Before reading, please accept my apologies as my English is not perfect (It is not my native language).

The Challenge

I am User experience designer and I integrated Innovation center of an engineering company specialized in  mobility and transportation 1 year ago. Before that, I used to work in digital ergonomic consultancy agency.     One of my mission was to help the digital business unit which has issues with a software they developed for  internal use and to be sold to our clients.   The software is a tool which allows the user to create a transport service in a specific location and do simulations  thanks to algorithms and data such has traffic jam, population, …)  Their problem was that the software is heavy to maintain (in term of time and resources) and despite the good  feedback they receive from internal users, too few external customers pay for this service. The tool is not  profitable.    The Digital business unit which are responsible of this tool has no clue about the reasons of this commercial  failure. They asked me to investigate on the reasons of this failure to find how to do better for further  developments.

The tool Selection

The tool I selected is the learning launch. Learning launch applied when you have defined several concepts that  seems to work and you need to confirm or disconfirm your hypothesis to guarantee the success of your project.   The learning launch phase is a fast and cheap test phase where you will learn if your hypothesis about your  concept are confirmed or disconfirmed. It will help you to validate and continue your project or to pivot and  refine your concept to ensure it will be a success. (Fail fast and cheap).     In my case, no learning launch has been made during the initial development of the tool. The digital business unit  wants now to re-launch some developments of the tool and this time; they want to make it right.   The current version of the tool is our « prototype » and the situation is perfect for a learning launch!

The application of learning launch and the insights

•  First, I asked for a presentation of the tool by the engineers who built the tool, I asked several questions  to feel comfortable with the functionalities.

•  Then, I organized a short workshop with multidisciplinary team (engineers, sales, marketing, customer  relation and internal user) to define our hypothesis.

•  Thanks to hypothesis, I was able to draw a survey to collect « real information » and « real users » of the  tool. The questions were sometime close questions (to collect quantitative data) and sometimes open  questions (to collect qualitative data).   The goal was to collect data on their real use of the tool, the tasks they must accomplish with the tool,  the knowledge of the functionality they have and their perception of the all tool.

•  After several weeks, I analyzed the results of the survey and our hypothesis were almost totally  disconfirmed!  here are the most important hypothesis and insights we get:

1. The tool is seen as powerful: Hypothesis Confirmed

2. Users can use all the features of the tool: Hypothesis DISCONFIRMED

Most users have empiric knowledge of the tool. No training was given to them and must of  them do not know all the possibilities and features of the tool.

3. The tool suits to the users’ needs: Hypothesis DISCONFIRMED

a. Users use the tool to make simulation but have no way to extract the result of their

study. The tool does not suit their need from A (simulation) to Z (communication of  results).

b. All users need to do comparisons between simulation to make decisions. The tool has

no comparison mode or feature and does not suit their need.

Note: Other hypothesis were confirmed and disconfirmed but they are either technical or confidential.

The learning launch was very efficient to better know our users and their needs. The digital business Unit knows  that they must add some new feature to better support the users and must also better communicate and train  them.

Approach: What I would do next time

If I had to do this work again, I would plan a second research phase with one to one interviews with users in  their work environment.   The survey was easy and cheap to set (and that’s the goal of learning launch), but an iteration with  interviews would have allow me to go deeper in the needs and expectations of our clients.

Thank you

