Empathetic Research: Learn More by Speaking Less

Ibrahim Ayub at UXDX Community: EMEA Online Series. Video: https://youtu.be/kApVDE0ObRM

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.

Introduction and the central question

[00:00:00] Hi everyone, I'm Ibrahim, and I do recognize the irony of talking about research and saying to speak less, but I'll try to keep it brief and go through this different way of thinking about research and how we conduct our methods of understanding users and the people that we're working with.

[00:00:23] A quick intro. I'm currently based in Boston. My focus has been around user research, experience strategy, human centered design, and you can add across that a background across consulting, UX quite a bit, with cultural ethnography and computer science. So a lot of my work ends up being at this intersection between strategy, what are we looking to accomplish; design, how do we really understand the people that we're trying to interact with; technology, how do we enable it; and then adding that cultural lens and element to make sure that we're thinking about these products holistically and inclusively across the different stakeholders and groups.

[00:01:05] To set the stage a bit and talk about this today: basically we have your CMS connections[?], there's no shortage of ways that we can connect with the people that we're working with or that we're designing for. It's never been easier to engage, but on the flip side there is this fragmented understanding of how do we really get to the core of what people are looking for, especially as designers, product managers, owners, where that responsibility is so high to make sure that we're delivering on the things that people really are looking for.

[00:01:44] That's where we are today. And to align a bit on having the central question for the next 20, 25 minutes or so, it's basically this: how do we foster deeper understanding of our partners to create more empathetic products and services? I use partners specifically instead of users, which I'll talk through in a bit, but it's really about not just the people that we're designing for, creating products for, but that whole ecosystem around who's involved within the work that we're doing.

The constraints: bias, technology and social dynamics

[00:02:23] With that challenge, I like to also ground on what are the constraints in which we try to approach this type of problem, like any designer or product problem. You can think about these three core constraints today.

[00:02:39] One, human biases. Grounding in reality today, that we as people are naturally just hardwired to have shortcuts to think through all the stimulus around us, and that's just the nature of how we act. So it's not necessary to think of how do we remove bias when we're doing research, but how to minimize it and address it and recognize it throughout the process.

[00:03:04] Existing technology as well. You want to make sure that we're also grounded in the fact that we can't necessarily use something net new, but versus that, how do we change the way that we're engaging with people through the different tools and services that we currently have at our disposal.

[00:03:25] And then social dynamics as well, to also understand that there are certain things that are ingrained within our society now, for better or worse, that we also need to be cognizant of when we're designing for people who particularly may not be so similar to us in terms of behaviors, motivations and needs and things like that.

Four guiding principles

[00:03:50] These are the guard rails, I'd say, but outside of that everything is up for grabs, and so that's why I like to think of this as an empathy playground. What's the space that we can work within and really focusing on those parts to drive the most impact?

[00:04:09] I like to start from that, before even getting into certain research methods and tools, of what's the mindset that we as designers, researchers, are going into these types of processes with. And I have four guiding principles. One, curiosity. Being curious of why might people be interacting in certain ways, how are they doing it, and having that lens where we can zoom in, zoom out to really understand holistically.

[00:04:48] And so this is where we want to not solely be thinking about product features or specific pain points necessarily, versus how does that whole person interact and engage with the world and environment around them.

[00:05:03] Third, being collaborative. This is also something that Jan touched upon as well, that thinking about who are the people in the room. The more that we are speaking, the less opportunity we have to actually learn from others as well. So how can we create this co-creation, collaborative type of approach when it comes to research and ultimately design and execution?

[00:05:28] And then lastly, iterative. There's no checkbox of I'm empathetic now, or my empathy research is complete, versus something that continuously has to be done on an ongoing basis, as products change, as our research changes, as we as individuals and society evolve as well.

[00:05:52] So as we go through the process or the approach towards this empathetic research, these are the four mindsets, guiding principles, we'll come back to, but I want to have top of mind as we go through the steps.

[00:06:12] There are three steps really that I'll lay out here. One is constructing their mental model. Second, investigating with minimal bias, so again, it will never be zero bias, but addressing, recognizing and minimizing it there. And then reorienting across systems, both the systems of their products and what we're designing, as well as the system of the people we're designing for.

Constructing their mental model

[00:06:48] Constructing their mental model. This is where a lot of cultural ethnography comes into play. You really want to anchor on those that we're serving. As many of you probably have heard, especially with design, you're not designing for yourself, you're designing for others, and we have to as much as we can remove ourselves from what we're hearing. There's this separation between what are we observing versus evaluation.

[00:07:20] So to the extent that we can, really having that research phase removing any type of evaluation or analysis to pure raw input of, this is what the person is saying. The meaning of it, or why, you dig into, but you can't say at that point that this is the reason why they feel XYZ. Really thinking about that model from a blank page. We don't want to fit them into our world, our understanding, versus what is an empty canvas, put them on an empty canvas and then start designing and creating what that world view looks like.

[00:08:07] And this is where we're talking about learning more by speaking less, really understanding and recognizing the power that the words that we use have when it comes to creating and understanding mental models.

Metaphors we live by

[00:08:24] The one around just generally a mental structure, basically shaping the way that they see the world, the goals they seek and the choices that they make. And there's a bit of priming around the language element. There's a book, Metaphors We Live By, which basically talks about how the different ways that we describe the world, or the metaphors that we're using, can create implicit bias or implicit perceptions of the world.

[00:08:57] A couple here. More is up. You'll see this kind of vertical idea around having more, so we think of income is rising, bigger is better, that it goes to this abundance culture where we keep wanting more and increasing.

[00:09:16] A second, time is money. Especially when we're thinking as we're designing products, we're thinking about what needs are, or even marketing them, that a lot of times you hear people say, well, it'll save you X number of hours by using this, or it will help you better budget your time. But even this idea of time can be in a lot of ways sometimes linear or also more circular, and also the value that people place on time isn't the same type of value that they would be placing on money or currency. So it comes to some of these points that we want to minimize in the way that we're talking about potential benefits or features and how we describe them.

[00:10:01] Another example, saying user groups are a community. Whether we want to try to foster community with our users, but first, what does community actually even mean for the users? Is that something where everyone is extremely well connected and learning from one another, or is it that we're thinking about community as this product, or the services, the leader, and we're kind of following onwards? It does impact basically the way that they're experiencing the products and services that we have. So it goes to the point that the language, the words that we're saying, really drives a lot of the impact of how we understand people.

[00:10:44] A specific example of language impacting how people experience the world with design as well: the Shona language, they don't have words for red or orange to differentiate between the two colors. So typically people that speak that language don't even see a difference when you have something red versus orange. This is one example where if you're designing a color palette or you're creating a product and you have red and orange, for people that speak that type of language there won't be any specific difference that they're seeing.

[00:11:20] So we need to be cognizant that what we're saying and describing is going to be different from how the person is perceiving that same area. And that goes to, again, not removing from our perspective onto the other person and really keeping it on observation. With that in mind, then we can start basically constructing this mental model and doing this type of investigation.

Tools for investigating with minimal bias

[00:11:52] How to basically do that without saying as much: there are a couple of different tools that you can think about. One, and this goes to the point around being holistic, is it is what people are saying, but then also getting that full empathy map or affinity map of what are they actually doing, what are they feeling, the thoughts that are going through the person's head as they're potentially using a product, or just as they're going through their type of day. This is really focusing on observed behaviors, focusing on the words and things that they are saying, to get that full picture.

[00:12:34] There are a couple of ways that we can do this specifically around this idea of language and trying to minimize the type of bias that can inherently come from how we're speaking.

[00:12:48] One is around metaphor, so taking that idea of metaphors into user research. An example, for instance, let's say you have an e-commerce store website, and if you think of framing it as product search selection is a genie granting wishes. What are those wishes going to look like, what would that be for you? And then you're removing that specific description of walk me through your experience of going through checkout, for instance, versus now you can get more at the actual end value drivers for the people by framing it, removing it from the actual product.

[00:13:35] Second is around visualization. This is removing the speaking entirely, where we've done this in person with people drawing, or on Miro, and then having people describe afterwards. One example is for internal work, so if you're in HR or thinking about employee experience, especially now with hybrid models of where people are working, sometimes in person, sometimes remote. That example could be, imagine the employees are on a bus, what does it look like?

[00:14:15] There are a lot of interesting insights that come out of this, where do people describe where are people sitting on the bus, for instance? Are people sitting by department, does everyone have their own seat, are people grouped by when they joined, by seniority, who's driving the bus, where's the bus going, how many people are driving it? These types of things where you can start to understand more of how are employees thinking about their experience with work and with their colleagues, which again drives more insights than asking, do you want an open floor plan or a closed floor plan, what type of company culture do you want? These are ways that you can get to those through a more scenic route, but it does minimize some of the inherent bias in terms of how you ask the questions. And it also goes to power dynamics and things like that, if they think of the CEO or executives only as the ones driving and employees have no idea where it's going, or things like this.

[00:15:22] And then lastly, on surveys. This goes to that point around the abundance culture as well. A lot of times when it's not possible to do in-person sessions, or inherently there are a lot of surveys that will be done to facilitate user research, think about the framing of those questions as well. So for instance, rating something on a scale of negative five to plus five versus zero to ten. Both have the same number of options, but if we're thinking of this abundance culture of zero to ten, we're looking just straight at magnitude, and four may mean one thing. Versus if we're saying negative five to plus five, then we're getting a distinction between what is overall negative sentiment versus what might be the magnitude of interest, for instance.

[00:16:20] These again sometimes can feel like small points, but when we're really trying to understand, especially with surveys of a broad audience, these are the kinds of things that we want to think about. What, how are we framing the questions in a way, and what might be the different interpretations that people might have as they go through each of them.

Reorienting across systems: the person

[00:16:45] As we go through these different types of exercises and ways to have that more empathy driven research, then the third step is reorienting across systems as well. There are two frames of this.

[00:17:06] The first is our people. So not just the users, as I was mentioning before. The way that people are interacting with a product as a user is just one very small part of their overall life. I'm thinking more of what are the different dimensions and layers of that person. The overall patterns, trends, events that we're seeing on top, but then also underlying with structural, institutional and those mental models that we talked about before, where this gives a more complete picture of the people that we're serving.

[00:17:47] Another example for this, for instance, is around social media, where right now I'm launching a startup and doing a lot of work with content creators, and there are obviously very different perceptions or ideas around social media attention, the attention economy and things like this. When we're speaking to people, particularly a lot of creators who are moms, their own experience with their work as a creator, we found there's impact when they have children and then they see certain studies, reports about the impact on their attention and development, which are things that obviously then impact how they would be interacting with our product or any social media products. These are things which, only focusing on the product, you wouldn't necessarily get, but having that full complete picture provides a more holistic view and understanding.

Reorienting across systems: the product and environment

[00:18:44] Once we first anchor on the person, then we can more properly look at the product. Oops, sorry about that. The product itself. There's the product, and we think of the journey map, the specific interactions, but then also what are the other products or services that they're using within, or as a complement to ours, and then the environment that they're in as well.

[00:19:16] Examples here: are people using your product when they're more on the move versus sitting down, for instance, for mobile apps? This is going to then impact how much you want people really focusing, sitting, looking at the product if they're walking on the street, things like this, versus sitting down and having more time to go through it in depth.

[00:19:38] One example, if you use CarPlay, like Apple CarPlay, when you're driving, you'll see that Spotify has a different view when they see that you are driving. They make things bigger, also minimize the amount of stimuli and data that's being presented, because they recognize that you are driving. So that's something that we want to be cognizant about, how we're designing our product is not just the specific buttons but it's more broadly, again, where the person is in that environment as well.

Cultural considerations in leadership, execution and design

[00:20:18] Some other kind of considerations[?] for leadership, as we think about this holistically. One, target customers, and market entry and expansion, of the customers that we are designing for. Do we have a really clear understanding of the cultural impact and considerations that come into play with any new market?

[00:20:43] And as we go through that execution, who's actually involved, who's the customer's voice being heard by, and if it's not being heard, who is transmitting it, and what are the steps that are diluting that initial source as well? This is also something that Jan had mentioned as well, that there is going to be research, analysis and synthesis that will get to certain insights, but then the different perspectives of the people that are providing that type of input will provide a more holistic view of it.

[00:21:23] And then from design as well. We mentioned colors in terms of, from one extreme, that people may not even differentiate between red and orange, but also from a cultural perspective, we think of orange as a hazard in the US, but in certain parts of Asia it's associated with positivity, spiritual enlightenment. So here we have to think about what are the multiple signals that we can reinforce with what we're actually trying to convey to customers, because they may have different interpretations or understanding of it. And images obviously, and navigation as well. So a lot of things to think about as we're going through the process.

What this looked like at Movig

[00:22:13] I'll quickly wrap up. We're in a constant state of evolution, so this is never a final check. Think about how we are verbs, not nouns. Recognizing that there is a lot that needs to be done to understand people, but that understanding never ends, so we want to recognize that as we move forward.

[00:22:40] I'll give a quick some good examples of what this looked like in practice with our startup, Movig. It's basically a business suite for creators to manage the back office of all of their work.

[00:22:57] Some of the things that I think we have done well from the empathy driven side. One, recognizing that for creators, what is the business side of it, what does it look like for them, where for small and medium businesses or enterprises you think very clearly around, okay, this is sales, this is projects, this is the payments. For them, we didn't initially frame our research around that. We framed it more around, what are your goals for this type of work, what are the areas that you're spending X amount of time on, and then ended up wrapping it around the business side of things.

[00:23:39] Second, around visual cues. This was again that there was a bit of a separation, or an understanding that as creators they're very creative, thinking visually, and we reinforced that with how we were designing and conveying the information around these more business focused topics.

[00:24:01] And then reinforcing this idea of the journey, because we saw that what that overall journey of being a creator is, how that also is complemented with their own personal journey, that some of these people were doing this part time and focused a lot of the business metric success not on how much revenue you're making but the consistency of your routines to enable the goals that they had from this area.

[00:24:32] Some of the lessons learned. One, around time commitments, that this was very varied for different people, that we had to make sure we recognized that their vision of success was very different based off of the other stuff that they had going on. And then educational resources, that was much more important than we initially realized, having that education more integrated throughout as well, and reinforcing those routines.

Wrap-up

[00:25:07] So to wrap up here, the takeaways: the outputs depend on the nature of our inputs in terms of how we're approaching research, who's in the room, thinking about the language, what we're actually speaking, how that impacts empathetic leadership and research throughout, and recognizing that it's a constantly evolving situation. So we need to construct their mental models, go through this type of investigation trying to minimize bias as much as we can, and then continuously zooming in, zooming out to get that full picture, and then repeat the process as much as possible.

[00:25:51] That's it for today. I would love to stay connected, and thanks a lot for your time.

Q&A

[00:26:01] Host: Thank you Ibrahim, a really interesting talk. I loved the color example, because I hadn't heard that one about orange and red. I've heard that in ancient languages they find no description of blue up until modern times, so people would describe the sea as wine dark because they didn't have a color blue to describe it with. So it's very interesting to see how language influences things.

[00:26:33] Host: If anybody has any comments or questions please do share them and I'll dig in deeper, but I'll start with one. That was a great deep dive into trying to understand the mental model of a particular person. But what if you have, let's say, multiple personas or multiple different user groups for your product? Do you recommend trying to do it for each of them? Where do you draw the line, as in do you have a persona of one, or how do you draw a grouping around your personas?

[00:27:09] Ibrahim: Yeah, it's a good question. I think it probably depends on where, if it's a net new research project you're starting, or this is later on where personas have been developed. Typically what we like to do is basically use the mental models to inform the personas as well, so that the personas are less around certain interactions with products or other services, versus the people that have a similar value system, for instance, that we would want to treat in one way, in that persona A. So using that as one of the inputs.

[00:27:56] Ibrahim: And then there's also a bit of a separation of that first understanding of, these are our three groups of people that typically think XYZ in different ways. But then when it goes to the actual product of, then we need to design feature A, B, C, like having a social component for instance, then it goes a bit into the messaging of how is that being conveyed to group A versus group two. And there could be some overlap there, but it's typically the separation of, one is like these people generally think and behave the same way, and then second, then we think how do we address them from a product perspective, if that makes sense.

[00:28:40] Host: Yeah, so I guess you need to just look at your products and then determine where the right boundaries are, but then once you have those boundaries, follow your advice of getting into the head of, constructing the mental models of those people.

[00:28:56] Host: Yeah, brilliant. I think that's actually all we have time for, so I just want to thank you very much for sharing. I hope everybody out there enjoyed it as much as I did, so thank you once again.

[00:29:10] Ibrahim: Yeah, thanks a lot.