Case Study: Founding a UX Lab
I was given the mandate of establishing a UX Lab at a 20 year-old multimedia entertainment company. The main goals were:
to implement user-centered design methods to the workflow;
to develop an offer of services the UX Lab would provide to the creative teams;
to convince key stakeholders that thinking about the human when designing is beneficial.
My team and I had a lot of innovative ideas such as using VR to test in-person experiences prior to the deployment on site or designing interactive walls to gather feedback, but we soon realized that we needed to start with the essentials before we could implement our vision…
We narrowed down our offer to the conception of personas & user journeys, design thinking workshops, UX expert analyses, UX tests & interviews and post-experience feedback. A lot of the people we were working with were either not familiar with the human-centered design method or UX thinking in general. One of our biggest challenges was to approach key stakeholders in the company with our new mindset and have them onboard.
The service offer we developed for the UX Lab.We realized that while we could create documents and presentations to describe our process and its benefits, the best way to implement our vision was showing, not telling. We needed to have them actively participate in the process, rather than being passive listeners. One project led to another, our approach began to be appreciated by designers and producers. Slowly, a recognition of the value of our offer arose and requests to implement a human-centered design process in projects started multiplying. Soon, UX tests, UX workshops and post-experience surveys were added to budgets and we went from 2 UX tests in the entire history of the company to 30 in 4 months, a complete paradigm shift for the company.
Me observing two users in a UX test performed with a paper prototype of an AR experience.We were certainly happy with the momentum the UX lab was gaining, but then, the new reality that COVID-19 brought forced us to rethink our approach. It suddenly became impossible to get users to come test our interactive installations in person. We shifted gears and started implementing remote UX tests. We couldn’t test physical installations but we could definitely test web apps and websites when needed. It also pushed us to find new ways of reducing UX uncertainties in projects through novel methods. We found out that testing narratives and icons could also be beneficial and was possible using video-conference in combination with online visual collaboration tools.
Here is a screen capture of one of my remote UX test debrief workshops.