Emma Leyden knows. As a senior product manager who specializes in human-centered design, she’s spent years using unique research techniques to create explosive product growth.

Recently, Emma was with Polygence, a high-growth seed-stage startup that connects students with mentors. Before that, she was with IDEO, an award-winning global design firm, where she honed her ability to uncover user insights through user research to make product decisions. And before that, she worked at Title Nine, an ecommerce women’s clothing company.

Emma is committed to designing user-centric and data-driven products that drive engagement. She believes that if you create great experiences for customers, business value will follow.

“I’ve really always been focused on understanding the deep needs,” she tells us. “Once I figure out a user’s need, I can use those insights to inform product decisions and fuel growth.”

Emma brings a robust basket of tools to the table: UX research, design, agile methodologies, and honed skill of marrying user needs and business objectives. We had the pleasure of working with Emma when she was with IDEO, and we caught up with her recently to get her best tips on how today’s product leaders can make a measurable impact on their organizations.

Today, we’re sharing insights from that chat, including:

• What human-centered product management is
• Why Emma can’t live without experimentation
• Her favorite tools for product research
• How to pick an agency partner

A Human-Centered Approach to Product Management

There is something uniquely refreshing about talking to a digital leader who remembers there is a real person on the other side of the screen. For Emma Leyden, a human-centered approach to product management keeps her focused on what really matters: the end user.

“As a product manager, you should feel as if the customer is in the room with you as you’re making product decisions,” Emma says. “You should be able to speak with the voice of the customer because you’ve talked to so many people, but also because you’ve synthesized enough and you understand your audience.”

What Is Human-Centered Product Management?

Human-centered product management is exactly what it sounds like. A style of work that has a person anchoring everything you do. It can show up in the way you talk to customers, experiment, or lead your team.

Talking To Your Customers

In some cases, human-centered product management means literally bringing customers into the office. For example, in one role, Emma’s team saw sports bra sales fall 5% year over year. To uncover why, she brought in five women who consistently shop for sports bras to learn what’s important to them when buying a bra.

After her conversations with real customers, she learned about the vulnerability and body issue challenges of purchasing a bra online. She also learned that the site’s photography wasn’t meeting their needs, and color choices within the same style were important.

“It wasn’t an extensive study. It was just five women, but talking to them helped us change the way we merchandised our products.” Once you learn your customer, you can take a human-centered approach to those decisions.

Data & Experimentation

Though crucial to the success of human-centered product management, physically talking to the customer isn’t the only way to inform your work. Emma incorporates a diverse mix of strategies to ensure she is making the right decisions.

“Everything should be data-driven when you're making a product decision,” Emma says. Every single stakeholder - including developers, designers, and leaders - will ask you for data to justify your decision. So you always have to have data to back it up and also to track if your enhancements improved something.”

Where does the data come from? Experimentation. “Experimentation is a tool to gut-check your decisions,” Emma tells us. It’s an important way to identify possible improvements as well as validate what you think you know. “It might not give you 100% or even 80% confidence, but it can tell you if you’re headed in the right direction or not.”

It embodies the “human-centered” spirit by keeping your personal bias out of the picture.

“I can't live without A/B testing. There have been so many times in my career I found myself too close to the product. I thought I had a handle on things, but an A/B test showed that I wasn’t right. It’s actually fun to be surprised like that.”

Data and experimentation can tell stories about customers if you know how to listen. The right metrics, when considered together, can paint a picture of delight, frustration, and everything in between, keeping leaders focused on the customer experience.

Leading Your Team

Human-centered product management means building products and making decisions based on and for the user. But it also means collaborating with your team and connecting with them where they are.

“Having strong leadership skills is important, but also I think strong collaboration skills are key as well.” Collaborating with different experts, in many cases, means learning to speak their language. “For example, if you have the skill to say to a designer, ‘Here’s where the engineer is coming from’ or ‘Here’s how they’re going to interpret your design,’ you can make a more efficient communication channel, which makes the team work faster and ship better products.”

A good product manager can bridge the gaps and translate messages across teams because of that human-centered approach. It also keeps you open-minded and ready for the unexpected. It's important as a product leader to bring in people who might not always be part of the ideation phase but can offer a lot of valuable input. That’s because creativity doesn't just come from the top.

“I have a deep belief that everyone is creative. I think that engineers are some of the most creative people in any organization. When I say that, CEOs look at me shocked, but engineers are closest to the work and want to ship products that will actually be used, so they have a good idea of what should be built.”

Using Creative Research Methods to Gain Confidence In Product Decisions

The good news for product leaders everywhere is that you don’t need millions of dollars and thousands of customer conversations to take a human-centered approach. Sometimes, you just need a cardboard box.

If you’re going to embrace creativity from unexpected places across your organization, why not get a little “out-of-the-box” in your own techniques and tactics? Emma shared some of her favorite tools for creative product research. Hopefully, these drive home the point that anyone can take a human-centered approach to product management regardless of budget, time, or audience size.

Low-Fidelity Prototyping

User testing with prototypes is one of Emma’s main tools for getting a gut check before taking design and messaging to production.

“The point of a prototype is to communicate the absolute bare minimum of a feature enhancement and see how users react,” she says. “You can throw a prototype together, put it in front of someone, and learn a lot quickly.”

Emma uses two types of prototyping:

• Prototyping for designers: Designers are visual people, so to help them understand what you want from a product, you have to give them something visual. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but a quick mockup or sketch is a powerful way to bridge the communication gap.
• Prototyping for users: These don’t need to be fully developed, but they have to be something users can use. “This does not need to be fancy,” she tells us “I’ve literally made prototypes with cardboard and put them in front of users.” The point is to communicate the absolute bare minimum of a feature.

“One of the beauties of prototyping is that when you take the design elements out of it, you're stripping down the feedback,” Emma says. It prevents users from being influenced by unimportant details or things that can be tested and changed later. It lets you focus on the functionality and usability of a product.

Out-of-the-box User Research

Emma also likes to use creative, outside-the-box UX research techniques to uncover insights to inform design and product decisions. Here are a few of the fun examples she shared that may come in handy for your own efforts.

The Scavenger Hunt Approach for Discoverability Insights

The scavenger hunt approach is useful when you’re trying to validate whether users can find information. In this test, Emma asks a user (or a group of users) to find a piece of information in a website, webpage, or document.

How they search and how long it takes them to find the information helps you understand their mental models and whether the site, page, or document matches their thinking.

"In one case, we knew a specific piece of information was key from a previous test, but we had to validate if users could easily find it," Emma explains. "People were scanning through the document like crazy, and we quickly learned that what we thought was obvious on page six was actually buried too deep."

Hot Dot Voting for Honest Feedback

Hot dot voting is an exercise where Emma gives users access to the digital workspace of some product. Then she asks them to add green dots to portions of the workspace that resonate with them and red dots to portions they find confusing or frustrating.

"The beauty of this method is that it gives people time to think,” Emma tells us. “They’re not being put on the spot to say something they like or dislike at the moment, which can lead to biased answers. Instead, they reflect quietly and provide more thoughtful responses."

Ultimately, this technique produces valuable conversations about the product. The facilitator gets a chance to see the themes people follow when exploring or using the product.

Turning Creative Research & Design Into Business Success

Emma’s human-centered approach has served her well in her career. She has a long history of creating impactful change at every organization she’s been a part of. Sticking to her unique approach has delivered huge results and some key learnings along the way.

Turning User Insights Into A 733% Sales Increase

In one instance, Emma delved into a product that was underperforming at Polygence. It was intended to serve as an add-on to the core product, but customers weren’t buying. After talking with users (students and program mentors), operational staff, and salespeople, she discovered that the product was built to serve two very distinct user needs. Customers found this dichotomy confusing.

The solution was to split the product into two separate products, each serving a different purpose. The new products were given clean messaging and offered to different customer segments alongside the core product.

The results of Emma’s research approach created a 733% sales increase. “This is an example of where good research and strategic thinking can help you make simple choices that make a big impact on business metrics,” she tells us.

Using Experimentation To Increase Clicks By 250%

In another case, Emma learned that what users say they want isn’t always what they really want. At IDEOU, customers requested more price transparency, so Emma’s team displayed course prices throughout the website. Unfortunately, this had a negative impact on sales.

After running A/B tests, she learned that user feedback didn’t match their behavior. When she removed prices, they saw a 250% increase in clicks to the enroll button.

“This was a clear example (that actually happens often) where a user says they want something, but their behavior is actually different,” Emma says. “Experimentation is important because it helps you understand how much to follow what users say.”

Finding an External Partner for Product Success

While Emma has had plenty of success on her own, she’s no stranger to calling in external partners who can make her optimization team stronger.

Hiring an agency is a lot like finding a romantic partner. You can’t grab just anyone. You have to find the one that’s right for you. Emma tries to look deeper into potential relationships with external partners, beyond the initial pitch.

“When you get a slide deck from an agency, they’ll try to show you how they’re going to move the needle and get good results,” she tells us. “But I think you should go beyond that. You should try to understand if they truly understand your business and if they align with your values.”

Furthermore, Emma likes asking hard questions. She wants to know, for instance, what happens if a test has a strong negative result. How the agency responds will tell you a lot. Do they answer honestly or do they sugarcoat their response?

How does she build good agency relationships? With a practiced vetting process.

Emma believes relationships with agencies should be collaborative. Neither side should dictate the relationship, what needs to be done to move the needle or the pace. You and the agency should be on the same team with the same priorities, but each brings different perspectives to the table.

“Once you start a working relationship, everything beyond the kickoff call should feel mutual. It should not feel like they are talking at you for the whole time, and then you get to ask a question at the end.”

Why was Emma attracted to The Good? We value the same kind of partnership that Emma requires in an agency. We both recognize that great product development comes from a collaborative effort between the internal stakeholders who know the customers well and external partners who know optimization.

One Final Piece of Advice? Approach Product Growth With Nuance For The Best Results

There are some folks with a "test everything" mindset, where nothing is launched without testing, but there are other leaders who advocate for almost the opposite. "Founder mode" is about instinct and speed. So, to wrap up our conversation, we asked Emma a question that frequently occurs in the industry: Is there one “right” approach to product growth?

“Your approach depends on the size and status of your company,” Emma says. “If you’re a small seed stage startup, you’re launching and learning and doing your experimentation post-launch. But a more established company has an expectation of a certain experience, so they have to be more thoughtful about what and how often they launch.”

While product intuition is important, it’s important to keep in mind we all have our biases. Sometimes, it’s hard to see our products from different perspectives, which is why testing is important. If you feel the need to launch quickly, you should at least perform what she calls a “gut check.”

“Your ‘gut check’ can be done in low-effort ways. It won’t give you the most confident answer, but something as simple as showing a design to like friends and family before you launch can teach you a lot.”

As a good rule of thumb, Emma encourages having some kind of user research scheduled every week, even if it’s as simple as letting someone see or use the prototype of a product and voicing their thoughts aloud. You can learn a lot about the usability of a product with this kind of approach.

Getting Results As A Product Leader

Emma’s incredible results are a testament to her human-centered approach to product design. We hope more product managers take such a deep interest in their customers to design incredible products and experiences.

Good product leaders like Emma know that staying user-centered and making informed, data-backed decisions is the key to success. Hiring an agency like The Good can help you do just that. Our team can amplify your impact with the tools, technique, and expertise that you just can’t find in a single hire.

Learn more about our Digital Experience Optimization Program. We bring all the pieces you need to complete an optimization puzzle and build a better digital journey.

The post How Emma Leyden’s Approach to Human-Centered Product Management Delivers Results appeared first on The Good.

Let’s talk about how the right level of design detail in user tests can save you time, money, and deliver a better user experience.

What is prototyping?

Prototyping is an essential part of the UX design process and can unlock your team’s ability to validate ideas before you send them to development.

In literal terms, a prototype is a first or early model of a proposed design passed to the development team before being coded onto the website. For ecommerce and product marketing teams, prototypes are early samples of a product intentionally designed for testing.

They can range from simple pen and paper sketches to highly interactive mockups in tools such as Figma. With prototypes, you can get user feedback on pages or app elements, which can be used to iterate your way to a better digital experience for your users.

To illustrate the idea, you may use a prototype when redesigning your website’s landing page. You may sketch ideas out in a wireframe and get either internal or external feedback before layering on your brand design and sending it to development for implementation.

What is fidelity?

That brings me to the next point–prototypes can range in their level of detail, identified by their fidelity. You’ve probably heard of low fidelity (simple, typically sketched designs) and high fidelity (more complex, close to the actual design of your digital experience). But there is magic in the often skipped-over mid-fidelity prototypes.

Mid-fidelity mockups or prototypes can improve efficiency, increase testing velocity, and focus your users on what matters.

There is, of course, a time and a place for all three fidelity types, which we will cover. But, considering rapid testing as an undervalued way to improve your website I’ll focus on the benefits you might be missing if you’re overlooking mid-fidelity designs. And even more specifically their use case for rapid testing.

When should I use low versus mid versus high fidelity?

• Low Fidelity: This level involves basic, hand-drawn sketches or paper prototypes. Colors are grayscale and placeholder images and text are often used. It’s ideal for brainstorming, generating ideas, and exploring concepts internally.
• Mid Fidelity: Also known as medium fidelity, this level is the Goldilocks between low and high fidelity. It may or may not include clickable elements relevant to the test’s goals without distracting testers with superfluous content. Mid fidelity is the best choice for rapid testing. This is the best method for focusing on the problem–not border widths or hex codes.
• High Fidelity: The most detailed level, high-fidelity mockups closely resemble the final product, with intricate interactions, pixel-perfect designs, brand colors, fonts, and every element clickable. It is used when testing an entire website or app and passing designs to the development team for implementation.

Let’s take a look at the details and pros and cons of each prototype fidelity.

Pros and cons of low fidelity

Low fidelity is reserved for brainstorming, idea generation, and internal exploration. It is not suitable for rapid testing due to its lack of detail.

Pros:

• Cost Effective: Low fidelity is a cost-effective option, making it suitable for early ideation and concept generation.
• Rapid Ideation: Hand-drawn sketches and basic prototypes allow for quick idea generation and exploration.
• Internal Collaboration: Ideal for internal use, low fidelity facilitates collaboration and idea sharing among team members.

Cons:

• Lack of Detail: Low fidelity lacks the detail for accurate user testing. It may not provide a realistic representation of the final product.
• Limited External Use: Not suitable for external presentations or client interactions due to its basic and rough nature.

Pros and cons of mid fidelity

As I mentioned, mid fidelity is the often-overlooked prototyping model. Particularly suitable for rapid testing, it’s the happy medium between designing a mockup for external use without over-resourcing before validation.

Pros:

• Time Efficiency: Mid-fidelity designs save time, making them ideal for rapid testing scenarios with tight timelines.
• Focused Testing: By prioritizing core functionalities, mid fidelity ensures that users focus on what’s important, leading to more meaningful insights and qualitative data.
• Balanced Detailing: Mid fidelity strikes a balance between low and high fidelity, providing enough detail for testing without unnecessary intricacies.

Cons:

• Not Pixel Perfect: Unlike high-fidelity designs, mid fidelity lacks pixel-perfect detailing. This may be a drawback when detailed, final designs are necessary.
• Limited Use Cases: Mid fidelity is most effective in scenarios like rapid testing. There may be better choices for situations requiring highly detailed or finalized designs, such as A/B testing.

Pros and cons of high fidelity

High-fidelity prototypes are used when passing designs to the development team for implementation, especially for complex scenarios with multiple states. High fidelity prototypes can distract users from their tasks and requires extensive time and budget that you shouldn’t waste before validation.

Pros:

• Realistic Representation: High fidelity provides a detailed and realistic representation of the final product, aiding in client presentations and developer handovers.
• Accurate User Testing: Ideal for complex scenarios with multiple states, high fidelity ensures proper user testing with intricate interactions.
• Developer-Friendly: The closer the design is to the final product, the easier it is for developers to implement the final product, reducing potential misinterpretations.

Cons:

• Time Consuming: Creating high-fidelity prototypes is time-consuming, which may not align with the rapid pace of specific testing scenarios.
• Resource Intensive: Requires more design expertise, time, and resources, potentially delaying the testing process.
• Highly Detailed: The added detail and functionality of high-fidelity prototypes can create unnecessary distractions for user testers, causing possible derailment from the goal of the test.

Why less is more when prototyping for rapid testing

The fidelity level of your mockups can make or break your rapid test results–bleeding time and financial resources while also hindering valuable user insights. Imagine you want to test if changing the category page name improves user understanding and boosts conversions. Crafting a high-fidelity, fully interactive prototype might seem impressive, but it can backfire. The intricate details distract users, drawing them outside the test’s scope and obscuring relevant feedback. This can put users into cognitive overload.

That’s where the mid-fidelity mockup steps in.

It shows just enough detail and the relevant design elements (like the navigation bar and category name) with enough clarity to incite meaningful feedback.

Mid-fidelity also focuses feedback. With no functional interactions, users stay within the test boundary, providing insights directly related to your research question.

Here’s an analogy: You wouldn’t build a full kitchen to test a new icing recipe. You’d bake a simple cake base to focus on the icing’s impact on taste and texture. Similarly, a mid-fidelity mockup acts as your cake base, allowing you to hone in on the specific design element you’re testing.

In our 15+ years of experience in digital experience optimization, mid fidelity emerges as a strategic choice for rapid testing. Offering a happy medium between speed, detail, and focus, mid-fidelity mockups give users the right amount of information to provide insightful feedback without distracting or over-resourcing.

The post What Is Prototyping And Why Is Mid Fidelity Its Unsung Hero In Rapid Testing? appeared first on The Good.