Complexity to Clarity: Driving Product Vision Through Immersive Research and Gamified Methods

Benjamin Basseches at UXDX Community: Empathetic UX: Merging Gamified Research and Social Responsibility. Video: https://youtu.be/t7dP8SQ0o2A

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Defining a product vision with too many unknowns

[00:00:00] Benjamin: My name is Benjamin Basseches. I'm a senior UX researcher at Workiva, and I'm calling in from Colorado in the United States, hence the sunlight pouring in. Today I'll be sharing how immersive research and gamified methods can bring clarity amidst complexity and help your team define product vision. My one goal for this presentation is that you leave feeling inspired to think boldly, creatively and playfully the next time that you have a high-stakes research or product definition need.

[00:00:29] I'll get there by walking you through a case story, a bit more fun than a case study, of a research sprint that brought my product manager and me out from behind our computer screens to four countries in Europe and over 30 research interactions in just two weeks. Throughout the story I'll share a few methodology power-ups about gamified methods and immersive research.

[00:00:56] Let's start with a reflection question. Have you or your team ever been responsible for defining a product vision and roadmap, but it felt like there were still too many unknowns? If you said yes, you're not alone. This is quite a common challenge, and it becomes even more daunting if you're building a product or service that solves a new problem in an emerging market. The simple answer is discovery, or research, depending on which product or UX boot camp you go to.

[00:01:27] However, there's a whole spectrum of rigor when it comes to discovery. It can be quick and dirty, where you set up a few customer calls, make a decision that you feel decent about, and then plan to refine as you go. Or you can spend a lot of time and money doing a rigorous research study, like jobs to be done, that will serve as the basis for strategy and roadmap decisions for years. We were in a tough situation, because we had some really big decisions to make. Specifically, we were defining the product vision and roadmap for the next one to two years, and we needed to build high confidence fast. This is the type of situation when thinking creatively about research methodology can have the most significant impact on your ultimate success.

The lore of the story: ESG and GRC

[00:02:05] Let me set the stage with some backstory on this project. In the world of gaming, this is called the lore of the story. The protagonists of the story are myself and my product manager, Matt. We had been working together for several months, but would soon become attached at the hip and best friends. We made a great duo with perfectly complementary skill sets. Matt had been at Workiva for years, including time in pre-sales, so he brought technical expertise, a strong understanding of the business context and product history, and he was great at talking to prospects and customers. I was a bit newer to Workiva and the technical domain, but brought deep expertise and rigor to our research planning, facilitation and analysis.

[00:02:49] Without getting too deep into the weeds of the technical domain that we work in, I'm going to introduce two three-letter acronyms for context about Workiva's products, and describe the discovery quest that we were embarking on. At Workiva we build a solution that helps companies report on their environmental, social and governance impacts. You might know this as corporate sustainability reporting. It's a fairly new discipline within companies that is rapidly evolving with increasing regulation. So that's ESG.

[00:03:18] We also build governance, risk and compliance solutions, which help internal audit and compliance teams manage risk by performing audits and ensuring that public reports, like financial reports and now ESG reports, are complete and accurate. So that's GRC. Workiva identified an opportunity to help these teams connect and share data across solutions. Our quest was to learn, or anticipate, how ESG and GRC functions will most effectively collaborate on the rapidly evolving challenge of assured ESG reporting. With this research we hoped to define our product vision and design experiences that would facilitate this collaboration.

[00:04:04] You'll hear me refer to this project as GRC for ESG, which alludes to applying governance, risk and compliance procedures to ensure the integrity of ESG reporting. This is super important to society and global sustainability efforts, because it means that investors and the public are able to trust the claims that companies are making, in contrast to what you might have heard termed greenwashing.

[00:04:33] We had been doing sporadic research, mainly standard video call interviews with US-based companies, on this topic for over a year, and we'd only been gradually increasing our confidence. We identified and validated some foundational features but didn't fully know where to go from there. This was a tough place to be in, especially with lots of scrutiny and pressure from leadership around this initiative.

[00:05:02] Some of the challenges we faced were that ESG is such a new domain, especially when it comes to GRC involvement, that it was difficult to find the right people to talk to. Most of our customers in North America were in more of a wait-and-see mindset, to see what happened with regulation before they took any concrete action, and therefore we didn't have past experiences to inquire about. When we did have conversations, they tended to be fairly high level and not particularly tactical, which is what we needed to get to in order to define the product vision. So we needed to shift our strategy, get beyond the theoretical, and accelerate our learning.

[00:05:40] This case story focuses on a critical phase of this initiative, when we were able to leverage a few research power-ups to accelerate our learning and confidence in just two weeks. The research sprint enabled us to reach the level of confidence we needed to propose a clear product vision to leadership. Here's a sneak peek of the research power-ups that I'll be talking about: access to participants, gamified methods and immersion.

Power-up one: access to participants

[00:06:08] Our journey started with a wild idea: finding a way to get in-person time with a large number of our target personas. In retrospect it's quite intuitive, but in the context of enterprise software, at a time when virtual research has increasingly become the status quo, it felt quite radical for us. This meant going across the pond to Europe, where the level of ESG maturity was higher, due to both regulation and a greater culture of sustainability. This travel gave us the access-to-participants power-up.

[00:06:36] Based on the regulatory landscape and what we heard from our sales colleagues around the world, we identified that we would likely find a higher level of ESG maturity in Europe. We had tried to do some remote research with European companies, but going in person helped us overcome the time zone challenges and build lasting relationships with participants. Lastly, Workiva was already planning marketing events in several cities across Europe that would bring together prospects and customers for learning and networking. So we could plan a two-week trip to attend three of those events, with time for workshops and analysis days in between.

[00:07:16] I recognize that a company-hosted event is about as ideal as it gets, and not all that common. But any conference, trade show or large convening of the right people can be a good opportunity to connect with lots of research participants at once.

Power-up two: a gamified method

[00:07:29] But we faced another challenge. The synergy of ESG and GRC was a really complex topic to talk about, let alone design a product for. When we tried to talk verbally about collaboration needs in interviews, it was very difficult to get beyond high-level and hypothetical statements. And when we did, it was easy to get lost in the jargon soup that different teams operate in. Words like metrics, assessments, goals and objectives, indicators: those can all mean different things to different people, so we would lose confidence that we knew exactly what our participants were talking about. And now, going to Europe, we were introducing language barriers and cultural differences.

[00:08:27] This brings us to the gamified method power-up. In the planning phase leading up to our travel, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to design a method that would maximize the clarity of our learnings, both during and beyond the trip. The four characteristics that guided my method design were pragmatic, versatile, explicit and engaging. It's worth noting that not all gamified methods need to have these specific characteristics, and there are many more fundamental aspects of gamification that I would encourage you to learn more about.

[00:08:52] But for this method, a pragmatic method would help us get from the motivational level, like outcomes and emotions, down to the tactical level of who, what and how. A versatile method would be adaptable to different formats, depending on the time that we had and the context of the interactions. An explicit method would help neutralize and overcome language or communication skill barriers. And lastly, an engaging method would be fun, hold participants' attention and unlock their creativity. I can't overstate the value of this last one. If you think about it, what gets you drawing out your ideas: sitting in boring meetings where you're just talking about things, or engaging in workshops and facilitated activities?

How Collab Maps works

[00:09:33] Let's get into how this game, which I recently named Collab Maps, works by reviewing the instructions. The objective is to define and prioritize the elaborated, connected workflows that enable effective GRC for ESG. We were looking to play this game with a few types of participants. Progressive companies who are recognized as ESG leaders, and would be able to speak from tangible experience with reporting and assurance. We also wanted to talk to less mature companies who were subject to regulations and feeling intimidated by the challenge at hand. And lastly, we wanted to speak to commercial partners, like the Big Four audit firms, who offer GRC for ESG services.

[00:10:20] The setup was to use specially designed cards representing roles corresponding to various personas, actions like create, review and assess, and different types of data, to build ideal workflow maps on a paper canvas. I'll show you what this looked like shortly. I'll step through the gameplay in detail here. To start the game, participants would select a topic to focus on from a list of GRC for ESG topics that we had previously identified. We presented them these six and asked which they thought would be the highest priority for technology to support.

[00:11:09] Once they selected the topic, that became the focus of this round of the game, and they would write out outcome statements on green sticky notes, and those became the guiding outcomes for this workflow. They would then proceed to place the cards on the canvas, placing or drawing arrows to connect them, and building these workflows. Then in the conclusion, or final round, which we called split the dollar, the participant is given 10 dollars, euros or pounds, depending on the local currency, to distribute according to how strongly they felt Workiva should invest in building capabilities to support different parts of the workflow. Participants had a lot of fun with this part, because frankly everyone likes spending someone else's money.

[00:12:02] The workflow cards were the only fit-for-purpose material used for this method, but they were really critical to its success. We designed and printed physical cards using a custom card game printing service, and we also created a digital version in Figma. I've blurred out some of the details here for confidentiality, and to not distract you with the complexity of the domain. But basically the virtual cards would enable us to facilitate remote workshops in addition to the in-person ones, and create our own clean visual artifacts. For example, after an in-person workshop we would be able to create a clean digital version to memorialize the artifact and share it with participants.

Workshops and intercept research

[00:12:42] The full-length workshops that we conducted were a huge success. It turns out that giving participants the tools and a framework to generatively create their ideal-world solution proved the perfect way to learn about this emerging domain. These photos were from a three-hour workshop with senior directors and partners at a Big Four audit firm in London. As you can see, they were actively engaged at a tactical level throughout the session, and you should have seen their eyes light up during the split the dollar exercise, when they got to spend Workiva's theoretical investment.

[00:13:25] Beyond dedicated workshops, we adapted the method for intercept research at the marketing events. We only had 10- to 15-minute interactions with customers and prospects, so obviously we couldn't have them build the workflows from scratch. Rather, we used the digital workflow cards to assemble our best-guess workflows ahead of time and printed them out. When talking to customers and prospects, we would ask them to review the map and tell us what, if anything, they would change. Then we had them do the same split the dollar activity to communicate which aspects they thought were most valuable. This intercept research was fast-paced and scrappy, but really rich with learnings, and it enabled us to get the quantity of interactions that we needed to build confidence.

[00:14:12] I hope I've communicated so far the distinct value that this method offered us from a product development perspective. But also, in the spirit of empathetic UX, gamified methods offer distinct benefits for participants. For one, they're less extractive. Rather than using their knowledge for far-off product improvements that they may or may not have access to, we're offering participants a distinct experience. Moreover, it's a fun and memorable experience, making for a refreshingly creative activity, especially in the world of enterprise software. And most importantly, we can help participants think about their work or life in new ways. This was evidenced by a number of participants asking us if they could take pictures of the workflow maps, both the ones they were creating and the ones that we brought for the marketing events. Also, one of our partners shared that the activity was really useful to work through and visualize the situations that they were encountering with their clients.

Power-up three: immersion

[00:15:16] Which brings us to our last power-up: the immersive nature of this research. Throughout the two weeks, we sensed that something special was happening that was beyond just applying creative methods with the right target participants. We were fully immersed in our research questions and the product definition challenge, not jumping between incongruous meetings and menial tasks. We were thinking more creatively about themes and product opportunities, sometimes over meals, plane rides or cycling around Amsterdam. You can really tell that we were immersed in it, because we started seeing the word audit in some of the shop signs along the streets of Paris.

[00:15:59] That's not to say that we didn't take breaks from thinking about work, but often some of the best work-related ideas come when you're not in work mode. One pivotal moment in the project came during a dinner at a restaurant inside a cave in a Spanish mountain town. We were talking about some of our recent research conversations and started drawing out a totally novel design concept on the restaurant placemat. That type of gold is what being immersed in research can really provide. Also, a quick shout-out to Valencia, where we got to spend our weekend off, and which I know is now the new headquarters of UXDX. It was an absolutely beautiful city, and I look forward to returning.

[00:16:40] We were also building meaningful relationships through empathy, both with our marketing colleagues overseas and with participants who wanted to keep supporting us in this effort. Perhaps most important, though, we were learning alongside our participants. We were all facing the challenge of defining a collaborative and compliant cross-functional approach to ESG reporting. Our participants were doing this from an organizational perspective, and we were doing it from a software development perspective, but the same questions were buzzing around in all of our minds. For example, at the marketing events we'd be listening to the same speakers as our participants right before a research interaction. This really unlocked new ideas and synergies during the discussion that wouldn't have come if we were in a more sterile or isolated environment.

[00:17:33] Importantly, despite the immersion, we didn't forget about our colleagues back in the States. After each segment of the trip, we wrote up comprehensive Slack updates sharing what we were learning. A metaphor that we had fun with was the scientist and the goat man, representing two different approaches to research. If you haven't heard of the goat man, his name is Thomas Thwaites, and in 2016 he won a comedic Nobel Prize for developing prostheses that enabled him to walk and immerse himself among the goats. I don't think he was actually trying to do research, more just escape the complexities of human life, but that was undoubtedly some deep ethnography.

[00:18:16] Working in an emerging domain, we didn't really have much concrete evidence available to even try to be the scientist. Rather, we accepted that for this research, our best shot was to immerse ourselves as much as possible in the research question and the world of our customers. So we stepped out of our oyster shells and became the goat men, deep in the pastures of ESG and GRC. As we attended events and networked with prospects and customers, we were blurring the boundaries between researcher and participant, and we were constantly listening and co-processing what we were learning.

A happy ending

[00:18:58] Through discovering and employing the power-ups described today, this story came to quite a happy ending. By the end of the two-week research sprint, we could confidently articulate three concrete opportunities to leadership, with an indication of which maturity segments they applied to. These opportunities, first and foremost, were the foundation for our product vision, but they also offered suggestions for aligned messaging and go-to-market strategy. For each opportunity we presented an overview slide that highlighted the desired outcomes, pain points, stakeholders involved and workflow. Then we supported these with in-depth research insight slides that showed different parts of the workflow, with quotes and snapshots of the Collab Maps that participants built or reviewed.

[00:19:58] We provided recommendations for what to build, what to include in market materials and what to research further, and we created user journey maps and lo-fi sketches for concept solutions. Circling back to the goal of this talk, I'd encourage each of you to take a moment to jot down any ideas that come to mind for how you might apply these research power-ups to a project that you're working on. And then we'll segue from this into the Q&A.

Q&A

[00:20:29] Rory: Thank you very much. That was really interesting. It's definitely a domain that I don't have a lot of experience in, so it's always something new and interesting. But what I found fascinating was the approach that you took. It mimics a technique that I've used before called event storming. I don't know if you've heard about it, but it's where you get subject matter experts into a room and you just literally ask them what the activities are that happen in the system, and you try to draw out a user flow that obviously is not linear. It's going in all different directions. I thought it was fascinating how many patterns are repeated across what we do.

[00:21:12] Benjamin: That's cool, I'm going to look into that.

[00:21:12] Rory: If anybody else has any questions, please do comment on whichever platform you're watching on. But the question that I have is: I love the idea of the printed physical cards. I think it adds a tactile and a bit more of an engaging element. But what I was worrying about when I saw them was, are you restricting what people can do because of what you've decided to print out? And are you at risk of missing things because you've drawn your boundaries around what people can do?

[00:21:48] Benjamin: Great question. For each type of card we brought a variety of blanks, so we could write on them in real time, and we introduced that to participants at the beginning. I don't know if you saw in one of the pictures that I showed, but it was about 25% handwritten cards, so people were definitely feeling free to add their own, which was really critical.

[00:22:15] Rory: That was my big concern: are you restricting it, are you leading the witness?

[00:22:15] Benjamin: Yeah, totally.

[00:22:15] Rory: So no, that's great. And the other question: at the conference, I know you mentioned the quickfire one. It was again the same kind of fear that I had when I saw the printed sheets. Is that more evaluative rather than generative, because you're trying to test that, oh, we think this works?

[00:22:47] Benjamin: Yeah, definitely, it's getting more towards the evaluative side of the spectrum. When we did introduce it, we brought a fair amount of uncertainty. We said, this was our guess, but we really want you to tell us where we're wrong, what you would change. So we very much invited people to think critically about it. But especially in that environment, having a starting point was really essential. If we started out by just asking, how do you think you should collaborate with your GRC team on control testing, out of the blue, they would be like, well, maybe we've started reviewing things but haven't really gotten into it. They needed a thing to ground in. But we definitely encouraged as much generation from there as possible.

[00:23:37] Rory: It's a controversial one, but did you adopt the internet approach [?] of making intentional mistakes? Because that encourages more engagement. People prefer to tell you where you're wrong versus if everything's great.

[00:23:53] Benjamin: We didn't think of that, but I like that idea a lot. It also makes sure they're paying attention.

[00:23:53] Rory: I guess you have to balance that up with reputation, if they're like, who are these guys, they don't even know the basics.

[00:24:08] Benjamin: Yeah, the fact that we were integrating with the marketing events was an interesting line to toe. Often there's hesitancy to involve product teams in sales and marketing activities, because the tension between wanting to seem like you know everything already and wanting to learn don't always go well together. The fact that this is such a new and emerging domain helped to ease some of that tension. We could go in with a clear grounding in Workiva's messaging and what we do offer, and people totally understood that there were aspects that were just starting to come into play that we hadn't yet solved for. They really appreciated that members of the product team were there to learn from customers and prospects and make sure that we were evolving one step ahead of the market.

[00:24:55] Rory: And I love the concept of your customers spending your money. It seems to have been one that they also seemed to enjoy. But I guess this is the challenge that every product team has: our loudest customers are shouting and they want this, and you become more sales-driven versus product-driven. And there's a risk there, because I think you said that when you were presenting your findings, you were grouping them by different customer segments. So did you think there was potentially a risk that you were giving ammunition to sales and marketing that might pressure you in the direction you were going?

[00:25:39] Benjamin: That's something that we always have to navigate, in terms of making sure that we're not selling ahead of what the product offers. I think in this case, taking the reins and being a bit more explicit and offering clear suggestions for marketing was a great way to, in a way, step outside of our roles as product people. By giving them the right ammunition, it prevented them from using the wrong ammunition. So at least we were giving content that we knew was aligned with where the product was going, as opposed to something that could end up with gaps in the future, or the sales-driven approach.

[00:26:18] Rory: I think that's it. Does anybody have any questions? Doesn't look like anything's coming in. One just popped into my head. No, sorry, I lost it. I had a question and I lost it, apologies.

[00:26:34] Benjamin: One last thing to share: believe it or not, this is actually my last week at Workiva. It's been an amazing few years with a top-notch company, and I've got so much gratitude and respect for this team. But I will be transitioning back to my consulting business, Compass Experience Design. My contact info here is the email that I'll have access to. I really love brainstorming, designing and executing on creative research methodologies, so feel free to reach out. I'm happy to chat about how to apply these power-ups to your next project.

[00:27:06] Rory: Excellent. Really exciting move, so best of luck with that, and thank you again for sharing that fantastic case study.

[00:27:17] Benjamin: Thank you, thank you, Rory.