Subvert from Within: a user-focused employee guide

It's one thing to talk about--and execute--a user-focused approach when you're a small company or an independent contractor. But what if you are, in fact, a fish in a sea as vast as, say, Microsoft? Can you hope to make a difference? Or does working at the "DarkStar" suck the soul from any employee with a passionate users bent?

I spent yesterday at Microsoft. And yes, it was on a "passionate users" mission -- something even my teenage daughter found hilarious given the Microsoft we all know and love to hate. But the day was a string of surprises and challenged assumptions (starting with finding Liz Lawley in my workshop (someone I'd never met but long admired), and ending with meeting some amazing MS guys including Furrygoat's Steve Mafosky, Shawn Morrissey, and Lou (whose-last-name-I-forgot)).

It's so tempting to say that anyone who really cares that much about users ought to get the hell out of the big company. I know, having done my time at Sun. But I'd forgotten how to see Microsoft as something other than a Big Company. I'd forgotten (or never recognized) that it's a collection of individual people, and no matter how entrenched the company's views, policies, practices, values, bureaucracy, etc. are, there are motivated, smart, caring, creative people who work there.

And these folks have a chance to make a Difference (capital "D") on a scale that most of us will never touch. When Ward Cunningham (inventor of the Wiki, key player in extreme programming, etc.) went to work for Microsoft, much of the software engineering world was horrified that he'd even consider it. But he kept insisting that where better to produce positive change than going straight into the heart of one of the biggest sources of trouble for both users and developers in the software ecosystem?

But let's say you're not a Ward Cunningham or any other famous, visible, already influential industry player. You're an engineer, or maybe a program manager. In that case, you do what many of us did at Sun... subvert from within.

Here's my little unofficial guide to creating passionate users for those working in Big Companies. Most is from things a maverick (but cleverly disguised as compliant) group of us did at Sun, while we could. Only one of our original disruption team remains a badged Sun employee, but our legacy persists today in areas that won't make us famous, but do make a substantial difference in the experience that users get within the sphere we influenced.

In no particular order, here's a collection of tools used by our formerly underground User Liberation Army:

Language matters. Frame everything in terms of the user's experience.

In meetings, phrase everything in terms of the user's personal experience rather than the product. Keep asking, no matter what, "So, how does this help the user kick ass?" and "How does this help the user do what he really wants to do?" Don't focus on what the user will think about the product, focus everyone around you on what the user will think about himself as a result of interacting with it. Study George Lakoff for tips on using language to shift perceptions.

Be annoyingly persistent.

If you're relentless in the previous step--always asking the question, "how does this help the user kick ass?", it won't take that long before the people you interact with will anticipate that you're going to ask it, and that at least forces them to think about it for a moment. Over time, and over a large number of people, those moments can start to add up.

Capture user stories.

Keep a notebook or hipster PDA with you always and whenever another employee, blogger, (or user) tells you something good or bad about a real user's experience, write it down. Build up a collection, and make sure these stories are spread. Be the user's advocate in your group and keep putting real users in front of employees (especially managers). Imagine that you are the designated representative (like the public defender) of specific users, and represent them. Speak for them.

Speak for real users... not fake abstract "profiles".

Represent real people, not the abstract notion of "users". Rather than saying, "what users really want is...", refer to your collection of specific user stories and talk about real people. When you bring up users, talk about specific people with real names and experiences. Too many companies use fake "profile" characters as a way to think about real users (e.g. "The typical user is a thirty-five year old sales manager with a four-year degree and two kids who uses a computer for..."). While that's better than not thinking of users at all, it still puts both a physical and emotional distance between the company and real users. After all, it's impossible to truly care about pissing off the "fake" 35-year old sales manager (even if you give the profile character a name, like "John"), but almost everyone starts to squirm when they think about a real person becoming upset with them.

When those around you talk about the abstract concept of "users" or "customers", try to bring up specific real people whenever possible.

Be afraid of Six Sigma. Be very afraid. Ditto for most other "quality programs".

Just as using fake user profiles creates and maintains a separation between company and users, anything that treats users as statistics and abstract numbers on graphs is a problem. To treat a poor user experience as some kind of "defect per million" is just crazy. This doesn't mean Six Sigma and other quality programs aren't important and effective... but people are not widgets. When widget A does not fit properly in widget B, that's a defect. When user Barry Porter cannot figure out how to do the basic thing he bought the software for, and he's frustrated and his job is at risk, that should provoke a more visceral reaction. Again, people aren't widgets. Make sure those around you keep being reminded of that.

Never underestimate the power of paper.

Print out little signs that say things like, "How does this help the user kick ass?" and leave them lying on the copier, or the fax machine, or taped on a bulletin board and your cube/office wall. Keep changing them! (Remember, once your brain expects to see it, it stops being effective.)

Get your hands on a video camera, and record some users.

This is one of the single best things we ever did at Sun... recording real users talking about the bad--and good--things they experience as a result of using the product or service. They don't need slick editing. Just simple videos that you can send around the intranet and show at meetings. Having the user advocate for himself -- in his own words -- is more powerful than when you speak on his behalf. It's very hard for people to think of users as abstract numbers and line items when they have to actually see a real living breathing one with a face and a name and an eye color.

Start a subversive club. Right there on campus, recruit and organize your fellow ULA guerillas.

But... just don't call it that. At Sun, we called it a "Knowledge Design Book Study Group", and held meetings where we picked a particular book and then met to brainstorm on "what are the implications of that book for what we do with our users?" Our first book for our study group was Richard Saul Wurman's Information Anxiety (second edition). I don't care what your product is or who your users are, if they're human, they're almost certainly dealing with Information Anxiety.

Put pictures of real users on your walls. Act like they're as important to you as pictures of family members and pets.

YOU create the culture of caring about individual user experiences by demonstrating that it matters this much to you.

When product features are discussed without taking into account how it helps (or hinders) the user kicking ass, adopt a slightly confused, mildly annoyed look...

Act like it's really weird and inappropriate that the person never brought up the user. As though they left for work without putting on a clean shirt or brushing their teeth. It's just something you do. Over time, those around you should start to become uncomfortable when products are discussed without the concept of the user at the center. This is especially effective when there is more than one of you, so that you can -- as a group -- ALL act confused and annoyed. You want it to appear that EVERYONE thinks the way you do, and that not speaking up about the user is just...weird and wrong.

Blog about it

People are listening.

Challenge user-unfriendly assumptions every day.

When someone says, "We can't do that" or "We must do it this way" question it. Every time. Don't let anything go unchallenged. And when the answer is "because customers don't like it that way" or "customers want..." or something like that, always ask, "How do we know this?" (just act curious). It might be that the data on which that assumption is based is too old or was never well formed in the first place. You'll never know until you dig deep into the thinking that's driving the assumption.

Gather facts. Build a rational, logical case that maps a user-centric approach to real business issues.

You don't want to get into an opinion war. You want facts and stats on your side. If you can point to a specific plan for a feature change, for example, and say, "Well, when we did something similar over here in this area, we had a complaint ratio of..." The more "emotional" and touchy-feely someone perceives the emphasis on users to be, the less likely they are to take it seriously as a business case. There are always going to be a lot of people in the company who refuse to care about the real people, but they will care about numbers, so you should always be trying to prove that the user-kicks-ass approach has a compelling benefit for the business (beyond the obvious one that you and any other system thinker would see). We learned the hard way that we should never take it for granted that other people in the company will even think about this idea of the user being passionate and in flow.

Look for first-person language from users about their own experience. Challenge others to solicit first-person, user-as-subject language.

Do everything you can to get user feedback phrased in first-person terms. Rather than feedback that talks about what the user thinks should be in the product, try to solicit feedback that gets the user talking about himself. Users tend to want to tell you what you should add/subtract from the product, but what you need is feedback where the user tells you about himself in relation to the product, even if it's negative.

Useful: "I tried to use the XYZ feature, and I couldn't figure out how to make it work."

Not useful: "The XYZ feature doesn't work properly."

Useful: "I was able to make a really cool image as a result of your app."

Not useful: "The app does a great job of image processing."

Set it up as a challenge for yourself and others you work with to figure out ways to generate first-person feedback where users talk about themselves. Make it a game or a contest to see who can get the user to use the "I" word the most often. What kind of questions could you ask that would lead to the user talking about himself rather than YOU or your PRODUCT?

Don't give up.

If you do, then quit at the earliest possible moment. But if you're relentless and you slowly recruit others to your cause, you can change a culture... one small group at a time. If you succeed, even in a small way, and help shift the supertanker just one degree... that one degree eventually means a profoundly different trajectory down the road. Even if your chance to make a difference is slimmer than for those of us in smaller groups (or lone wolf operations), you have a chance to make a WAY bigger impact, touching far more people's lives.

I must say that I won't ever feel the same way about Microsoft now that I've interacted with these folks. And while you might not have heard much about Brady Forrest (the guy responsible for bringing me in to do the workshop at Microsoft), that's going to be changing. I have friends at Sun, and now I have friends at Microsoft. It's hard to refer to something your friends belong to as "evil". And even if corporate Microsoft WERE truly evil, I reckon if my friends are there fighting the good fight from within to produce change, that's something I can feel good about.

[Be warned, though, that I was asked or rather urged to leave Sun as a result of some of what's in here so... I wouldn't be taking advice from me if I were you ; ) I finally got the "you're not a team player" warning and put on probation (and eventually asked to leave), but my response was, "Oh, I AM a team player. It's just that I'm on the user's team." (I left out the part about, "Since clearly nobody ELSE around here is...") ]