Over my 35-year career, I’ve worked at several small companies. There, I’ve typically worn many hats – tech writer, instructional designer, usability specialist … And that’s for pretty much anything that came through the door – banking, health, transportation, sports, food …
I’ve also worked at a larger company where I wore the same hats, but for only one of their many products. Finally, I’ve also worked at a large company where I was a user researcher on a single product.
That last one is the worst. For one, I love variety. Now, it turns out I did do a lotta pinch-hitting, so it wasn’t really all that bad.
What I did not like, though, was that the user experience itself was so siloed. For example, the storefront page was its own little group, as was applying for an account, and then servicing the account.
Needless to say, users simply didn’t think that way. For example, take when I tested those online account applications. I really couldn’t just throw the user into that flow.
First, they really had to have some idea of what they were applying for. (Believe me, I tried it. All I got, though, was just endless questions about that product.)
So, I typically started them on the page that describes that particular product. Even then, interestingly, I might have users who wanted to know a little bit about the company, so I might typically just let them at that.
Finally, after the account application was done, we typically threw them into our authenticated space, so they could check out what they just signed up for. Now, there might not be any more there than the funds they just transferred in, but the users sure appreciated being able to play around and check things out. In other words, it was a complete, wholistic, realistic experience for them.
Now, if I wrote my reports or shared my results according to the existing internal silos, I’d have something for:
- Storefront
- Corporate
- Account application
- Authenticated
Often, unfortunately, I’d only have time to write up the thing the team was interested in (in this case, the application process). There was so much more to share though.
Sometimes, I would have some time to write up some of that other stuff. I couldn’t, however, always get the team to receive it with open arms. I guess it just didn’t fit on a roadmap, count as a strategic initiative or … maybe it simply just wasn’t someone’s yob. Sigh ...
