When I was a teenager I was an avid horseback rider. I rode minimally three times a week and had high hopes of reaching the Olympics.
Sadly I never made it to the Olympics or out of the local show circuit, but I did learn a lot of lessons from those 10+ years of my life that I apply today to my career.
Working with a 1200lb animal is no small task, dangerous and rewarding at the same time, it takes a lot of talent to understand small cues from a beast that doesn’t speak the same language as you.
But I loved that connection between horse and rider so when I met Saturn, a gorgeous dappled palomino, I knew that there was a special bond. He was scared, shy, and loving. I think I might be biased on who he was, but many people at my old barn would say the same.
However, Saturn had a dark past, one that traumatized him so much that even I the one person he loved, he could not fully trust. To say it was devastating is an understatement. But I knew there was a way to communicate with him, I just had to learn to understand him.
Investigating The Problem
Have you ever had to gain the trust of an abused animal? The day I met Saturn I knew I had something special with him. He loved to nuzzle my hair and lean into me when I groomed. But he 100% hated having his legs touched.
He would buck, rear, stomp, and even some days throw me down the barn aisle. But despite these interactions with him, there were a lot of great ones too. The time he followed me into the tack room, or when he learned to come when called from the field, or how he helped me through one of the darkest times of my life by letting me cry into his neck.
Unfortunately, hooves are a major part of a horse’s health so despite other riders, barn owners, trainers, and even the farrier’s advice that he was a hopeless cause, I became determined to find a way to get him to trust me.
First, I needed to understand why he was afraid.
This would be a little harder since he was purchased from an auction. I didn’t know his back story like many animals, so I looked for physical signs. Was he sick, or hurt…? My first clue was a lot of scarring on his back legs, specifically in an X pattern.
What would have caused this? Talking to a vet, we believe he was hog-tied incorrectly at some point. The scars were deep enough to where he never even grew hair back, which is rare for horses.
Empathy
Learning this I became mad, no wonder he didn’t want anyone to touch his legs. He was completely traumatized by whatever happened whether it was a human or an accident.
Horses are vulnerable to predators when they are standing on three legs. They can’t run or getaway, so to avoid this Saturn did everything in his power to avoid being vulnerable to me. And I had to understand this to make the relationship work.
Observation Is Key
Trust was the goal! He needed to trust me to protect him, to not hurt him while I cleaned his feet or the farrier put shoes on. And I needed to trust him to not hurt me.
We went through a lot of trials, some of which I hate thinking about these days with the more I know. But hindsight is always 20/20. I can still remember the first moment he trusted me with picking up his feet.
I cried the moment I put his foot down and locked onto his neck for the biggest proudest mom hug. Most importantly I paid attention to everything around me.
What was going on, what time was it, where was he standing, what was he paying attention to?
I noticed of all the things in that situation only one was different from the many other attempts! Bob Marley was being blasted by the barn crew next to us.
His ears were attentive, curious, and listening.
So with this idea in my back pocket, I found a cheap CD boom box (long before our phones played music) and the only song in my ’90s pop collection that had any form of Jamaican kettle drums to it. And the next time I went to the barn, I played “Who Let the Dogs Out” on repeat for 20+ minutes.
With everyone questioning my sanity, I went around from one leg to the other picking up his feet and being able to clean them without hesitation for the second time in our relationship.
Testing It Over And Over Again
I was so excited about this breakthrough. Something was finally working for us, but would it continue to work?
After a few more sessions like this, things started to go downhill.
He became used to it and was able to anticipate what was going to happen.
What did I do wrong to have this happen?
Maybe it was the music? So I tried country, pop, rap… the same thing was happening!
I had to go back to the drawing board. This was when I realized that many of the steps I took to get him to trust me had been avoided because I finally found a way to get the task done easily.
But our trust issues were still the same.
Essentially I didn’t solve the problem, I just found a band-aid to it.
That was when I decided to do both.
The Solution
When I started to incorporate touch trust exercises with him along with the music at different intervals we began to improve our relationship and ultimately his trust in me.
The process for this took over a year and a lot of failed attempts.
What I Learned How-To
- Investigate the problem
- Empathize with the subject
- Observe for key points
- Test a hypothesis
By investigating the problem, I learned that our pasts can continue to dictate our future. For instance, Saturn had been hurt by someone and something, he didn’t trust others not to do the same. The same can be applied to any form of relationship whether it be with a human, website, product, or more.
Once we know why someone or an animal is this way, many of us just want to solve the problem. But what if we can’t relate? This is where understanding the emotions behind the event is so powerful. Do you think I would have been able to safely get him to trust me if I didn’t think about the trauma, the fear, the pain?
These all fuel his basic instincts, just like with websites, apps, content, businesses, etc. humans have basic instincts too. We know when something feels wrong, unsafe, frustrating… you get the picture, that when this happens, we want to flee as well.
But as businesses or content creators, we don’t always know when this is happening with our users. That is why observation is key to understanding pain points and even potential solutions. Just like with Saturn, I needed to observe what gave him comfort enough to distract him from his fear instincts and allow me to pick up his feet but also what didn’t work.
Despite what all the experts said to do for him it just didn’t work. And it’s ok that things don’t work, testing them over and over again allows us to improve and grow in our communication abilities. Whether it’s providing more accessible options for ordering pizza or teaching a horse to pick up its feet, we have to continue testing our solutions.
How I Use This Experience For User Experience
When I am working with a client I utilize this experience to see not only my client’s side but their users as well to ensure that the designs, content, and changes requested actually match the needs of the user.
This is why after a consultation, and recommending the setup of tools to learn the user behavior, I turn my focus on the user specifically.
Who are they? Do they match our target audience? What are their goals based on the business objectives? How do they find the business? There are so many questions that we can ask, but understanding the user allows us to build better experiences.
This allows me to see pain points that as marketers or engineers or business owners we don’t naturally see. That is because I start to think like the user, ultimately allowing me to empathize with them.
By understanding these points in our user experience we can then begin to move toward improvement. As data is collected, we can begin mapping out a user journey. Data is the driving decision-maker, so after we map a journey out, we can use the data to prove that yes we see high drop-offs or we are missing content connections.
This will help us understand what our users need and want.
These steps and actions help provide my clients with greater success in the improvement of their websites, content, marketing, and anything that needs movement for their user’s happiness.
Conclusion
He has been gone for 12 years now, but his lessons still follow me in everything I do. Learning to talk to 1200lb+ animals, learning to trust each other, and healing from traumatic pasts can teach a lot in a short lifetime.
But this lesson was the one that sticks out in my career the most. Saturn taught me to empathize with his trauma and fear, he taught me to investigate problems and research solutions, and he taught me that it was ok to not have everything work out the first time around. These are all things I bring to the table when I talk about user experience because real-life examples outweigh any course we can take.
This article originally appears on www.melissakane.com
