Designing Features that Make it Easier for Product Recommenders to Gain Peer and Decision-maker Support

Organizations often rely on top-down mandates from leadership to roll out new products, but as we frequently hear in our research, this approach faces significant resistance. Without genuine buy-in from the team using the product, the result is often low engagement, underutilization, and a waste of resources. There's a growing recognition that bottom-up adoption—driven organically by product champions within the team—leads to tangible business value from the investment and sustained use of a product by users.

The Bottom-Up Approach, as Told by Recommenders
Bottom-up adoption is an organic process: The product’s value is first realized by an individual—the product recommender—who then champions its use across the organization. This person, often a "power user" or someone with a deep understanding of the team’s needs, is integral to promoting the product based on their positive experience.

In a recent project, we spoke with successful product recommenders to better understand their motivations, needs, and the barriers to adoption. A common theme we uncovered was that the success of bottom-up adoption relies on collaborative decision-making. When a product is recommended by a peer, it’s seen as a trusted solution. The champion leads by example, showing how the product solves relevant pain points and demonstrating the benefits to the rest of the team. This approach fosters genuine enthusiasm and engagement, as users see firsthand how the product can improve their efficiency and creativity.

UX and Design Improvements to Help Recommenders Promote the Value of Your Offering
Analyzing what we heard from recommenders, we’ve identified factors that will help product recommenders drive the bottom-up adoption of products:

Intuitive onboarding that delivers quick time-to-value
Recommenders need to see the value of the product quickly or they will lose interest. It all starts with a smooth onboarding experience, but after that initial flow, the product needs to be useful without referring to support docs or training videos. Prioritizing ease of use ensures that first-time users can find personal benefits without steep learning curves, significantly reducing the time it takes for them to grasp the product’s capabilities and overall use to the organization. Recommenders we spoke with identified quick time to discover value as the No. 1 consideration as they evaluate tools.
Highlighting of differentiators to call out competitive advantages
Recommenders often compare various products before choosing one to champion. Highlighting the product’s differentiators within the interface is crucial. Whether it’s a unique feature set or better performance in a key area, the design should call out what sets the product apart from competitors. Unique selling points should be obvious and accessible, with clear visual cues, interactive demos, or personalized comparisons. Done right, this effort can make it easier for your prospects to understand and remember the value of your offering compared to the other products they tried.
Personalized experiences that immediately make the product relevant
People connect more with products that solve for their needs. An effective experience should center around use cases that resonate with the recommender and their team. Tailored onboarding, relevant templates, and adaptive workflows aligned with specific roles and industries will showcase how the product can deliver immediate value. In addition, it increases the likelihood of a recommender identifying with the product and sharing its value with others.
Easy invites for team members to broaden support
Once a product recommender begins advocating for a tool, it’s essential to help them invite others into the experience. Features that allow easy team collaboration—such as seamless sharing, onboarding invitations, or collaborative workflows—encourage teams to explore the product together. The more value the team collectively derives from the product, the stronger the case for adoption becomes. Based on our findings, this point of expansion is often where the recommender may abandon their review of a product. If they are not empowered to invite team members into the platform, it may seem like too much effort to get people excited about the product and deliver a positive message to those signing the checks.
Data-driven value analytics that can be handed to decision-makers
While the recommender can drive initial use, decision-makers often want to see a clear return on investment (ROI) before committing time and money. UX design can support this by surfacing data that highlights the product’s positive impact, such as time saved on tasks, new capabilities, or reduced costs. Integrating simplified analytics and reporting tools that are accessible to both users and decision-makers can streamline this process.

Conclusion

Empowering product recommenders through thoughtful UX design is essential for successfully driving bottom-up adoption. By focusing on ease of use, helping recommenders discover key differentiators, aligning with specific use cases, enabling team collaboration, and surfacing ROI, you can create a product experience that not only engages individual users but fosters organic, team-wide adoption. This approach leads to more genuine, sustained use, ultimately ensuring the product thrives within the organization.

Keep in Touch

Our team has helped hundreds of industry leaders across SaaS, life sciences and other industries to solve many of the challenges we’ve discussed here. If you’d like to discuss ways our team can help yours with UX research, strategy and product design to move your products forward, please reach out at info@proximitylab.com.

On a recent project for one of the world’s largest tech firms, we conducted human factors research that generated data from eye tracking, galvanic skin responses, and facial expressions. Combined with qualitative responses, this research enabled our client to better understand exactly what users were thinking when interacting with a variety of screens, content, and calls to action. But beyond the insights uncovered for the client, we also learned of five ways to improve upon our next human factors research activities.

1. Create Well-Defined, Complex Tasks That Mimic an Actual User Experience
To provide deep insights into user frustrations and interests, scenarios need to be clearly articulated and tasks should be contextually relevant. When users engage in tasks that closely mirror real-life experiences, the data collected is more accurate and actionable. While we collaborated with the client to define the tasks, iterated on them until they were clearly defined, and then created a script to walk users through each activity, we learned that a best practice is to continuously refine the tasks throughout the study to ensure they remain relevant and challenging. If tasks turn out to be too simplistic, there may not be adequate opportunities for a participant to experience enough frustration or satisfaction to demonstrably show up in the biometric data.

2. Invest in Building Detailed Prototypes
For the study, our client built a series of prototypes. However, due to various constraints, they were limited in scope (e.g., participants could only interact with certain areas of the screen, which limited their ability to explore naturally). While the prototypes did let us gather eye-tracking data and qualitative feedback, they fell short of eliciting interesting biometric data. Investing in more detailed and interactive prototypes will provide a richer context for users, leading to more accurate and useful biometric readings. This data will then help identify usability issues and emotional responses that might not be apparent with more limited prototypes, which in turn can lead us to more user-centric designs.

3. Combine Biometric and Qualitative Insights for a Holistic View
Biometric data can be complex and ambiguous and requires nuanced interpretation. On its own, it may not provide the complete picture. Combining biometric data with qualitative inputs can help researchers more deeply understand a participant’s motivation and frustration. In addition, this hybrid approach can help get others on board with the findings and recommendations. Stakeholders can see quotes and video clips from real users while also seeing charts showcasing their eye movements and skin responses. It can sometimes be easy to dismiss one or the other, but it's hard to ignore both qualitative and human factors together.

4. Ensure Consistency in Testing Conditions
Consistency is not always required for qualitative projects, but in human factors research that involve biometric readings, it is essential. Whenever possible, we suggest ensuring that pages or screens being compared are similar in content and functionality to avoid skewed results. When necessary, aggregate metrics to provide a holistic view of user interactions, ensuring that your comparisons are fair and accurate. In addition, we recommend a standardized protocol, such as a script and uniform instructions for participants, as well as common environmental conditions to minimize external influences on the data. For this project, our team used a dedicated research facility to create and manage ideal conditions for all participants.

5. Use Data Visualization to Highlight Key Findings but Show Where the Data May Not Show Value
The amount of data generated by eye tracking and skin response, for example, is huge. It’s very easy to overlook something important in tables or text, so data visualization is a necessity. Tables and the full dataset should always be made available, but it’s unlikely many will dig that deep. As mentioned before, finding insight often involves nuanced interpretation, so we highly recommend being transparent about the research, including what data is useful and what is not. For example, in this project, we suggested that while we collected a large amount of biometric data, much of it wasn’t as useful as the eye tracking because of limitations of the scenarios and prototypes. Transparency about what was useful and what was noise goes a long way with getting stakeholders to understand the full scope of the findings and encourage further research.

Conclusion

Studying human behavior is essential to designing products and systems that meet real user needs, and human factors research helps organizations better understand exactly how users interact with specific products. We believe the five insights we have outlined can make everyone’s human factors research more effective and impactful.

Keep in Touch

On a recent edition of Proximity Lab’s Design Conversation Series webinar, we were joined by Chris Avore co-author of "Liftoff: Practical Design Leadership to Elevate Your Team, Your Organization, and You."

This session delved into the intricacies of design leadership, providing a wealth of knowledge on building and managing high-performing design teams in today's ever-changing environment. We’ve compiled five key takeaways from our discussion with Chris to help you become a better design leader today.

Setting the Stage: The Importance of Design Leadership

Chris discussed the fundamental changes in design leadership over the past few years, the importance of adapting to the evolving landscape of design, and the critical role that leaders play in guiding their teams through these changes. The discussion highlighted how leaders must leverage their experiences to foster a culture of intentionality, effective communication, adaptability, efficiency, creativity, and resilience within their teams.

1. Intentionality in Design Leadership
One of the primary themes Chris focused on was the importance of intentionality in design leadership. He shared that a deliberate approach to building teams and setting expectations is crucial for success:

Too much stuff we were finding was just left to be determined later, without necessarily knowing what some of those downstream consequences could look like if we weren't doing some of the things that we tried to take a more deliberate approach to trying to pull off.

This underscores why design leaders must be proactive and intentional about their strategies and decisions, with an understanding about the opportunity cost of not taking action. By setting clear goals and expectations, and considering all viable alternatives - including inaction - leaders can create a structured environment where their teams can thrive. This helps prevent misalignment and ensures that the team is working towards a clear, common vision.

Chris also shared his journey from NASDAQ to InVision, Meta, and eventually Northwestern Mutual. Each of these roles taught him valuable lessons about the importance of intentionality. For instance, at NASDAQ, he realized the significance of having structured career ladders and productive one-on-one meetings. These practices help create a balanced and fair environment, reducing churn and misalignment of expectations.

2. Effective Communication and Presentation
Effective communication is at the heart of successful design leadership. Chris highlighted the need for design leaders to clearly articulate problems, present thoughtful solutions, and effectively communicate with stakeholders:

Identifying what the heck problem they were starting out trying to solve, and then walking someone through just enough of the approach to show that what they landed on was thoughtful, that they had considered trade-offs, they had considered risks, they had explored more than one way to solve that problem.

This clarity ensures that stakeholders understand the design process and the rationale behind decisions. It also helps build trust and credibility, as stakeholders can see that the design team has thoroughly considered various aspects of the problem and potential solutions.

Chris advised design leaders to be explicit about the type of feedback or directional approval needed to make meetings and presentations successful. He shared an anecdote about his time at InVision, where he traveled across the country talking to design and product teams about their challenges. These conversations reinforced the importance of effective communication and presentation in building strong relationships with stakeholders and achieving desired outcomes.

3. Adapting to Change and Uncertainty
Now more than ever, design leaders must be adept at navigating change and uncertainty. Chris discussed the importance of designing for stability amid fluctuating priorities and budget pressures:

Designing in turbulence and designing for kind of, and like the opposite of that, trying to design for stability in a period of turbulent times outside...we're seeing a heck of a lot of changing priorities, we're all seeing a lot of budget pressures.

This adaptability is crucial for maintaining productivity and morale within design teams. Chris shared that in the past few years, the focus of his conversations with design leaders has shifted from simply getting more designers, to addressing the challenges of designing in uncertain times, while facing increased scrutiny from above. He emphasized the need for leaders to create an environment where their teams can thrive despite internal and external pressures.

Chris also highlighted the importance of gaining conviction and confidence in recommending paths forward, even when faced with ambiguity. He pointed out that today, there is often a heightened expectation to get things right the first time, which can amplify the pressure on design teams. Leaders must be able to communicate and strategize effectively with their peers and executive leaders alike.

4. Balancing Efficiency and Creativity
Another key takeaway was the importance of balancing efficiency and creativity in design efforts. Chris explained that design should be pitched based on the organization's needs, whether it's delivering efficiency or fostering creativity:

I think that looking more at what the org needs, more so than is this going to be a place where I'm going to spend 100 hours in this creative tool instead of more of this workflow tool, the better.

Understanding context and tailoring design solutions to address specific organizational challenges can maximize the impact of strategic initiatives. Chris shared that in industries like insurance, where he currently works, creativity might be less emphasized than efficiency. However, there are still opportunities to apply creative thinking to improve processes and outcomes.

He advised design leaders to focus on where their contributions can add the most value to the organization. By aligning design efforts with business goals, leaders can demonstrate the tangible impact of design on the organization's bottom line. Chris shared examples of how he has applied this approach in his various roles, emphasizing the importance of being adaptable and responsive to organizational needs.

5. Building Resilient and Inclusive Teams
Building resilient and inclusive teams is essential, especially in a remote or hybrid work environment. Chris highlighted the importance of standardizing collaborative tools and processes to ensure that all team members are engaged and informed:

I also think trying to be able to be intentional about when you're using - FigJam or a Mural or Miro or whatever other shared tool. So that you don't feel like you're playing whack -a -mole and you're looking at last week's news when your coworker, your peer or your leader is looking at today's news on the wrong/different site.

Creating a sense of belonging and reducing feelings of isolation among remote team members are critical for maintaining productivity and morale. Chris emphasized the need for clear shared expectations around what good work looks like and the importance of regular check-ins to ensure alignment and support. He shared that at Northwestern Mutual, his team implemented deliberate approaches to standardize processes and foster a collaborative environment, even when working remotely.

These insights provide a comprehensive roadmap for design leaders looking to elevate their teams and drive meaningful impact within their organizations. By focusing on intentionality, effective communication, adaptability, balanced approaches, and team resilience, design leaders can navigate the complexities of today's business environment and deliver exceptional value.

Keep in Touch

To watch the full webinar, along with others we’ve hosted as part of our Design Conversation Series, check out our Insights page on our site at proximitylab.com/insights and be sure to follow us at linkedin.com/company/proximitylab

Every client we work with these days wants to incorporate some form of AI into their product experience. Whether driven by the C-suite, financial markets, competitors, industry analysts, SMEs, or likely some combination of all of these, the goal is the same: Get some compelling and useful AI capabilities into the product as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, this feverish demand can clash with two realities: getting users to trust AI is challenging, with many having been burned by vendor overpromises; and internal development teams don’t always have the talent, resources, or time to deliver the AI powering new experiences.

How Product Leaders Should Think About AI

While many slide decks dream of an autonomous, self-healing, AI-driven SaaS app world where humans occasionally audit but largely let AI run the show, that reality is likely much farther off than “Q12027” for a variety of reasons. That said, it’s clear that people really want some outcomes that a realistic AI can deliver on in the near term. This includes two key needs:

Taking Over the Mundane. People still see their fellow humans doing complex or creative jobs, but they definitely dream of AI helping to alleviate them of the boring, repetitive, and relatively simple things that devour most of the hours of their day. A prime example is higher-level technical support people who want to be free from fighting small fires all day. They will happily outsource these tasks to less skilled, AI-augmented colleagues, or even to AI conversation bots.

Making Sense of Complex Data. Almost every organization collects way more data than they can ever make sense of or use. And many struggle with Tableau dashboards or try to use Google Sheets to figure out the signal from the noise. AI’s analytical capabilities are a perfect match. Of course, like the complex algorithms that preceded AI, the underlying system has to be solid and free of bias to provide value. Distilling useful insight leads us to our next topic: AI principles.

Key AI Principles for Current Products

Based on extensive end user research, talking to stakeholders at a variety of vendors in many industries, and tracking AI in general, we believe most organizations would benefit from using these key principles as guidelines:

Keep the Team From Overpromising. In most cases, AI is simply not ready to do everything the CEO or marketing teams dream up. For example, most AI-driven script generators can deliver lines of code, but they don’t have critical features needed to make them actually useful, such as the ability to test the code and iterate. And that’s before adding cool features like “what if” scenario generators to see how it will impact a larger system.
Offer Multiple AI Recommendations and Efficient Feedback Delivery. Most users we talk to just don’t think AI will come up with the single, best course of action. If there’s just one option, they report that they are likely to tune out the advice. However, if there is a range offered (three is often cited), and they can provide feedback to improve it (a simple up/down vote is often easier to get than text feedback), they are much more willing to at least review what is offered.
Let Users Control the Degree of AI Influence. The product team may want AI front-and-center, but given it is likely to underdeliver, users will want a way to adjust its presence. For example, a product could offer consistent but somewhat subtle interaction moments and controls. As users get comfortable, make it easy for them to increase trust in AI recommendations and have more prevalent AI prompts on screens.
Allow Users to Peek Under the Covers. The models and code that drives AI won’t make sense to most people, but some insight into the source of the data and why, at a high-level, the recommendation was made can increase user trust, especially during early use and even later, during complex interactions with significant impact.

Figuring Out the Secret Sauce of AI for Your Product

Getting AI in your near- and mid-term product rollout plans is not easy. With so many inputs and ideas, often the chosen path can look like the least common denominator approach, one that tries to give something to everyone but ends up missing the mark, particularly when it comes to end users.

So how to improve your chances of success? What we have seen work is to blend strategy refinement with user-centric research and creative design exploration. Each informs the other, and when woven together correctly, they can deliver products with AI that are useful, trusted, and capable of being built.

Getting Started

AI is no longer just a buzzword—it’s a reality shaping product experiences today. But figuring out the right balance of AI-driven features is a challenge. Whether you’re struggling to meet ambitious goals or navigating user trust, we’ve seen firsthand how combining strategy, research, and design exploration leads to successful AI product rollouts.

If your team is interested in integrating AI into your next project, or if you’re facing challenges with your current implementation, we’d love to help. Reach out to us at hello@proximitylab.com, and let’s explore how we can elevate your product with AI.

In the latest installment of our Design Conversation Series, we had the privilege of hosting Tom Greever, author of “Articulating Design Decisions.” Tom enlightened us with his strategies for preparing for presentations, understanding stakeholder perspectives, improving listening skills, and responding to feedback to keep your projects on track and stakeholder-aligned. This event focused on the critical importance of effective communication in UX design, emphasizing the role of user research, empathy, and the integration of UX strategies with business goals.

Key Topics

Strategies and tactics for better communication through implicit and explicit listening

Building trust and empathy by understanding the broader context and personal stakes for stakeholders and asking questions about the impact on their role and priorities

Navigating difficult conversations through framing disagreements positively by viewing differing opinions as opportunities for better outcomes and avoiding negative language and focusing on potential outcomes

What's Next

We’re always looking to explore new and relevant topics in the UX design and product development sphere. If you have suggestions for speakers or topics you’d find valuable, or if you’d like to share your thoughts on our recent event with Krystal Higgins, we’d love to hear from you.

Reach out at hello@proximitylab.com.

Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn to not miss any updates or insights from future design conversations: www.linkedin.com/company/proximitylab

In the latest installment of our Design Conversation Series, we had the privilege of hosting Krystal Higgins, an acclaimed leader on product design and the author of “Better Onboarding.” Krystal enlightened us with her expert strategies for crafting onboarding experiences that captivate and retain users. This event, centered around transforming first-time users into loyal customers through engaging onboarding practices, offered a deep dive into the strategies laid out in her influential book.

Key Topics

The limitations of front-loaded onboarding instruction and how it can negatively impact engagement and retention

Strategies for improving onboarding like treating it as a journey over time and reinforcing guidance throughout product use

The importance of integrating onboarding into core product design rather than separate overlays or flows

Tactics for understanding user needs like longitudinal research and involving customer support teams

Opportunities and challenges with AI for onboarding like personalization and avoiding bad design patterns

What's Next

Don’t miss out on future conversations with design leaders in our Design Conversation Series. Follow our LinkedIn for announcements on upcoming events featuring leaders like Tom Greever, discussing his book, “Articulating Design Decisions.”

Reach out at hello@proximitylab.com.

Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn to not miss any updates or insights from future design conversations: www.linkedin.com/company/proximitylab

In our first Design Conversation Series event of 2024, our CEO, Nick Allen, spoke with Christian Crumlish, a design industry veteran and the author of “Product Management for UX People: From Designing to Thriving in a Product World." Christian shared his perspective on the evolving relationship between UX and product management over time, and we were thrilled to have many questions from attendees curious about practical ways to implement some of the ideas he discussed.

The event provided great advice and insights on how design and product teams can better work together. Some of the key topics include:

Key Topics

Better understanding of the roles, motivations, and jobs-to-be done for both product managers and UX/UI designers.

How to identify and capitalize on the unique skills of product managers and designers - especially those who may move between the two.

Methods of collaborating that result in better products and product experiences.

Recommendations for organizational leaders on how to address the normal tension between product and design teams and how to better build, align, and manage teams.

What's Next

Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn to learn about upcoming discussions with other design leaders at: www.linkedin.com/company/proximitylab. In the next few months, we’ll be joined by Krystal Higgins to discuss her book, “Better Onboarding,” as well as Tom Greever, who will join us to talk about his book, “Articulating Design Decisions.”

If you have ideas about an interesting topic or speaker you'd like to see, or if you’d like to talk to us about our perspective and experience with all things UX research and product design, please reach out at hello@proximitylab.com.

Our co-founder and CEO Nick Allen had a discussion with Chain Accel founder Don Dodge, a technology veteran and startup investor/advisor/board member focused on Blockchain, DeFi and smart contracts. Don gives his perspectives about the latest trends in AI technology and where he sees the most potential for startups and investors from here, during a period of excessive hype and market volatility.

Key Topics

Is AI tech already in the ‘trough of disillusionment’, from Gartner’s Hype Cycle? What will that mean for startup valuations and their opportunities for market disruption?

A balance of expertise in AI technology, as well as domain expertise in a given sector, will typically lead to the best outcomes for startups and new ventures.

ChatGPT will only be one of many applications of AI in new products, technologies and markets.

UX implications are minimal when AI is seamlessly integrated into an existing experience, such as viewing search results. However, good design becomes critical when new interactions are introduced, and it will be important to understand user needs and preferences to ensure successful adoption.

What's Next

Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn to learn about upcoming discussions with other technology and design leaders at: www.linkedin.com/company/proximitylab. If you have ideas about an interesting topic or speaker you'd like to hear from, please reach out at hello@proximitylab.com.

In our latest installment of our Design Conversation Series, we spoke with Chris Avore, head of design at Northwestern Mutual, and co-author of "Liftoff! Practical Design Leadership to Elevate Your Team, Your Organization, and You." Chris discusses some of the ways that, like so many things, design leadership has evolved and adapted since the book was released in 2020.

Key Topics

How needs of newer design leaders differ from those with years of experience, and some universal themes for anyone overseeing a design team

How increased risk aversion and scrutiny of decision-making during turbulent or uncertain times can impact outcomes

How to measure the strength, maturity, and influence of existing design leadership when applying at new organization

What's Next

Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn to learn about upcoming discussions with other design leaders at: www.linkedin.com/company/proximitylab. If you have ideas about an interesting topic or speaker you'd like to see, please reach out at hello@proximitylab.com.

Check out our recent discussion with Jon Yablonski, author of "Laws of UX" and Senior Product Designer at Mixpanel. We explored the fundamental concepts behind the Laws of UX framework and how understanding user behavior psychology can enhance the work of any UX/UI or product designer. Don't miss out on the valuable insights and takeaways from this discussion.

Key Topics

The importance of psychology in design: Yablonski discussed how understanding user psychology can help designers create more effective and engaging digital interfaces

Jakob's Law: User's implicit bias towards designs based off existing mental models

The Peak-End rule: A cognitive bias in how people remember experiences and how this may affect design decisions

What's Next

This event is the fifth session in a discussion series that explores the topic from the perspectives of design leaders, product strategists and product designers. If you have suggestions for topics, speakers, or questions please send them to hello@proximitylab.com.