, but to still make effort to speak product language
  • Regardless of role played, people will appreciate
  • Be liberal in what you accept, but strict in what you admit
  1. Good ways to document translation and clarity of terminology? Playbooks, or glossary?
— Many approaches, but I can recommend training a machine learning model
  • Simplest approach is that of a training doc, and variants introduced into it, and having maintainable way to keep it going
  1. Seems like UI polish and usability evaluation require different levels of effort? How do we increase sophistication of UX effort?
— Varies depending on design culture
  • Positive impact on business, take on ownership and sell UX solution
  1. Connecting metric to other layers of UX like the information architecture?
— Yes, develop understanding of framework where information architecture will require work relative to visual design, and clearly outlining what would be delivered