How to put users at the heart of digital transformation

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects are noto­ri­ous­ly dif­fi­cult to pull off, often with seri­ous con­se­quences. Could user-cen­tred design (UCD) help deliv­er suc­cess?

Accord­ing to the Boston Con­sult­ing Group (BCG), 70% of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tions fall short of their objec­tives. The rea­sons for fail­ure are many, from poor ini­tial strat­e­gy to fail­ure to mon­i­tor results. But one wide­spread prob­lem is an inabil­i­ty to get users ful­ly on board with the process, with BCG cit­ing “the peo­ple dimen­sion” as the pri­ma­ry deter­min­ing fac­tor in dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion suc­cess.

For employ­ees to buy into new work­ing process­es, these need to be easy, intu­itive and aligned with users’ needs. But from stun­ning web­sites that are impos­si­ble to read to con­fus­ing nav­i­ga­tion tools, beau­ti­ful design isn’t always good design. UCD –also known as human-cen­tred design or user-dri­ven devel­op­ment – aims to put that right.

What is UCD?

As the name implies, UCD puts the user at the heart of the prod­uct devel­op­ment cycle, involv­ing them at every stage in an iter­a­tive process.

The guid­ing prin­ci­ple is that tech­nol­o­gy should be designed to suit the user, rather than forc­ing the user to adapt to the prod­uct. Sys­tems should be con­sis­tent, lan­guage clear and nav­i­ga­tion as sim­ple as pos­si­ble, with clear routes to take, back but­tons, feed­back and the like. Involv­ing users right from the start can help achieve these goals.

“It’s fun­da­men­tal­ly a way of doing strat­e­gy from the out­side in. The core dif­fer­ence from oth­er approach­es to dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion or design strat­e­gy is that it starts with the peo­ple who par­tic­i­pate in an expe­ri­ence and builds a new strat­e­gy based on them,” says Kalev Peek­na, man­ag­ing direc­tor and chief strate­gist at dig­i­tal agency One North, a TEKsys­tems com­pa­ny.

“The whole idea is to deliv­er what users want, when it’s need­ed and in the exact man­ner they pre­fer to engage. Ben­e­fits include increased user ful­fil­ment, cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, engage­ment, usabil­i­ty, reten­tion, loy­al­ty and rev­enue.”  

Employee engagement

UCD has a long track record, though it’s less wide­ly used for inter­nal projects where the main users may be employ­ees. 

“Many peo­ple recog­nise that user adop­tion suf­fers because the end user was not part of the deci­sion-mak­ing process, or they were an after­thought. But the same thing can hap­pen when inter­nal employ­ees aren’t approached with the same con­sid­er­a­tion as users in their own right,” says Peek­na. 

“Includ­ing inter­nal employ­ees and stake­hold­ers as users in a human-cen­tred design effort is the foun­da­tion for build­ing buy-in from the start. Buy-in will be more organ­ic if your organ­i­sa­tion can see them­selves in the future expe­ri­ence.”

Accord­ing to Dell Tech­nolo­gies, 80% of organ­i­sa­tions glob­al­ly have fast-tracked dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion pro­grammes this year. Deliv­er­ing dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences to employ­ees is one of the high­est pri­or­i­ties. 

The pan­dem­ic has increased time pres­sures, so it could be tempt­ing to dive straight into the tech­nol­o­gy and leave user issues until lat­er in the design process. But this can be an expen­sive pol­i­cy.

“The idea of pro­to­typ­ing and struc­tured user test­ing is a core aspect of human-cen­tred design. It should be done at mul­ti­ple points along the way, from ear­ly con­cepts through to designs and even the first ver­sions of a work­ing pro­to­type,” says Pee­ka. 

“But when teams are under pres­sure to just deliv­er, they often skip or delay this step until after a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment has already been made, and that, of course, is when the sunk cost fal­la­cy can real­ly take hold.” 

The NHS and UCD

The NHS has been a keen adopter of UCD for some years now; under­stand­ing user needs is the pri­ma­ry goal for the NHS Dig­i­tal Ser­vice Stan­dard. 

One cur­rent project is the trans­for­ma­tion of chil­dren and young peo­ple’s men­tal health ser­vices (CYPMHS) in Glouces­ter­shire. The user-cen­tred design and research process has been led by Mace & Menter, with imple­men­ta­tion and plat­form inte­gra­tion car­ried out by Made Tech.

The project first involved dis­cus­sions with the local com­mu­ni­ty and school groups in the area, then car­ry­ing out user research cycles and test­ing pro­to­types to estab­lish needs.

For exam­ple, the project dis­cov­ered a reliance on prac­ti­tion­ers and trust­ed adults to sign­post and access the var­i­ous offers of men­tal health sup­port, says Tim Clark, head of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion at the NHS Glouces­ter­shire Clin­i­cal Com­mis­sion­ing Group (CCG). This can lim­it access to sup­port, with chil­dren, young peo­ple and par­ents or car­ers of younger chil­dren at times feel­ing there was no alter­na­tive route. 

“With Mace & Menter and Made Tech, we then designed, test­ed and built a com­pre­hen­sive sup­port-find­er which sign­posts rel­e­vant men­tal health ser­vices, based on pre­sent­ing needs through a con­ver­sa­tion­al series of ques­tions.”

The results can be accessed through an online step-by-step form, text mes­sages or an online fil­ter­able list. They link out to the asso­ci­at­ed ser­vice, or where appro­pri­ate, to onward self-refer­ral routes. The web­site also includes local con­tent about the types of men­tal health con­di­tions and sup­port avail­able in the coun­ty. 

The sys­tem will now be rolled out in a pri­vate beta to a lim­it­ed num­ber of schools for more feed­back, before the final launch.

Clark believes that UCD should be a fun­da­men­tal part of any dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

“We wouldn’t release a piece of tech­nol­o­gy with­out test­ing if it func­tioned or was secure, as it’s a big risk,” he says. “How­ev­er, it’s as big a risk to spend time, mon­ey and ener­gy on build­ing some­thing that isn’t want­ed or peo­ple wouldn’t use. Invest­ment in user-cen­tred design prac­tices reduces the risk of build­ing the wrong thing in the first place.”