Building a human case

Singer/songwriter Matthew West once said, “There's no substitute for the power of a personal story.” Stories amplify and bring data to life, and data opens people's eyes to opportunity and potential. John Maeda, author of several books, including Redesigning Leadership¹ agrees. He claims that telling a story has significantly more impact than simply explaining the reason why you're presenting the numbers. Quoting a statement he heard at a leadership conference, he's convinced that “stories trump statistics.” In other words, a short narrative carries more weight than a lengthy exposition.

To build your human case for product inclusion, take the following steps:

1. Find out what real consumers are expressing—their hopes, needs, and frustrations. You may be able to gather this information on social media, but it's much better to meet face‐to‐face or gather input via online surveys or focus groups. Talk to people within or (better yet) external to your organization, such as customers whose needs are not being met by your organization and its competitors. For example, when I was creating the human case to build an on‐demand medical app for a UX bootcamp course I took called She Designs, I spoke to several people of varying age ranges and abilities.

   Don't settle for fictional user journeys or personas composed by people who think they know the consumer. Speak face‐to‐face with underrepresented users in person and on a regular basis. Otherwise, you will be missing the critical information and insight to build a convincing human case.

2. Identify trends across the input you gathered. For example, as I interviewed people for my on‐demand medical app, I discovered that older users could benefit from an option to have medical care delivered to them or to have the option to video chat with a qualified healthcare provider. Here are a few of the quotes I gathered that defined a trend:
   • “Public transit in my city is not very accessible.”
   • “It's inconvenient to try to schedule and get to my various doctors' appointments.”
   • “I don't have a connection with my doctor, so I don't feel safe to tell my whole medical history.”
3. Write one or more narratives that relate each person's experience of being excluded or ignored by the current products or services being offered. When trying to secure buy‐in, different narratives will resonate more deeply with different people, so try to compose a variety of narratives. I used the quotes from Step 2 to develop a narrative around a persona I created and named “Miles”:

   Meet Miles. He's 62 and lives in Boston. He lives with his husband and dog. Miles needs to access healthcare providers and his prescriptions easily. His barriers are non‐accessible transportation and buildings and his busy schedule. Miles likes the option of being able to have a trusted doctor come to him. He also thinks getting prescriptions delivered to him would save a ton of time! His feedback is that there should be the same set of doctors per patient, so they can build trust and history.

   When composing your narratives, try your best to adhere to the following guidelines:

   • Name the subject, even if you have to use a fictional name.
   • Be explicit about the subject's demographic or intersection of demographics; for example, Latina women in the Mid‐West of the U.S.
   • Explain the challenge; for example, motion sensors on faucets don't pick up darker skin tones, making it hard to use automated sinks in public places. (Note: This issue has been publicized by several people who have posted their findings on YouTube.)
   • Explain how this makes them feel. Are they feeling frustrated? Alienated?
   • Use quotations from your interviews, if you think quotes would be helpful and if you can work them smoothly into the narrative.

If you already work with consumer researchers, meet with them to understand how they do their research and discuss possible ways to get “more proximate” to consumers and ways to bring their input together to present more cohesive and impactful narratives.

Building a business case

You can build a business case regardless of your position in the organization. I didn't have a product background when I started working with teams. I didn't have a marketing or research or engineering degree. All you need is solid data, a high‐level understanding of your target demographic and your organization's stakeholders, along with a passion to make the products and services your organization offers more inclusive. Assuming you have these basic ingredients, you are well equipped to serve as the lens of inclusion through which everyone in your organization views its role in product development.

Building a business case is a three‐step process:

1. Discern what real consumers are saying, including their hopes, needs, and challenges.
2. Collect data to support the business case for inclusion.
3. Organize the data into an effective presentation, using data visualization tools, if necessary, for greater impact.

We build the case for product inclusion by doing the following for each major new product:

• Identify the market opportunity for key demographics. For example, women comprise 50 percent of the world's population and have trillions in purchasing power.
• Recognize what real users want. For example, many of the women who play video games feel that the gaming industry is focused mainly on classic PC/console titles that are played in “sessions” in a fixed space and time at home. While many of them enjoy that style of play, many others prefer a more flexible approach to gaming; they prefer to game their way across various genres and devices at their own pace, to suit a variety of “moments” or moods throughout their day.²
• Identify the market opportunity by examining the gap between what is currently being offered and what the key demographic needs or desires. For example, nearly 50 percent of women play video games, yet fewer than 10 percent refer to themselves as “gamers.” Even fewer actually pay for games. If the industry could create an inclusive place for female gamers, millions if not billions of dollars could be made.

Bringing it all together

When you have both a human and business case for product inclusion, you can take a balanced approach to presenting your overall case by stressing one case or the other according to what you think will be most convincing for your audience. If you balance the business and human case in a conversation with someone who leans toward business, you not only share the data that proves this is valuable work, but you also reinforce your business case with an emotional appeal, delivering the “why” behind the numbers. Conversely, if someone buys into the people‐centered case but doesn't see how it correlates with their core business goals, bringing in data on the opportunity (market size, purchasing power, etc.) will help you motivate that person to embed this insight into their core practices.

Consider an example of a pitch for product inclusion that balances the human and business case. Suppose your team is setting out to create a brand of online tutorials. In the past, it has focused almost exclusively on baby boomers, and you see a need to make future tutorials more appealing to millennials. The following pitch balances the human and business case:

Our mission is to revolutionize the way people learn. Did you know that 25 percent of millennials are online an average of 32 percent of the time or 10 percent more than baby boomers? Millennials represent about 25 percent of the U.S. population—around 80 million people. Currently, only five percent of millennials buy our product. If we could get that to 15 percent, we would unlock millions in revenue!

Millennials are online a good part of their waking hours and enjoy personalization. According to a Think with Google study, 89 percent of U.S. marketers saw an increase in revenue when they had some sort of personalization.³

Millennials are digital natives, meaning they grew up being online, so online learning feels natural. Making people feel that you understand them (and taking time to truly understand segments of the population) will lead to increased engagement.

Getting buy‐in from execs

Convincing executives of the benefits of product inclusion is often the most challenging task. They are busy people with a lot on their minds and may be set in their ways. If the organization is meeting its goals, they may be reluctant to entertain any thoughts about changing the way the organization functions. On the other hand, if the organization is not meeting its goals, leadership may be more receptive to product inclusion, or they may be too focused on other initiatives to entertain new ideas.

To improve your chances of convincing one or more executives to champion your cause, take the following step‐by‐step approach:

1. Know your audience. What does this leader care about? What is their goal for the year? What challenges have they seen in the past? Have any past product inclusion initiatives failed? If so, why, and how have these failures influenced leadership's attitude toward future attempts? Understanding the answers to these questions will allow you to customize your pitch to make it as relevant and compelling as possible.
2. Develop a clear plan. For example, identify the key inflection points on an organization or team map where you think an inclusive lens can be added and share it in advance of any meeting. For example, if a huge marketing push is planned for this year, you have a great opportunity to introduce relevant inclusion marketing principles (see Chapter 6).
3. Garner support from champions within the organization. If a leader knows that there is already great work being done (at the grassroots level), they will be more likely to sign on to help, because they can see results and how those results are positively affecting their organization. Reach out to a few people who may have interest and give them a highlevel lightning talk to garner support (see Chapter 8 for more about lightning talks).
4. Have a specific ask. Ask for what you need; for example, a budget, an all‐hands meeting, or a commitment to specific objectives and key results (OKRs). (See Chapter 6 for more about OKRs.)
5. Tailor your case (human and business) to your audience. Create a formal presentation with facts, figures, and consumer narratives. If you can share real user feedback, even better. (For example, if you have customer satisfaction reports or feedback gathered from social media, call out a few quotes or takeaways on a slide.) Helping people “get proximate”⁴ is important; they need to connect with underserved consumers and see the negative impact that non‐inclusive products have on them.
6. Structure your presentation to keep it high level, at least at first. Leaders have minimal time, so getting to the point quickly is essential. Here's one way to structure your pitch:
   1. Deliver an engaging and relevant headline; for example, “Did you know that there are one billion more users coming online in the next few years, mostly from India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Brazil?”
   2. Explain what product inclusion is.
   3. Explain why product inclusion matters. Be sure to speak to why this work is important to you. Passion is contagious, so put some of yourself into the pitch.
   4. Make your case (human and business). Present specific opportunities or challenges that product inclusion can address; for example, an underserved market or customer feedback reflecting a golden opportunity the organization is missing out on. Be sure to include one or more brief consumer narratives.
   5. Suggest possible next steps; for example, crafting OKRs or organizing a dogfooding group (internal product user group) to gather more inclusive feedback. (See Chapter 9 for more about dogfooding.)
   6. Ask for what you need the executive to do or provide in support of your initiative.
7. Schedule a time to meet. Ideally, you meet with one or more executives in person, giving you the opportunity to read the room, answer questions live, and add color to why you need their support. Be sure to schedule enough time to deliver your presentation and answer any questions.
8. Deliver your presentation. After delivering your presentation, if time permits, answer any questions. If you cannot answer a question right away, you can simply say something like, “That's a great question; I'll get back to you with the answer.” If you run out of time, schedule a future meeting to address any questions or concerns.
9. Follow up. After the meeting, follow up with an email recap of what you talked about, the slides, and any next steps and dates, if applicable.

Starting a grassroots transformation among employees

While securing leadership support is crucial for the success of any major initiative, implementation and execution require employee buy‐in. When employees buy in to product inclusion, they make the work their own, advocate on its behalf, and sometimes even extend their efforts into other projects or activities in which they are involved. Their action comes from shared excitement and belief in the importance of what they're doing.

To get employee buy‐in, you must convince them to accept your value proposition. Many people will be doing this outside of their core job, at least at first, so spend time showing these employees why you need their help, what impact they can make, and what actionable steps they can take. Here are some tangible actions you can take to start building grassroots support:

• Present your human and business case to show employees the opportunities they have to transform the lives of others while improving the organization's success.
• Encourage employees and let them co‐create strategy. People buy into efforts when they can share their ideas and see them come to life.
• Hold employees accountable for the one thing they are excited about advancing, and then check in with them regularly.
• Demonstrate the unique value each employee or team brings to the product inclusion process. You really can't do product inclusion without them, so let each employee or team know specifically how they can contribute. Product managers, engineers, marketers, and user experience designers (UXers) each needs to understand the role they play and the unique contributions they can make. Product marketers for example, can add dogfooding with underrepresented users to their roadmap.

Exploring different ways to spread the word   You can spread the word via groups, in all‐hands meetings, or even flyers in places you may not have thought of before. Meet people where they live both mentally and physically. Find entry points in locations workers frequent, and disseminate the value proposition succinctly. Getting eyeballs on any new initiative is important and helps to begin a groundswell, with more people hearing about the work, asking questions, and hopefully getting involved.

One of my favorite ways to spread the word is with a simple flyer posted on bathroom stalls across the company. Cleverly named “Testing on the Toilet,” the flyer is a tradition at Google and is used to disperse educational information globally. In addition to educating employees, our flyers help us increase our visibility and scale our efforts. Hanging flyers with a few concrete actions is free and can get the word out to multiple parts of your organization.

Figures 4.1 and 4.2 show flyers we hung in Google offices across the globe. Each flyer delivers bite‐sized snippets of actionable items for people to improve their work and their lives. We saw this as an opportunity to scale visibility for product inclusion by giving the high‐level concept and actionable steps teams could take.

As you embark on a mission to change the hearts and minds of both leaders and colleagues, keep in mind that your efforts must be ongoing. People have short memories and even shorter attention spans, and they tend to revert back to ingrained thinking and behaviors. Continue your efforts to spread the word while checking in with those who have already expressed an interest or made a commitment to product inclusion. Over time, your efforts will pay handsome dividends as you create a culture of empathy resulting in increasingly more innovative product design, marketing, and sales.