Presentation about the true user experience that I have delivered at the Digital Meet-Up for the Edinburgh public sector in Edinburgh. I am explaining why so many organisations fail at delivering good customer experience — and how this can be addressed.

1. The True User Experience Wojtek Kutyla, Digital Meet Up March 2018
Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

2. Hello, everyone.
@wojtekkutyla

3. What’s today about?
The True User Experience

4. Problematic buzzwords
User Experience Design, Innovation, Digital Transformation, Service Design, Big Data, Small Data, any kind
of data, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing… Put your own term here.

5. Two different experiences: case study one
Imagine someone, who really wants to attend a gallery event.

6. Meet John. John likes photography. He’s a finance specialist. He
lives in London.
Photo by Firza Pratama on Unsplash

7. He’s heard of a new talk on the work of Joel Meyerowitz.
It’s exciting. John really wants to go.

8. John is on the bus and looking at the website of the organiser
— a major gallery.
All that John can see visiting the site is the Cookie alert, obscuring
half of the page.
It can’t be easily closed and reappears on every page.
But he’s determined.

9. At lunchtime, he’s visiting the site from his office computer. Much
better. It works. Yay!

10. It takes him a while to find the talk.
It’s buried on the site and the search shows him past talks from
last 5 years. He doesn’t have time to waste.

11. Yet, it takes him a while to find the talk.
Excited to go, John looks at details. To find that the talk is at 2 pm
on Friday afternoon.
The gallery closes at 5 pm anyway.
John’s working hours are 9am-5: 30 pm.

12. John is mildly annoyed, to say the least. He’s mumbling something
about academics and people who don’t need to work.
He’s deciding to watch a Netflix documentary on Meyerowitz instead.

13. What just happened?
• The gallery lost a visitor. He’s negatively biased towards its services.
• The website delivered only the bare-minimum experience and wasn’t easy to
use.
• The talk will not be attended by many working, interested individuals.
• Yet, something was right… Perhaps? The gallery has organised a talk and it
will have some attendees.

14. Is this a good customer experience — or bad?

15. Two different experiences: case study two
Let’s look outside the sector.

16. Meet Anna. Anna just moved into a new flat. She needs to
change an energy supplier. She lives in a Scottish town.
Photo by Nicholas Green on Unsplash

17. She’s found a new one through a referral — and both she and her
friend will get a discount after she joins.

18. The experience is painless. No jargon, no stress, no limiting
policies, and all is explained very well.
Anna’s got no clue what kWh is, but she knows how much she’ll
pay every month.

19. The account is set up in five minutes, and on the train home from
work, Anna checks the mobile app of the supplier.
They have already applied the discount.

20. When there’s a time for a new reading, Anna can photograph the
home meters — instead of typing numbers in. The app recognises
all digits. So easy.

21. Anna’s partner, Morag, moved in with her and would like her
name to be added to the bill.

22. Anna replies to a generic marketing email received earlier. One
of consultants replies within 10 minutes.
He’s making the change on the account without a problem.

23. Super-happy with the service, Anna shares her referral code with
Chris, her colleague.
Together they enjoy another discount and the service.
Chris is blind but can use the website and the app with no problem.

24. What just happened?
• The organisation fulfilled its goals and now has THREE new clients.
• The website and the app worked coherently and delivered a fantastic
experience.
• Customer support was phenomenal.
• The network will grow with every new referral.

25. How come that these two experiences vary that much?
It’s 2018, after all! Things should just work out…

26. How do they work?
The Gallery The Energy Provider
Long decision chain, multiple stakeholders
Empowered, decisive teams and company-
wide collaboration
Complicated internal politics
Common understanding of working for the
same goal
Technology decisions driven entirely by goals
established without consideration of users
Technologies build to address user and
business needs
Lack of understanding of the customer Perfect understanding of the customer

27. Problem 1
We’re always comparing our experiences to the best ones. Across all sectors.

28. Problem 2
User experience is always present, whether we like it or not. It’s only good, or bad.

29. Problem 3
To create an exceptional user experience, we often need to step out of many comfort zones — and to win
many battles.
Funnily enough, mostly inside our own organisations.

30. Problem 4
By not improving services in a continuous fashion we are regressing.

31. How do we build a great user experience?

32.
1. Our service is a product for real people.
It’s not means of fulfilling a mission, corporate needs or unidentified business goals.

33. 2. We should base our design decisions on the understanding of
user needs and business needs.
Constant research with real users, customers, visitors… You name them.

34. Sources of data on customer behaviour and needs
• Website analytics
• Observation — direct and through a proxy
• Focus groups, public research, in-depth interviews
• Surveys
• Events
• Competitor analysis
• Publicly available data

35. 3. We need to realise that user journey doesn’t start and end with
a website.
There’s so much more beyond!

36. 4. We should expose all teams in our organisations to user
behaviour.
Do you know that GOV.UK has a policy on user research observation?

37. 5. We need to think of the future — not only in terms of contracts
and budgets.
We have to consider the long-term growth of our customer groups.

38. 6. We shall look outside the sector — for inspiration and guidance.
The truth is, truly exciting pathways are mostly opened by private sector organisations.

39. 6. We have to work towards a common goal of customer
satisfaction.
Abandoning the silos of individual team KPI’s and indicators based on vanity metrics.

40. 7. We need to rewrite old internal policies and focus on the user/
customer experience at their cores.
Most policies are badly written and can’t challenge the rapidly changing situation on the experience market.

41. – Paul Boag, The User Experience Revolution
“Experience design […] is not about designing pretty interfaces
or creating compelling brands. It’s about better serving today’s
connected consumers. […] And to do that, companies need to
redefine their relationships with their customers.”

42. Keep asking yourself
• Is our product (or service) really helping anyone?
• Is my work bringing real value to our end-users?
• Are we focusing on the user, or on our own organisation?
• Do we have real influence over our approach to defining success
measures?
And, most of all…

43. What could I do to develop myself as a designer of this service?

44. Let’s have a short break.
Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

45. Time to have some fun.
Let's work on some user journeys together.

46. Pick a scenario
• Visiting a zoo with two young children
• Moving to a new area and registering for a council tax account
• Booking a visit to a guided gallery tour
• First visit to a new coffee place
• Registering for an online course

47. The user journey
The
website
543 87621 9
Goal
Steps
How can we engage with the user?
543 87621 9

48. How did it go?

49. Actions outside our typical remit present opportunities for design.
An outcome is only good if it’s actioned.

50. Innovation does not exist in the world of stiff politics and legacy
systems.
Start changing the world around you — from the inside.

51. Thank you. Questions?
Please, ask.
Find me on Twitter: @wojtekkutyla
Email: wojtek.kutyla@codeclan.com