But a huge part of facilitating processes involves communication among people and departments. I’m wondering what we can do to better allow users to communicate with each other through our products? And where would this type of functionality be most useful? We’ve already taken steps in this direction in specific areas - Major Giving cultivation, for example, where we’re looking to improve the ability of fundraisers and their managers to communicate progress and status on their prospects. But I think this is an area we can explore further and really take advantage of some of the newer tools available to us.

It seems like there are some key characteristics of situations where in-product collaboration would be most useful:

• The specific context lends itself to questions, clarification, and a general discourse on the value, interpretation or significance of what is being shown. Obviously, part of this characteristic includes the need for multiple people to be interested in the context.
• There is some value in being able to capture this conversation in a centralized place and in close proximity to the subject of discussion.
• The relationship and proximity of the people involved encourages online communication. People who share a cube are less likely to use something like this than are people who are spread across departments and separated by some distance. Probably more value to larger organizations than in smaller ones.

Examples where in-app collaboration might be useful include:

• KPI dashboards and other reports - this type of data display can immediately provoke questions, clarification and discussion around its meaning and implications. Why is this trend happening? Can we expect to make this goal? What events may effect the future of this data? An ongoing discourse of this kind if very healthy for an organization, and could further enrich the usefulness of this type of display.
• Major giving cultivation - all of the intricacies involved in cultivating a prospect are often difficult to capture in a set of pre-defined fields. Ongoing conversations about the propensity and inclination of prospects could potentially be managed through in-product collaboration features.
• Event management - planning large events takes a huge amount of communication, and decisions are made quickly constantly throughout the lead-up to the event. Centralized management and documentation of the decision-making process could help ensure that decisions are communicated clearly and people don’t spend time repeating past discussions.

Relative to other more prescriptive features, in-product collaboration solves an “ill structured” business problem. In some ways, we may not know how (or if) users would employ it until it is in actual operation. How might this type of feature fit into your organization? Do you see opportunities for improving communication through in-product collaboration?

These were existing RE users, so our hope is that they were just reacting to a change in the pattern they’ve grown accustomed to. But “they’ll get used to it” always makes designers really uneasy. Will they? How can we be sure this was an issue of familiarity and not a fundamental design flaw?

We’ll continue to test this issue with both RE and non-RE users, but I think this highlights the reality of user feedback and decision making in the design process. User input is one of several tools designers have at their disposal to help make the tough decisions, including design patterns, design principles, usability heuristics and personal experience. All of these are invaluable resources for informing the design process, but rarely do they make design decisions crystal clear. They are all very open to interpretation. In the end, it is still up to individual decision makers to make the “right” call based on the information they have.

For this reason, the real power in user-centered design comes not from a few usability tests and design heuristics, but from the development of a culture that puts a priority on user experience and encourages an ongoing, iterative process of feedback and refinement. This process doesn’t end when a product is released - existing features should be constantly re-evaluated and every new customer treated as another opportunity to evaluate your design decisions. Through these ‘layers,’ the experience becomes more and more refined:

When your decision makers are making user-informed, skillful design decisions, the difference between these levels are minimized. The process is then allowed to focus primarily on adding efficiency and smoothing out rough edges while functionality is gradually expanded. And when changes are required, this isn’t seen as a failure, but as a natural part of the design process.

We’ve been having an ongoing discussion in Blackbaud Products around customer expectations for communication and how different approaches can help meet these expectations. The discussion has a decidedly Web2.0 bent to it. There’s a long list of needs, including:

• Customers need to get ‘help’ on how to use a product
• Customers need to give suggestions on product features
  • Customers need to know that someone is reading their suggestions
  • Customers and Blackbaud need suggestions to be prioritized
  • Blackbaud needs clarification on suggestions
  • Suggestions need a status - customers need to know if and when and how a suggestion will be met
• Customers need to know everything about new releases and how they will affect their organization
• Blackbaud needs ongoing feedback on requirements and design
• [fill in your needs here]…

Lou Attanasi tells us about the early days at Blackbaud when every suggestion received a hand written ‘thank you’ letter acknowledging the idea. One or two people were employed exclusively for this purpose. As Blackbaud grew, of course it became impossible to keep up with this practice, but new technologies and techniques make it possible for us to re-invigorate this level of personal attention in a much more manageable fashion.

Rather than one person writing thank you letters, we can now have multiple designers responding and asking questions about customer suggestions. Rather than a product manager prioritizing suggestions behind closed doors, it can be done in public, in conjunction with customers and business analysts. Rather than calling 5 customers to ask them their opinion on a new feature, we can post the feature publicly and get feedback from 500.

The really tricky part comes when we start thinking about how to create and structure channels of communication in such a way that the messages are easily managed and the feedback loop is strongly supported. How do we harness the strengths of each tool so as to make the process overall that much more robust? How do we make sure we’re providing ways to communicate and not just more places to put thoughts that are never acknowledged? These are the questions we must answer in order to meet these evolving expectations.

The key Web2.0 message that customers are sending to businesses in all industries is that there are no more excuses (Customer2.0?). There are no excuses for not talking to us and there are no excuses for not listening to us. Organizations that ignore this message will quickly find themselves stuck in the mud and passed by competitors who truly connect with their customers.

I see the conversations you have with other customers on the discussion boards and I get jealous. There’s passion and connection there – an energetic give-and-take that builds relationships and opens new doors to success. Why don’t we talk like that?

Sure, we do the usability testing thing. We get an hour of quality time together, you get to tell me about what you like and don’t like, and I nod understandingly while throwing in a few “hmmmms” and “interestings” here and there to try and look smart, but it’s not really a conversation, per se. Yes, we get some great, useful feedback and at least it’s a start, but it’s just not enough, is it? It’s like speed dating. Just when things are starting to click, the bell rings and we’re off to our separate worlds and it’s a heck of a time getting back together because we’re both so busy and I’m left feeling empty and alone and you’re left to wonder whatever happened to those suggestions you made and the magic of the moment slowly fades away like some distant memory.

When we saw each other at the Blackbaud conference, you were very clear about your needs. I can live with the little deficiencies, you said. You wish they weren’t there, but you know nobody’s perfect. Just tell me why it is how it is, you pleaded. Tell me when it’s going to change, if at all. Tell me what I need to know and what I should do about it. Talk to us, you said. And I listened, and others listened and we’re totally on board with you. And this blog is a first step towards that discussion we’ve needed to have for years.

So let’s talk. I’m Cason. I’m interested in user experiences and usability and software design that empowers and delights. What are you interested in?