Supporting Group Communication Among UX Consultants

Abstract: Professional User Experience (UX) practitioners have an inherent need for effective group communication practices. If they work as external consultants, the need is arguably even greater. Enterprise Social Media (ESM) technologies have affordances that make them seem promising for this domain. The aim of this thesis is thus to identify the domain-specific communicative needs of UX consultants, and discuss how these might be supported using ESM. A case study was conducted, examining how the ESM system Yammer was used by a group of UX consultants at a major Swedish IT firm. Through interviews with members of the group, together with content analysis of Yammer messages, three categories of communicative needs were identified: Solving design problems, Supporting “guerilla activities” and Making knowledge and relationships visible. The results further showed that the Yammer tool had failed to support these needs and consequently fallen into disuse. Finally, implications for future use of ESM technologies in the UX domain are discussed, and some practical recommendations are given.