KISS People

From the title you might think this is going to be a Valentine's post ??????

Sorry to get your hopes up, but no. It's about two things that relate, keeping it simple sweetie + people.

Is it easy to understand?

I've encountered a few resources lately that made me think, Whoa, this is not easy to understand to me. Note: For this article, I'm not going to share the actual references as I don't want to call people out, since this is my opinion.

Case 1: Here's an easy-to-understand SQL resource--the only one you'll need!

Yikes...that does not seem easy to understand to me! However, some people said it was great and very easy to understand. Was it just me??????

Case 2: And then there's the 'elegant solution' I've seen in an application. It was like someone said, what's intuitive for people? And let's do the opposite. At one point, I wondered if they actually talked to the potential users of their application. To even think that question is not good.

Side note: I used to work with two contractors when I was an FTE (full time equivalent/employee) who said when something was very robust (or better or worse), they would say it was an elegant solution and I immediately added to my vocabulary.

Who's your audience?

Whether it's a SQL reference, this newsletter, or an application, it's super important to ask the question, who is my audience? What do they know, how do they write, how do they speak, are there any barriers to understanding (you knew I had to get some accessibility point in there ??)?

For the convoluted SQL chart, maybe that wasn't designed for a newbie or someone with ADHD. Maybe it's an easy to understand reference for intermediate users. Then my experience of being challenging while other people found it helpful would make sense! It's not for me!

The application? Maybe it's designed by data engineers for data engineers.

KISS principle and how it can work in practice

I was a system admin of a tool where we had a lot of quarterly users. They weren't in the tool the whole time and needed it to be easy to run reports. We also had a small but mighty group of power users who were responsible for some very important reports. They needed advanced features, but not at the expense of the quarterly users.

How did we solve this? We looked at common items that both groups needed (for example, everyone was more often than not running their reports on the same criteria time and time again. So, we implemented a saved criteria feature, so that they could bypass that step. One less click to get the data to analyze! Additionally, we knew the power users needed the advanced functionality but how do we implement it without confusing others? We made it an option in a drop-down menu. This design was simple, effective, and met the needs of both audiences.

It's people

On the surface, this is a captain obvious statement. Sometimes though, we geek out over what we're doing, we want to provide the greatest flexibility for options, or even make assumptions about what they know or don't know.

I'll share a personal example that I think I've shared in some form before. I was talking to some coworkers about enablement. You know I love enablement so I was geeking out and I made some assumptions. I thought, surely if I know this then everyone else does too. It was the first time someone virtually pulled me aside and said something like, "Emily, I can tell you that really love this and are an expert in it. But, we aren't. We don't know those concepts and I think you think we do. And, you can see so far down the road, and we need that, but others don't see what you see so it's going over some people's heads."

Oof. I apologized immediately and then changed how I communicated with that team. I share this only to show that you can have this challenge as someone who is super smart, super knowledgable, or even someone who doesn't know what they know and thinks everyone knows it. How to make sure that you don't fall into this trap?

Check-in with the people in your audience. Whether it's a simple, "Just making sure we're on the same page..." to using one the fancy polls everyone seems to be using on LinkedIn these days, or official user requirement or feedback sessions.

To be clear

There are a ton of resources out there on identifying your primary audience so I won't get into that, but will address this point:

Speaking to your primary audience does not mean you can't attract others to use your product (reference sheet/dashboard/newsletter/application). It just means you're getting the people who should be using your product to know about and use it. And for others, they can consider whether it's something to learn more about.

What does that look like in practice?

• See and understand them. What problem does your product solve? Acknowledge the problem and that you can offer the transformation. The product is like an airplane. It takes them from pain to pleasure or challenge to benefit.

• Use their words and speak with a tone and with words that attract, not repel.
• When people are turned off by you or your product (and they're in your primary market), it makes it harder to get critical mass of raving fans that can help you grow.
• Recognize that users are actually people, not this amorphous group. Sometimes people focus on the solution and forget that individuals use the product.

I love thinking about the everyday person who is just trying to get their job done and needs things to just work; to make their life easier. Keeping it as simple as possible for your audience can do just that.

A quick note: I'll be participating in a data forum Wednesday (12pm EST) hosted by Annabelle Rincon and Garrett Sauls and sponsored by InterWorks . The focus of this webinar is to discuss enablement (what it is, how you can do it, even when it's not your job title, and how to enable all people). You can register for the webinar with this enablement webinar link. I hope you'll be able to attend!