You come up with a hypothesis on how to improve a critical area of the business. Say, a payment step.
You prepare the wireframes, the design, sometimes even the whole page.
You’re ready to start implementing the test.
And then…
Stakeholder’s opinion happens.
HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) says “No”.
Or says “This won’t work.”
Or “It doesn’t make sense.”
What then?
You counterbalance it with user research.
Because you came prepared.
Because the hypothesis wasn’t based on opinion, it was based on research, on facts, on data, on something that you know doesn’t work the way it should be.
Then two things can happen.
- The stakeholder happily reverts their opinion and says “Ok.” But the more likely scenario is that they just say “Maybe.” That’s good enough. That’s permission to test and to let the money speak.
- The stakeholder says “So what? It still doesn’t make sense.” In such a case, there’s nothing else left to do but walk away. The business has more serious problems and whatever you can do for them doesn’t matter.
If your research was thorough enough, your arguments should be strong enough to at least get the stakeholders to “Maybe.”
When you set the test up properly and measure the financial impact properly, you’ll have no problem with showing the real financial impact on the business. You save yourself from situations like above in the future, and you live happily ever after.
PS. Because we don’t live in the ideal world, situations like in point #2 still sometimes happen. This then gives you a clear sign of what to do.
