We often have a limited perspective and do not recognize many issues when lacking information or support. There will be many difficulties and challenges that arise during the project implementation process that you alone cannot handle. Stakeholders with knowledge, wisdom, and deep expertise can help you make decisions throughout the design process. A successful user experience design relies on the involvement of stakeholders in the project.
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Similar to interviewing users, interviewing stakeholders can provide you with information about the project and ensure that you are not doing irrelevant work or wasting time on research that has already been conducted. We will consider stakeholders in the project and why you need to involve them in your project; how to do that and how you can use this important information in the design process and optimize output results.
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Stakeholders, who are they?
Stakeholders refer to the parties involved in the project, which can be an individual, a group of people, or an organization that has an influence on the operations and success of a project. Therefore, when implementing a user research project, you should take the time to determine who the most important stakeholders for your design project are, and if possible, solicit their cooperation to help realize your design process.
Anyone whose work will be affected by your research is a stakeholder, regardless of tenure or job title. They could be people such as customer service specialists who will carry a heavy burden of responsibility if the design or product experience is poor, or they could be silent partners who might take on significant work at the tail end of a project.
The more relationships you have within an organization, the easier it is to identify your stakeholders. Depending on your team management or those with good knowledge of the organization can help you find the right people to get involved.
Potential stakeholders for UX research include:
Influencing the organization
Making decisions about time, money, and resources
Participating in the product design process and user experience
Having relevant information about your project
Working based on the insights from your research
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When should you interview stakeholders?
Stakeholder Interviews are an important tool in the early stages of product development, when you are trying to clarify your goals and plan your research.
Not only in the early stages, but for complex projects or those that take place over a long period, you should sit down and talk to stakeholders at least once in each phase of the product. This ensures that your research is on the right track, the whole team generates new ideas, and gathers any additional information that the project may need.
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What are the benefits of interviewing stakeholders?
1. Identifying goals
Stakeholders contribute to the success of your project. But what exactly do stakeholders in the project want? What do they need? For stakeholders, how do they define success?
Project summaries and design requirements often include ambiguities that can lead to misunderstandings. It is not uncommon for stakeholders to have requirements that they do not articulate or document in the initial materials because they take them for granted or are not aware of them. Just like user interviews, interviewing stakeholders helps surface all such unmentioned goals, detailing and clarifying nuances that may get overlooked or scrambled during the work process.
2. Understanding limitations and needs
What is the product vision? What are the needs at this stage? What does the existing data look like? What might hinder the selling or marketing of the product? What has worked well in the past? What has not succeeded?
Engaging stakeholders will provide you with a baseline of available resources and help you determine whether the intended research is necessary. It is quite possible that they have done some of their own data exploration, and they may even direct you to a database that can save you time and resources. On the other hand, interviewing stakeholders can also reveal their information shortcomings. Do they know nothing about user needs? Do some assumptions they are making really reflect what users need?
A part of the researcher’s job is to identify user goals that stakeholders are not focusing on or even recognizing.
3. Gaining trust
If you do your job well and are someone who genuinely cares about every aspect of the project, along with professionalism in your approach, you can often win them over. Addressing future issues becomes easier when there is trust and communication right from the start.
Even when stakeholders are involved in user experience research, they may still be skeptical of you (if you are new). Simply because it relates directly to resources, time, and costs incurred in their plans.
Interviewing stakeholders is an opportunity for you to establish or maintain relationships with key players in the game, demonstrate interest in their goals, clarify each party's thoughts, and help everyone feel that they have contributed to the project.
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Are there any limitations to stakeholder interviews?
Stakeholder interviews come with their own challenges. In terms of limitations, they are trivial compared to the values obtained. However, the following considerations should be taken when planning to interview stakeholders.
1. Time-consuming
The entire process takes time — and could be a lot of time. You can often manage the issue simply by scheduling your time so that you only need to conduct X interviews in Y time. Or you could shorten part of the interview process to finish on time or reasonably combine interviews together.
2. Some stakeholders may not want to participate
Some stakeholders are willing to advise you. Others show less interest. You will need to gauge their interest level in participating in the interview so as not to request more information than they are willing to share. Making sure that your interviews are well organized and conducted professionally will help foster confidence in you.
3. Creating expectations
When people participate in the research process, they tend to develop certain expectations. They want to see the results and have answers to their questions. Some stakeholders may even want to see the data or view videos from research sessions. Have a plan to communicate results throughout the research process and ensure that materials and reports are accessible to stakeholders.
What Will You Ask Stakeholders?
As with any research, the first thing you need to do is figure out your goals — what do you hope to understand from stakeholders? You should know what you cannot change to focus your research efforts elsewhere.
Here are some key topics to cover when you talk to stakeholders:
1. What is this project?
The more you know about the project or product and what the organization hopes to achieve from that project or product, the more you can ensure that your research is relevant.
Project Overview:
Briefly introduce the project history?
What is the reason for carrying out this product/project?
What are the goals of the project?
What do we need to clarify?
Who are our biggest competitors?
Business Objectives:
What are the short-term and long-term business objectives?
What value does this project provide to the business?
What are the biggest product challenges currently?
2. The role and interests of stakeholders in the project
If you understand the backgrounds and motives of stakeholders, you will be able to easily identify where you might face resistance or receive support for the research process and design changes. Common questions include:
What is your role in this project?
What have you done prior in this project?
What do you personally consider to be the success of this project?
Do you have any concerns related to this project?
How would you like to be involved in user research? (E.g., reviewing reports, participating in interviews, workshops for results.)
Is there anyone else we need to speak to?
3. What has been decided about the project?
If you know the limitations of the project, it will be easier to decide your level of ambition for the research and design changes. The questions may include:
What has been decided about the project/product so far?
What requirements have been decided for the product?
What technology decisions have been made and how solid are they?
When will the product be released?
How large is the development team?
4. Who are the users?
By clarifying what everyone knows about the users and identifying who the target customers are, you can ensure that you are accurately researching your users. You might ask:
Who are the customers/users?
What problem of the users are we addressing?
How will we communicate the core value of the product to our customers?
What user research has the team conducted related to this project?
What is the primary context of use for the product?
A few tips when interviewing stakeholders?
1. Plan ahead
Determine what you want to achieve in the interviews. What questions do you need to answer and what is their priority in relation to the next steps in your project? Each question you ask should relate to at least one of these objectives. This way, the feedback from stakeholders will be useful for your work.
The interview may lead you and the interviewee anywhere. You should plan, having a list of topics/questions to navigate the interview closely according to the initial roadmap.
2. Keep a relaxed and friendly spirit
This is not the kind of interview where you work coldly and mechanically; these are the people you will be working with a lot in the future. Indeed, these people are often busy, but they are also usually experts in their field, and if you break the barriers, conversations can become insightful. You never know what interesting information they may bring you. However, you should also be ready for the fact that not all project questions will be met.
3. Listen to the interview participant
In large organizations, some stakeholders do not feel heard about their opinions and perspectives on challenges/risks as much as they would like. Listen more keenly. You will find all sorts of interesting things about how the business operates that will impact your project, and you will help someone else feel validated as part of it.
4. Don't assume everything they tell you is the truth.
We are all human; we all have to deal with political issues (internally within the organization) and everyone is busy. Some information that your stakeholders share will be incomplete, and some of their biases about customers/users may be based on research, assumptions, or outdated patterns. What they have to say is still interesting; it just may not be the final version of the truth.
5. Be flexible
Be proactive about going to wherever they are. Especially if they are at a higher level. Interviews at coffee shops in the morning, in the company pantry, anywhere you can spend 30-60 minutes with someone will change your perspective on the whole project.
6. Let them leave if necessary
Nothing is worse than the interviewee being distracted. If there is something they need to address — let them go and reschedule the session for another time. They won’t pay full attention to you when their phone is buzzing.
7. Tell them about the benefits
Stakeholders are often busy and do not know exactly why they should spend time with you. Don’t forget to explain a bit about the benefits at the start of the conversation and more as you conclude the invitation. Show that you are using their time wisely and for their benefit.
In conclusion, proactivity will be rewarded. One way or another, there is always a network of different stakeholders that products are designed to meet. Interviewing stakeholders is a great way to capture the situation. They help you understand user behavior, differentiate constraints, and identify pain points.
