Comments on Setting Up Business Stakeholder Interviews, Part 1

Michael Beavers — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:12:19 GMT

Hi, Challis. You’re absolutely right. To clarify, I am personally often surprised that site owners—because they are evaluated on business goals—will give short shrift to user goals when making design decisions. User Experience professionals should certainly design for both. Sadly, the reality is that these decisions can be easily overruled if you don’t have clearly communicated user advocacy within the organization.

Challis Hodge — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:14:50 GMT
Nice article. Thanks for taking the time. One little nit. You write:
If you are a User Experience professional, this will seem backwards, but it is the reality for how many corporate site owners work.

This IS the way business works and we as UX professionals should not be surprised by it. Our job is to find the intersection between business and user needs.

Michael Beavers — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:10:04 GMT

Frank, thanks and great question. The chart, once completed, gives you a very different overall view of the available pool of stakeholders than an org chart might provide. I think the most important thing it does is provide a framework for evaluating available stakeholders against the problem space so you and your client can make informed decisions about priority/order, lines of questions, and whom to eliminate in the event you have short timeframe to complete your interviews.

Austin, glad you like it, too. If there’s interest after these articles simmer and collect comments, I’d be happy to do a write-up of an exercise that you can walk clients through. It involves a trip to IKEA for a special item, plus magnets, construction paper, a Sharpie pen, Elmer’s glue, dried macaroni, and purple glitter. (Okay, those last two items aren’t necessary…but they’re an awful lot of fun.)

Austin Govella — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:10:09 GMT

I dig the chart, too, and would be interested in more info on putting it together and using it to guide your work in the organization.

Frank Ramirez — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:10:09 GMT

Micheal – great article! I particularly like how you plotted the stakeholders on the chart. How do you plan to use this chart once it’s created? Looking forward to pt.2.