First Front Line Experience with Customer as A UX Designer
I have just finished the fourth private tennis training lesson. Sitting in a restaurant beside the beach, my coach R is talking about the history of funding her company. The program, tennis holiday for adults, has been her primary focus for years.
While listening, I popped a few questions about her website.
“How is the conversion rate?”
“Well, it’s doing its job. Covid was a tough time, though.”
“Do you get the players you wanted?”
“I have calls with all of them before they book, it’s important to know. Because I want to offer serious lessons for people who want to play club.”
“Have you thought about re-structure your website?”
“Interesting! I just thought about that last week!”
“I have a few ideas.”
“Oh, so you are a UX designer? What is the next step?”
Well, this is how I got my first (potential) customer. It is a “What?! Work Again?!” feeling when I realize some work is waiting for me if I accept. Meanwhile, it is also so different from my office work that I feel joyful in realizing my ideas freely.
However, reality is not as rosy as the conversation above. Everything that happened is worth reflecting upon. I will share what I’ve learned below.
Disclaimer: as this is the first time, and by far the single time, for me, the following words will inevitably be biased towards this specific instance.
#1. The company is the owner’s baby.
It is even more apparent when the business is small, e.g., a one-man show.
When we meet a parent for the first few times, no civilized human will say anything bad or even not compliment the good-looking (like their parents) or smartness (like their parents). Well, it is a little complicated creature you’ve just known for five seconds, what can you really talk about?
My coach, R, seemed to be uneasy when our conversation continued. To be fair, I wasn’t criticizing her work. However, the problem came from my eagerness to understand (it might be too straightforward). I asked continuously a few questions related to the performance of the business funnel and targeted audience. Feeling not getting a clear answer at the beginning, I shamelessly asked for more. This was the time I felt R was backing out from the collaboration. She started to passively and then actively defend the existing choice.
“I don’t feel comfortable in this conversation.” R finally stopped there.
I knew immediately I had made a huge mistake.
Even though the questions themselves don’t have hidden interests, people might interpret them differently.
All representation is transformation. And that transformation is always partial - in both senses of the word. — Louise Spence & Vinicius Navarro, 2011, Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning
#2. Clearness is the key.
I tried to clarify my intention to better understand the business instead of destroying her passion. It took seriously half an hour for R to say, “Oh, so this is where you come from? You are not wearing the hat of my client anymore, right?”
Well, the time was worth it in the end.
We have heard too many times that communication is key. Well, this is not the complete truth. In business, communication first aims to achieve a common understanding (if not purposefully misleading). People can talk for hours nonstop and fight afterward about what has been discussed. This is not communication, at least not effective communication.
Another mistake we made around that beach table was related to this.
To avoid unrealistic expectations, I explained my experience with UX at the beginning. Therefore, I would charge nothing to build a portfolio in exchange for referrals. Until I confidently sent out my 7-page analysis and proposals, R told me they were missing the point.
As a human, and probably a proud one, I felt shamed and then angry.
Later, it turned out that R was unaware that the work had started and did not tell the whole story about her business. She was afraid to share business insights. And sequentially, I prepared a proposal for the wrong audience.
To give myself some credit, I did notice the mismatch between a few existing clients R mentioned and the targeted audience she implicitly pointed out. And I followed the rule, “Don’t listen to what people say; look at what they do.” Instead of asking for clarity, I headed on with my assumption construction.
I should have validated that.
#3. Don’t talk like an engineer.
It can easily be changed to “Don’t talk like an engineer, a geek, or a machine" when omitting nuance.
There is a book called The Language of Trust. It is about “selling ideas, products, services, or even themselves to a public that just doesn't want to hear it.” It has been on my to-read list for two years now. Almost every few months, I encounter a tricky situation that reminds me of its existence. I don’t know when I will finally start it. But I know the title is already helping.
We are social animals. We are dealing with people. It is challenging.
Especially when culture also plays a role inside.
During our two-hour discussion (debate), my mind constantly wandered to the cultural spectrum mentioned in the book The Cultural Map, even though I tried very hard to stay active listening.
The book's concept is that the cultural differences in communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, scheduling, and disagreeing are not binary. It is a spectrum. Therefore, there are relativities. For example, when giving feedback to colleagues, some countries (western, like the UK or France) will tend to give more direct negative feedback than others (eastern, like China). However, when comparing the (cultural) neighbors, your German colleagues might be more blunt or frank than French. US colleagues use more absolute descriptors (e.g., totally inappropriate, completely unprofessional) than the UK.
So, back to the beach table, my mind was working hard to map R's word choice and the “true” meaning so that I could correctly interpret it. It was fascinating, at least for a few hours. Then it came to me that this is yet another muscle in my brain that I must train hard if I want a global customer-facing business.
Figuring out what needs to be improved is easy. Fixing it takes the longest time. There will be a few follow-up meetings with R. Let’s see what else I need to discover.