Design Strategy: Aligning Business Goals and User Needs
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Transcript of Design Strategy: Aligning Business Goals and User Needs
DESIGN STRATEGY:
ALIGNING BUSINESS GOALS AND USER NEEDS
Chris AvoreUPA-DC UserFocus: October 15 2010@[email protected]://erova.com
Monday, October 18, 2010
agenda
1. brief introduction
2. define the damn thing:design strategy
3. design strategy in practice
a. collaborative design strategy
b. design strategy as a deliverable
c. examples
4. questions
Monday, October 18, 2010
brief introduction
1
brief introduction
Monday, October 18, 2010
let’s set expectations
Adaptive Path has an 8 hour design strategy workshop led by 2 people
Nathan Shedroff leads an entire MBA program in Design Strategy
You have me for 40 minutes, including Q/A.
Monday, October 18, 2010
let’s set expectations
NOCriticism of your current approachEmpty promisesDiscussing software or platformsVenn diagrams, Chart PR0N
YESDefinitions of Design StrategyA buzzword or two (but hear me out)A useful and implementable approachHow to use what you already know
Monday, October 18, 2010
define the damn thing
2
defining design strategy
Monday, October 18, 2010
conventional strategy
executives make the key business decisions
transpose into business strategy
bring in design team to implement the strategy
Monday, October 18, 2010
defining design strategy (part 1 of 3)
design strategy:
the process of carefully framing a project of what to design before you figure out how it should be designed
Brandon SchauerAdaptive Path
Monday, October 18, 2010
defining design strategy (part 2 of 3)
design strategy:
the use of design processes, perspectives, and tools to create truly meaningful, sustainable, and successful innovation across a variety of design disciplines
Nathan Shedroffchairperson, MBA in Design Strategy program at California College of the Arts
Monday, October 18, 2010
defining design strategy (part 3 of 3)
design strategy:
[defines the design activities] within the constraints of time and resources...to help the designer select the best mix of creative and rational methods.
Richard Branham, Alp TiritogluCHI 97: Design Strategies and Methods in Interaction Design
Monday, October 18, 2010
defining design strategy
baseline analysis & current state of where you’re at
roadmap & vision
research-based personas
decision, process or task flows
rough prototypes or sketches
competitive & market analysis
balanced scorecard
feature/value analysis
measuring results:what, when, how to define success
tangible design strategy:
Monday, October 18, 2010
so that’s a theoretical definition. What about a tangible design strategy? What’s it actually made of?
defining design strategy
Monday, October 18, 2010
Strategy isn’t following an instruction manual.
defining design strategy
design strategy is fluid
Monday, October 18, 2010
You keep you eyes open to see what’s missing, where opportunities exist, and where pursuing
defining design strategy
not a rigid process
Monday, October 18, 2010
defining design strategy
expect new insights & opportunitiesin unlikely places
Monday, October 18, 2010
defining design strategy
but be prepared to align it with your roadmap and vision, so you’re not chasing
features and functionality
Monday, October 18, 2010
defining design strategy
and measure progress & successif you pursue the new path
Monday, October 18, 2010
recap (1 of 2)
clarify a feasible, viable vision
discover threats, insights & opportunities via research
determine how to measure success over time
articulate how your product fits within the ecosystem
a plan to make it happen over time
and how to complement and enhance product strategy, business strategy, and other corporate goals
goals of design strategy:
Monday, October 18, 2010
recap (2 of 2)
design strategy is:
a collaborative process to understand what to design before you design it
a plan to align business objectives with design goals
documentation to align stakeholders, colleagues & investors with your plan of attack
Monday, October 18, 2010
design strategy in practice
3
design strategy in practice
Monday, October 18, 2010
risks: lack of design strategy
is design strategy necessary for success?
Monday, October 18, 2010
risks: lack of design strategy
incremental innovation
feature-creep, feature-chasing, useless features
little differentiation from competitors or yourown offerings
functionality that may threaten the service/product’s ecosystem within your organization
Monday, October 18, 2010
Many of us work in environments that don’t have a formal design strategy system in place. As UX designers, usability specialists, and information architects, we can spot a lot of these problems early, and recommend a better way.
design strategy in practice
how do you bring design strategyinto your organization?
or
now what?
Monday, October 18, 2010
where to start
knowns, assumptions, unknowns
Monday, October 18, 2010
By identifying what you know, what you think you know, and what you don’t know can go a long way to understanding how you can create your strategic plan.
where to start
potential important unknowns:
product vision, roadmap, plans
origin of features
definition of success
customer (& user), CoP perception
concrete strategic business objectives
key performance indicators, targets
Monday, October 18, 2010
In some cases you’ll have this documentation elsewhere; in others it simply won’t exist, and you have to determine the level of effort to create it.
Even the business objectives may need to be clarified, particularly if you work in larger organizations that will likely have people exclusively creating strategy. Use their work to anchor your own, both for validity and consistency.
where to start
determine what you need now to
avoid disaster or follow a hunch
Monday, October 18, 2010
where to start
Don’t wait for project kickoff or sprint zero
Monday, October 18, 2010You don’t need to wait for the start of a project to begin assessing it strategically. Beginning strategy work now will inform future decisions.
Every design strategy needs a benchmark or a current state, and you can do that tomorrow.
where to start
and don’t do it alone if you can help it.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Design strategy should be a collaborative process. Isolating yourself and hoping to come up with all the answers yourself doesn’t work. In many cases those decisions have put your product or service in the position you’re in today.
collaborative design strategy
Which stakeholders or business units might have an opinion here?
Which ones are we assuming might not be affected? How can we confirm?
Who’s left out of this discussion?
Where do we anticipate conflict?
The New How, Nilofer Merchant
Monday, October 18, 2010
Plus this also signals to your clients, partners, account stakeholders, or leadership that you’re not trying to do it alone, or reinvent another take on strategy. Talk to product & project managers, other designers, the customer service team, the sales force, and ask them to contribute to the discussion.
collaborative design strategy
not lockstep; alignment
Monday, October 18, 2010
You’re not looking to get everyone to agree, but everyone should have an idea how and why decisions were made. Think consensus, not concession.
collaborative design strategy
the air sandwich
overly ambitious ideas
choosing certainty over clarity
individual status over team results
saving, preserving personal ideas
The New How, Nilofer Merchant
collaborative strategy helps avoid:
Monday, October 18, 2010air sandwich: high level decisions at the top, poor communication from strategists to implementers.
design strategy in practice
baseline analysis & current state of where you’re at
roadmap & vision
research-based personas
decision, process or task flows
rough prototypes or sketches
competitive & market analysis
balanced scorecard
feature/value analysis
measuring results:what, when, how to define success
And then decide what fits the job.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Remember these? Now decide what to use.
tools of the UXer
tactical
strategic
mockupswireframes
prototypes
process flows
personas
usability testing
observation
experience diagrams
concept models
interviews
project durationkickoff
Monday, October 18, 2010
These are the usual deliverables we provide, in some form or another.
tools of the UXer as design strategist
strategic
balanced scorecard (strat maps)
feature value analysis
roadmap
competitive analysis functionality/process/experience
process flows
personas
observation
experience diagrams
concept models
interviews
prototypes
gap analysis
Monday, October 18, 2010
But to address how the design will reconcile business objectives and user needs, we need a few unique ways to think about, and visualize, the factors the make up the design strategy.
The roadmap provides the direction the product or service will progress through, the balanced scorecard weighs criteria when prioritizing strategic objectives, competitive analysis allows you to understand the environment your product or service will or already competes in, the gap analysis examines where earlier versions, or your current state, differs from where you want to be, and the feature value analysis provides a line by line examination of how features and functionality measure against feasibility, desirability, and viability.
questions
a few examples
Monday, October 18, 2010
design strategy lifecycle
DiscoveryUser Research
Content Analysis
Visual Design
IA Design
Interaction Design
Valida-tion
Testing
Visual Style Guide
CSS & HTMLInput Templates Test /
QA ScriptingURL Redirects
Search Reindexing
Presentation Templates
Test / QA
Metatagging
Fine-level IAURL Design
Finish Controlled Vocabularies
Search Engine Optimization
Create New ContentStep-by-Step
Guides
Voice Style Guide Rewrite Existing Content
Content Migration
ROT Removal
Address New Photographic
Needs
Create Visual Assets
Update Visual Assets
Content Freeze 1 Freeze 2 Freeze 3
Te
st
in
g
&
QA
La
un
ch
Editorial Clean-
UpCMS Training
Misc & Sundry IT Tasks
Fine-Level Visual Design
Content Inventory FInish Metadata Strategy
Content Strategy
Editorial Techno-logy IA & IxD Visual User
Research Strategy
Legend
Strategy and Design Implementation
Redesign and Implementation Roadmap
adaptive path
User Testing Design Updates
baseline metrics of current state
identify key business needs
feature/value
analysis
competitive analysis*
define success criteria
updates should still be tied to overall design
strategy
Post Launch
define product/service roadmap/vision
compare metrics/KPIs to baseline and evaluate
against success criteria
continue marching toward product/service roadmap
identify any unexpected/abnormal analytics, feedback
remarks in blue are by
Chris Avore
primary design
objectives
Monday, October 18, 2010
Design strategy within the full lifecycle of a release
examples: Feature/Value Analysis
Feature/Value Analysisbridges strategic brainstorming into tactical, tangible ideas
Monday, October 18, 2010
examples: Feature/Value Analysis
Feature/Value Analysisfeature descriptionbusiness priority (1-3)design level of effort (1-3)technical level of effort (1-3)strategic objectives
Monday, October 18, 2010
A simple spreadsheet that aligns each piece of functionality to weighted business priority, a strategic objective, the design and technical level of effort. This can act as the lynchpin to a design strategy simply because it encourages the designer to understand exactly why something should or should not be included in future design phases.Sometimes this can start to look like a standard requirements document.
examples: Feature/Value Analysis
What persona is most likely to benefit
from this feature?
Is this feature in the roadmap?
Can we prototype this feature?
What competitors currently provide this or
a similar feature?
Have we seen evidence of how our customers already try to do this
with the current offering?
Feature/Value Analysis
Monday, October 18, 2010
But the FVA can continue to mature into a lynchpin of design strategy. It can act as the center of the design strategy ecosystem, reflecting numerous other design activities and deliverables, ranging from observation exercises, competitor analyses, personas, prototypes, and more.
tools of the UXer as design strategist
Reference the documentation you use today to reflect strategic objectives.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Not everything even has to be new documentation. You can frame existing work to reference your design strategy.
tools of the UXer as design strategist
Reference the documentation you use today to reflect strategic objectives:
How does this wireframe align with the roadmap? What could the next version look like?
How are this persona’s needs reconciled with the strategic business objectives?
Where can the process flow reveal gaps from our current state to future ideas?Or our competitors?
Monday, October 18, 2010
other tips to documenting design strategy
Begin annotating wireframes, mockups, with business goals or referencing the FVA
Convert process flows to experience flows
Beef up competitor research to include business process (what they’re doing), not just functionality
Identify triggers, metrics to substantiate a hunch
Map primary business objectives to the customer lifecycle: reinforce the customer/user experience
Monday, October 18, 2010
design strategy in practice
differentiatethe tactical problems
Monday, October 18, 2010
Remember to differentiate the tactical problems...
design strategy in practice
and see the big picture
Monday, October 18, 2010
As practitioners, we frequently test our products and services to make sure the ideas we’re designing are usable. But design strategy attempts to confirm we’re designing USEFUL products and services too. Don’t get bogged down in tactical details if the fundamental approach is off. And while it’s easier said than done, the evidence and supporting research you’ve uncovered throughout the design strategy process will give additional credibility to your arguments.
common useful resources
Design Management Institute
Harvard Business Review
strategy+business (booz allen)
BusinessWeek
Core77
MIT Sloan Management Review
Monday, October 18, 2010
questions
4
questions
Monday, October 18, 2010
collaborative strategy in practice
Big thanks to:
@dpan
@lishubert
Monday, October 18, 2010
Design strategy isn’t meant to be a one person exercise.
Neither are presentations about design strategy.
Thank you.
Chris AvoreUPA-DC UserFocus: October 15 2010@[email protected]://erova.com
Monday, October 18, 2010