Time for a chat: The Wednesday Interview
One of the highly-respected IAs with SapientNitro, Dominic Winsor is an experienced digital specialist with a background in production and User Experience.
This week he shares his thoughts about current client perception of the industry, and how it affects his role working with major brands to create cohesive user experiences.
Name: Dominic Winsor
Role: Senior IA/Producer for SapientNitro
“My varied experience is mostly through digital agencies. Right now, I'm helping a really well-known mobile telecoms company on a series of improvements and new campaigns.
“It's a big project (so large in fact that my project team alone turns over enough to rank in the NMA top 20 agencies). Their site is quite fragmented and generally frustrating at the moment so I'm working with the business to design great customer experiences.
“I manage the delivery of this by engaging our site devs, copywriters, designers etc. It's fast-paced and always challenging - I usually have around 10 jobs in flight! We're a close team, and I'm really proud that we've recently been recognised with an award for our client-focussed delivery.”
Do you find yourself often having to educate clients about user experience? What is the best way of going about it in your opinion?
“My client holds UE close to the centre of their values, and they have a significant investment with our agency and with their own internal teams.
“I do have to manage expectations with stakeholders within the business though. A particular challenge I face is to encourage them to consider the whole journey rather than a single page. The presentation of the whole customer experience across all channels is something that we are starting to get traction on. It's this big-picture thinking that I'm changing by owning the whole job and managing the expectation right from the start.”
What misconceptions about user experience and usability do you tend to face from clients, if any?
“Personally I think it's the way my client sometimes attempts to manage user experience; like old-school IT projects.
“I believe the web is a creative discipline, and to attempt to run a project like a desktop deployment is going to create problems. It is this thinking that sometimes results in bizarre requests "to add some UE value near the end of a project", for example. Hmm…!
“It's not uncommon for me to reject a brief outright and then work with the stakeholder to create a brief that is better aligned with the UE strategy.”
Which tools and activities do you find helpful in agreeing a UX strategy and approach with clients?
“The whole purpose of my role is based around creating a UX strategy; my client gets it, and I'm delivering on this.
“Great communication is the most important thing here: this means being present and really deeply understanding the business needs. We believe that the purely digital approach has a finite shelf-life and that a great strategy encompasses the whole customer experience as they engage a brand across all channels. All the recognisable elements are present though.”
How many of your clients view UX as an integral part of the design/development process and what do you think is the key to improving that percentage?
“Though I'm working with one huge brand, I have many 'clients' within the relationship.
“We've spent a long time getting to this point, but almost no project takes place without a UX specialist owning the process. The challenge for me is to ensure that external partners properly understand this by managing expectations with good communication from the start.”
