Tell me if this sounds familiar:

You’re in a sales pitch about a new piece of software that promises to revolutionize the way your company’s employees work. Claims of faster document retrieval, super-specific search results, natural language commands, and a shiny interface are all spread out in front of you in slick, quick-moving demos with highly-trained salespeople who answer every question you have with a hearty, “Yes!”

“Now,” says the Customer Success Rep you’ve invited into the conference room, “Tell me what an average user is going to need to guarantee success with our software.”

And then…nobody in the room has an answer.

The people in the room are the best in your company to do certain things. You have the engineers who will help customize the software to connect with your system. Network administrators who can assure that logins will work seamlessly with the SSO protocols you’ve set up. Executives who control the budget and know the direction for the company for the next 5 years and can articulate it well.

Everyday users? None to be found.

It happens time and again, and it’s an issue that can be addressed in a way that’s not often utilized. Taking the time to poll, speak to, and observe the daily users of your systems can assure that not only new software purchases are well adopted, but also to point out the hidden benefits and pitfalls in the current systems in place.

A few easy, non-time-consuming and practically free ways to see how everyday users of your software and systems actually do their work can include:

• Polls and Surveys: Whether sent at regular intervals via email or other communication platforms or embedded directly in your systems, asking the users what works and what doesn’t can often point out areas of improvement or hidden gems in your day-to-day work methods.
• Focus Groups: These can be held in-person or over video/audio conference calls. A 30-minute session where a moderator asks small groups of users to give details about how they work, what they look for, and how they bypass or modify your current systems can help design workflows and interfaces, and also troubleshoot bugs that may not be critical enough to catch during design.
• Online Forums: Often, users feel pressure on the spot if asked directly about how the systems work, but will feel more free in asynchronous communication platforms dedicated to your systems. A simple “Software Questions” forum can point out long-term patterns of usage and issues that may not be noticed or asked about in questionnaires or discussions.
• Observational Sessions: Sitting down with users regularly and observing them complete tasks on your software systems can point out the actual steps they are taking to make the programs work for them. Often, you may find that users are working in your software the “wrong” way, but it leads to better results for them, and adjustments can be made to design and performance based on real-life examples.

Remember that often, the decision-makers and implementers of new systems aren’t the ones who will have to interact with the platform every day. It’s often easier to build something than to make sure it’s useful, but the steps to take to assure usefulness may not be as arduous or expensive as you may assume.