Story of how I cracked a UX Project!

In August 2020, an American IT Firm, working with a Swiss Pharma company, connected with me. They had been working on a software solution and the project had got stuck. It was already more than a month of no go, when they got in touch through a common friend.

I was asked whether I could help. I said of course, solving problems was my core strength. However, the purist that I am, I asked them whether as a User Experience Designer, my goal is to generate paper to justify what they had done? Do I need to spew out jargon to make the client bow on his knees? Well then I was not interested. Well they told me that they had enough people who can do the jargon, but they found it difficult to find a problem solver. It did help that I had a history of problem solving right from my childhood.

I asked them what the project was about and they said that the company was using a software made in a certain framework and were shifting to a more powerful PowerBI framework.

Of course they setup a meeting with the top management of the Swiss company (stakeholders) to discuss the issues. I was sceptical of whether I can locate the issue by just talking to the top management, but I was game!

I attended the first meeting where they presented the software screen and said that there was no progress happening and they did not get good feedback from the sales. My first question was, did the sales people use the new version in the market or they just tested in. Well, I came to know that it was still in the test phase. I did not have any other question for them. I just asked them to share with me the previous version of the software and the new version.

Soon the builds arrived. Phew! I asked them to just give me the screenshots. Whack! The screenshots arrived. I called back immediately, I think I have caught the problem.

Well, I just sat with the screens for about 20 minutes and played the game, spot the differences. I like to keep my pursuits very clean without the heavy jargon. I could come up with about 12 differences. Then a wicked thought struck me. I gave the problem to my wife to study. She gave me 5 differences. I then gave it to all my staff. And with varying results all landed between 2-4 differences including my illiterate peon.

My biggest problem is being into too many things. So I set about a research. I tested the same with students of the best colleges of India studying design. I ended up with about 3-4 responses per person. I was also tabulating the time required for each person (and of course I had removed all signatures from the graphic to protect the client's interests). Then came up a 48 minute contest which is held up at world level. So I put up that problem in that contest and had some more data. In my entire attempt, except my own son (he is exceptional, he got 12 including 5 that I didn't), nobody crossed even 5 differences. By now, I had a list of 24 differences. After prioritizing them, I made a presentation to the company. And they immediately set to work, and just after these corrections which were pretty simple to do, they project moved ahead fast.

The core learning in this is

1. UX has been reduced to a predicatable process, though it requires a mechanic who can spot the issue by listening the sound of the engine.
2. UX is bogged down by the look of the supporting documents than real progress.
3. Too less focus is given to the actual sakeholders - the users and the company owners
4. Too few people can actual spot issues. Most of them are not trained to look.

In this project, all I did was imagine the plight of a pharma salesperson sitting in front of a doctor and trying to retrieve his data. And in a zap, I felt that he is not able to retrieve his information with ease. Even a slight change in ordering of data, or the filter settings can unnerve someone who is already feeling the pressure of the doctor's ticking clock. It is same like driving your friend's car. All the controls are same, and all the controls are there, but nothing is the same.

signed

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*all the names of the companies and persons are ficticious, and a figment of the author's imagination. Any resemblence with real people, software, companies or countries is merely a coincidence. The author has no legal obligation to reply to you.

*don't be mislead by the above statement, it is issued so that reality doesn't come after me ;-)