At professional services firms, people spend most of their time working with unstructured content. They’re constantly using productivity tools like Microsoft Office to create documents, spreadsheets, PDFs and presentations. But these firms often lack an effective collaboration platform, making it hard to share those documents internally and deliver them to clients.
Getting More From Collaboration Solutions
Companies often try to maximize the value of a collaboration platform by putting it in place as quickly as possible. But if your solution misses the mark due to a hasty implementation, poor user adoption is going to undermine your investment. A thoughtful user experience (UX) design process is key to getting good ROI on collaboration solutions. While the process could be relatively quick, it takes care to integrate it into the way your people work and make it part of the business process.
Many UX design practices focus on user research, which takes place on a couple of levels. When you interview users about their collaboration needs, you’re focusing on what people explicitly say they want. But what people say they want often differs from what they actually need for specific tasks.
That’s why there’s also an observational element to UX research, in which you sit with a user for an hour or two and observe their behavior while they perform daily tasks. You’re seeing what programs they use, how they manage windows and how a collaboration tool would fit into the regular rhythm of what they do.
Combining observation and interviews helps you form a hypothesis and identify your requirements. User research is a great way to ensure that you structure collaboration solutions to closely align with what people want and the way they actually work. But this research is just one piece of the larger UX design process.
Using Communication To Drive User Adoption
When you’re launching any type of collaboration platform, having a strong communication plan is critical to encouraging user adoption. Don’t wait until you’re almost ready to launch the new system before you start communicating with users. User adoption is vital to a strong ROI, so it’s wise to think of the communication plan as an offshoot of your business case for the project.
When you’re developing the business case at the project’s inception, start planning how to communicate with users in order to quickly get them on board. That communication plan should involve users in the process and help them understand the rationale behind the new collaboration platform and what the company hopes to accomplish with it.
Throughout the design and implementation process, plan to involve different and larger user groups as you gather additional requirements, develop your information architecture and train employees. This way, by the time you get to the final rollout, many of your users have had a hand in the design process and have a good understanding of what it’s intended to replace.
To further manage user expectations, use streamlined training sessions that show each group of users how the collaboration platform is going to help them accomplish their tasks. Fortunately, creating a good communication plan doesn’t have to be laborious. It should be straightforward and within the ability of any communications department.
By taking the time for a thoughtful UX design process, you encourage user adoption, helping your firm get the most from your technology investment.
