Wizarding Users to Love your Software

The basic originator of a software idea is a human being. And most of the time for the use of another human being. Software functions can come from an identified node of a Business Value Chain, but still interactions at various nodes consist actions of an end user who is a human. Who is your customers or the clients. What we are talking about here is human centered software design. So when it comes to human centricity, your end user should love the software that you had designed. Therefore, in baseline terms your software's success depends on how much your Client and the end users loves it. So lets take a foot forward in this article and talk about how to embed human factors into this process. This invitation is to dive with me on todays edition where we check on how to understand your users and create a design that they would use and reuse.

There are few very important areas by which you can achieve this. Below are a few,

1. Empathy
2. Data Analytics
3. Extensive Prototyping
4. Responsible Design

I have included some of my own experiences into this article instead of straightway going for Human Centered Design or it's cousin, Design Thinking. So if you are an aspiring Business Analyst or a Product Designer, tryout the below content in your projects and check the outcome.

Empathy,

Empathy is what's mostly needed for better customer experience. To begin anything, first of all you need to understand your user. You should learn what they feel about their current processes and what they will feel in the future with the software given to them, designed for these problems. Therefore, proper understanding should be done regarding your user, their feelings, their problems by putting them on the center stage. After a proper understanding only a sound solution can be designed.

There are some techniques that's been used by BA's in this regard.

User Personas - To understand your user well, write down everything you know about them. Even minor details can come handy in the future when you design the software. So understand before hand and have a clear picture of to whom you are addressing with the software in the future.

Customer Journey Map - Use this technique to understand the pain points in the process and to have a proper understanding of what customer's face. You can identify their emotions at each step and come with the solutions. This activity should be done as a group with business stakeholder participation.

Empathy Map - Rather to above 2 techniques you can use this to learn deeply into what your user feels. This activity also can be done in a group setting.

You can further learn the above techniques through some more reading, and use them for proper empathy in your software design stage.

Using Data Analytics,

Understanding the User can also be done through a proper analysis of existing data. From this the Business Analyst can get an idea of what people thinks about a particular problem. Can be done by choosing a sample of the population and getting their experience on particular problem through google sheets.

But in it's most useful version, analytics will come in handy when revamping an existing software or when development are iterating in sprints. In here if the software is a mobile application, BA can check the comments and ratings in Google Playstore and learn what can be done better in future releases. Also customer surveys can help in this regards. After getting these data, BA can analyze them and present the finding in the next sprint design stage.

Another way that can be used to track how user's use certain features are by adding code to them. This is by using data to get insight on which features in the software are used mostly and not used in general. An example will be if the application is having a star button for user to bookmark a picture but usage is very low. Then you can re think and add a heart instead and check the data after a week. In such ways you can understand what user's love and give them a tailor made software to their liking at the completion of product development.

If you are having data resources at your disposal, you can do a sentimental analysis for the product also. Can be done using Azure or any other Machine Learning implementation. Use platforms like Facebook page or Playstore to come with business intelligence. You can present these findings to your team and management to give an idea about where the brand is headed and where customers are driven to.

All are powerful methods, which can give a sound software which was designed by tapping into the mindset of people using the power of data. As today almost all the companies are moving to data driven decision making, the scrum teams should also evolve in the new era of tech.

Extensive Prototyping,

Another very important area is to visualize the look and feel of the software. This can be done after the Empathy stage and after understanding what should be built in accord to the users needs and wants.

People can understand what they "See" easily than when they read or listen. Prototyping comes in handy here. This is where the BA visualize the complete system through wireframes, add the button clicks and presents it to the client/customers or development team. By using the art of Visualization, BA can talk to all the stakeholders and get their opinions. This is where an extensive prototyping should be done.

First start with rapid prototyping using an easy to use tool such as Balsamiq. What you can do here, is to create your sample prototypes after the user understanding, and what you had learned from the requirement. You have the full power to come up with a draft solution afterwards by your own. It is for the start. Next is to arrange a workshop with your development team and the business stakeholders where you present the solution that you came up with. Then starts the team work where you gather the ideas of each individual and change or improve the design to better the solution. You can do the changes to prototypes at the workshop itself, by using rapid prototyping. Go for more workshop sessions if finalization doesn't happen. Rapid prototyping is handy when you should remove features and completely new changes should be done to them. This is where ease of Balsamiq comes in handy.

Get a version of the prototypes and send them to the end users. Ask them to use it and come up with suggestion or improvements. Keep on doing this activity iteratively till everyone is satisfied with the solution and you had covered everything. You can use Low Fidelity prototyping at these initial stages and then move to high fidelity when solution had been cleared. Finally the SRS drafting can be done to the solution.

Low Fidelity Prototyping - Can be done using tools such as Google slides or Balsamiq.

High Fidelity Prototyping - You can Use tools such as Figma or Uizard for this.

Future, Responsible Design

To start the final point for today's topic of creating software which people loves, I will be asking some important questions. Have your software serving the wider human society? How a blind person can interact with the software? Even for people having color blindness how can they use it with the feeling of inclusiveness?

Most designs does not consider this factor. But our systems should serve the wider human society including the disabled as well, even if it is a minimum of a proportion. This is how your brand will be unraveled to the wider society. And accepted by many even thought you are not targeting the many. Not by any other matrix but through empathy. With sense of respect to what you are trying for the society as a whole. Responsible companies should not always take care of majority of their customers but all of their customers. This is the future software design mindset that we should cultivate in our stakeholders minds. This is which we calls Inclusive Design.

Steps can be taken in this regard, by teams. One can be the example with color blinded individuals. To address their needs you can avoid using red color to transmit messages in your software. One scenario can be taken as when showing an importance of an information in the software, not to use the red color but instead symbols. For the blind, you can have a voice detection and text to speech converter implemented in your application if it's a mobile app. Todays technology is advance enough to do these and there are cloud APIs you can use for these features. Likewise, create the inclusiveness in your software going forward and talk to the full population, and be a part of designing better software's in the future that values everyone.

So these are few ways which can help you as a BA or a Product Designer to design software products that would be loved by many. Who will not only use it once, but also reuse it. In this setting, the Business Analyst is having more weight in the success of the intentions of the product. He/She should collaborate with all the stakeholders, use relevant techniques and tools to come up with a solution that worth developing. Then development can be done by keeping in mind the person who will get it at the end. And will talk to his senses at the end through a well designed software. Done by a well thought team working day in and day out of whom he even haven't met in person. Making everyone a winner at the end of the day. Which is the real magic of Software development.

Image sources:

https://miro.com

https://uizard.io

https://balsamiq.com