Uncovering Users In Your Own Organization

Buying new clothes and looking at current fashions is usually much more interesting and exciting than digging through one’s closet or laundry hamper. However, there is a lot one can learn by stopping and taking a minute to examine one’s own clothes. Such a review can tell you history (past fashions), document what you’ve been doing (attending a ball game, as evidenced by that ketchup stain), and indicate what you need (oh, yeah, I need a shirt to go with those pants). As user experience professionals it is crucial to your success that you learn who your users are, understand their environments and business needs, determine current user interface (UI) problems with the products, and review design solutions with users.

Like most of you, I can’t wait to get into the field to observe users working with my products. Yet, I’m going to pull on the reins, and do a 180-degree turn. Don’t worry - it’s still research, but from an internal perspective. There is a wealth of information at your fingertips in your own office, and surprisingly, some of it is usability-related. You can optimize your internal resources by understanding where and how you can find UI information about your users within your own company. To provide context and practical guidelines, this article presents examples of how to mine internal resources at a large enterprise software company.