You see, unless engineers intentionally approach their work from an empathetic, user-centric perspective, they will naturally prioritize technical limitations and considerations over other factors — sometimes at the expense of user needs.
In order to properly prioritize users (and the solutions that best serve them), product teams must give engineers ample access and exposure to user testing sessions. Doing so helps to build empathy for users, strengthens your team’s internal partnerships, and enables them to keep the larger product goals in mind even when they are in production mode.
Even on product teams with good communication, engineers can sometimes perform their work in a bit of a vacuum. This is especially true when they don’t have a detailed understanding of the work your UX team is doing.
When that’s the case, they are liable to feel as though designs are being thrown at them over a wall. They may have little context beyond a list of desired outputs. And when your engineers don’t understand the bigger-picture goals, they are much more likely to become myopic in their work. (The same is true for everyone on your product team, by the way).
You want members of your engineering team to be thinking, “how can my work serve the user?,” not “how quickly can I find a solution and check this item off my to-do list?”
The best way to get engineers to keep users top of mind is to involve them in your user testing sessions. You may be hesitant to do that. After all, your engineering team’s production time is precious. And they already receive tickets with user stories that are specially constructed to communicate users’ needs. So why interrupt their flow?
Here’s the thing: When engineers get to see actual users of the product interacting with their solutions, the whole thing becomes much more personal. When they see someone struggling with a piece of the product they’ve worked hard to build, they typically take it to heart. More often than not, the result is a newly heightened sense of ownership and a desire to make the user’s experience better.
There’s no one right way to loop engineers into the user testing process. Some teams may take a more structured approach (in which engineers are required to attend certain testing sessions). Others might be more loose in an effort to protect their schedules. However you structure it, the important thing is for your engineers to have easy access to user testing sessions, whether in real-time or in the form of recordings.
Remember, your goal is to develop a culture of collaboration between your UX team and your engineering team. The more points of contact you develop between the two groups, from the initial kickoff meeting to new product launch or update and everything in between, the richer that culture of collaboration will be.
There are several ways to encourage your engineering to engage with user testing. These include:
In many cases, it makes sense to adopt all of the above-mentioned tactics. Some are duplicative (an engineer who attends a test session isn’t likely to also watch the recording, for example). That’s OK. The more options you give for your engineers to engage with user testing, the more likely they are to attend or review test sessions as part of their normal process.
Ideally, once your engineering team has viewed a few user testing sessions, they will start to understand why the UX team’s process is so important and want to continue investing in that partnership.
There are many other benefits of looping your engineers into your user testing process. By paving the way for a more collaborative stance, you can:
If you aren’t already regularly including your engineers in your user testing program, now is the time to begin. Encouraging a deeper partnership between your UX and engineering teams will result in a stronger, more aligned team that keeps users top of mind and achieves best-in-class results.