Tracey Lovejoy, Ethnographer, Microsoft User Experience User Research Team. Courtesy Microsoft. Normally I wouldn't link to what is primarily a public relations exercise from Microsoft, or any other company for that matter. But this time Microsoft's PR team has focused on usability by profiling a member of its user experience research group, ethnographer Tracy Lovejoy.

Two of the most common issues that I come across when speaking to clients are:

  • a fundamental lack of understanding of the value that good user experience (UX) design brings to a product or service and
  • ignorance of the work that goes into the process.

It's not surprising considering the relative youth of UX research, human factors design and usability as a collective discipline. Part of the problem is that UX specialists have neither been good at evangelizing usability nor at educating developers and decision-makers about the value of integrating good UX design into the product development process.

Good user experience design is a strategic and competitive differentiator
Why is the Apple iPod so successful and so dominant in the digital music player market? There are other products with larger storage capacities and lower prices. It's not just because of the cool factor. The iPod offers a better user experience than its competitors and that's part of what makes it a cool and desirable music player. That superior user experience lets Apple charge a premium price with bigger margins than it otherwise would.

Microsoft's profile of its employee helps the layperson understand part of the user experience research process and how UX fits into product strategy.

Making Technology Conform to Peoples' Lives
Q&A: Ethnographer Tracy Lovejoy researches behavior patterns in everyday life, the better to inject real-world customers' voices into the development of Microsoft Windows.

Here are a few excerpts from the interview that explain the role user experience specialists play in the product development process:

The ultimate goal is to understand the holistic view of the world from our participants' eyes, as opposed to viewing the world from our own perspective....

Our mantra is that technology should conform to people's lives, supporting their existing needs and behaviors, rather than people's lives having to conform to technology, changing their needs and behaviors....

Many findings from our short, local studies have been used in strategy planning and some implementation in teams across the company....

If you only take one thing away from this article about UX research and design, this should be it:

Ethnography brings the voice of the customer directly into product development.

Left to their own devices, developers will develop products for themselves even if they are not the target customer. It's a terrible way to deliver the best user experience possible to your customers. It's a recipe for failure.

If you want insight into your customers, what they want and what they need, integrating user experience research and design into your product development process is an excellent way to gain that insight.