Design studio: A team alignment secret weapon - Modev MVP Conference We all want the best user experience, but often other priorities get in the way: “Bob from Marketing wants it to…”, “The developers don’t like that approach...”, “That feature is a ‘nice to have’”. What if you had a tool that can help folks sharpen their UX skills, get them prioritizing the users and their goals, and align everyone on a common vision that revolves around a great user experience? This hands-on tutorial will walk you through a design studio and how it can be a great tool to align product owners, developers and UX teams on an approach that balances user and business needs. We’ll also show you how to conduct a “mini design studio” before an agile sprint. You’ll gain hands-on experience with different aspects of running a design studio through individual and group exercises throughout the tutorial. John Whalen (CEO at Brilliant Experience): John Whalen has a PhD in Cognitive Science with over 15 years of User-Centered Design experience. He currently leads Brilliant Experience – a consultancy that supports intra- and entrepreneurs to ensure the success of mission-critical innovation projects by using our unique blend of user-centered design, psychology, design thinking and lean startup techniques. John’s specialty is to provide businesses with competitive advantages using a mix of user research insights and expert knowledge of human vision, attention and memory. He has experience (and great stories to tell from) working with Fortune 500 clients in the ecommerce, financial, healthcare and government verticals. John’s currently focusing on helping large enterprises integrate brain science into agile, design thinking, and UCD projects.

1. A Team Alignment Secret Weapon:
The Design Studio
Psychology + User Experience + InnovationBrilliant Experience
John Whalen, PhD
UX Lead, Brilliant Experience
President, UXPA-DC
Amee Mungo
Senior Product Manager, Digital Card
Capital One

2. Agenda
‣ Introductions
‣ Why Design Studios?
‣ Detail Design Studio Components
‣ Introduce Today’s Problem & Complete Components
‣ Design Studio Details, Tips & Tricks

3. Introduction

4. John Whalen, PhD
UX Lead, Brilliant Experience
President, UXPA-DC
Amee Mungo
Senior Product Manager, Digital Card
Capital One

5. Brilliant Experience Psychology + User Experience + Innovation

6. Brilliant Experience Psychology + User Experience + Innovation

7. If you follow exactly the steps we outline

9. Warm Up

10. How do we “cross the chasm”?
User Insights
Great Experience,
Successful Product
Insert
Magical
Process
Here

11. Not recommended

12. Hard to find

13. Let’s play: Name that methodology

14. User Stories
1
Design &
Develop
2
Feedback
3

15. User Stories
1
Design &
Develop
2
Feedback
3
Agile

17. Build
1
Measure
2
Learn
3

18. Build
1
Measure
2
Learn
3
Lean
Startup

19. Lean Startup

20. Copyright © 2012-2013 Brilliant Experience
1 2 3 4
Empathize with
the audience you
are designing for.
Brainstorm possible
designs
Build a representation
of one or more of your
ideas
PrototypeIdeateResearch
Test your ideas for
feedback
Test

21. Copyright © 2012-2013 Brilliant Experience
Empathize with
the audience you
are designing for.
Brainstorm possible
designs
Build a representation
of one or more of your
ideas
PrototypeIdeateResearch
Test your ideas for
feedback
Test
Design
Thinking
1 2 3 4

22. Design Thinking

23. We believe these methodologies are not enough!

24. Success lies beyond the product
development process

25. Product Development Team Development
Empathize with your audience Determine management alignment
Baseline measurement Evaluate the team
Design studio
Exploration of solution space Intensive training
Partner designers / developers Support team
Two Tracks

26. Product Development Team Development
Empathize with your audience Determine management alignment
Two Tracks

27. What do they say? do? think?
Consumer! Lawyer! Banker!
Neuroscien2st! VAD7Nurse! Drug7Researcher!
Farmer! Federal7Administrator! Mom7/7Chauffeur!

28. Stakeholder Alignment

29. Two Tracks
Product Development Team Development
Empathize with your audience Determine management alignment
Baseline measurement Evaluate the team

30. Baseline Testing

31. UX Lead
Technical
Lead
User
Researcher
Usability
Expert
Front-End
Developer
Front-End
Developer
Interaction
Designer
UX
Strategist
consultant
employee
Evaluate The Team

32. Two Tracks
Product Development Team Development
Empathize with your audience Determine management alignment
Baseline measurement Evaluate the team
Design studio

33. Two Tracks
Product Development Team Development
Empathize with your audience Determine management alignment
Baseline measurement Evaluate the team
Design studio
Exploration of solution space Intensive training
Partner designers / developers Support team

34. Design Studio

35. Why have a design studio?

36. CEO: “I know
you had an
agenda,
but let’s just
sketch our
ideas anyway…"

37. Design Studio Origins
‣ Design school
- Intensive group critique of work
- Learn through criticism
- Take chances and learn through experimentation
- Everyone learns through design.

38. Design Studio Evolution
‣ Rapidly align team on:
‣ Internal business goals of project
‣ Prioritized audiences
‣ Audience goals and scenarios
‣ Relationship between business and audience needs
‣ Possible solutions space
‣ Early concepts

39. Design Studio - Side Benefits
‣ Understand team dynamics
- See the team working together
- Understand the personalities, roadblocks, willingness to learn, try new things
‣ Allow a safe environment to explore new ideas
- Get executive permission (demand) to change
- Give permission to brain storm possibilities
- Provide rare chance for cross discipline interaction (marketing, development, UX, design, sales)
- Align team on way forward, even if underspecified

40. Design Studio - Side Benefits
‣ Let other team members understand UX and Users
- Challenge other teams to think like the user
- Force prioritization of audiences
- Get those team members to role play as a user, develop empathy
- Demonstrate the challenges of interface design
- Allow other teams to empathize with the challenges and needs of the UX team

41. Design Studio - Side Benefits
‣ Get feeling of accomplishment
- Create immediate decisions and deliverables
- Ensure that the team have built something together, for once
- Create a pact between UX, Execs, Developers, Marketers
(when does that happen otherwise?)
- Build team camaraderie

42. Design Studio Introduction

43. Goals
‣ Collaborate
‣ Generate ideas
‣ End up with several good ideas

44. Guidelines for the next two days.
1. Minimal phones, tablets, or laptops - we need to focus on the project
- We will give you breaks to get your fix
2. We must generate a lot of ideas quickly
- We will have deadlines to get things done
3. We are not in the idea- or ego-squashing business
- We succeed through a breadth of perspectives

45. Today, we will create the foundation for a winning
WMATA strategy and design direction through a
strategy workshop & design studio.

46. Introduce the design
studio process, our
goals and activities.
Prioritize business
goals. Ensure we are
aligned on our goals for
the project and desired
outcomes.
Prioritize your
audiences, define them
create the scenarios in
which they would use
this product.
Audience NeedsEnterprise NeedsIntroduction
Flesh out best ideas.
Get the team to agree
on promising
conceptual directions
through presenting
concepts to the team.
Design Studio
The Process
1 2 3 4

47. Schedule - Day 1
Time Activity & Description
12:30 – 1:00 Kickoff & Introduction
1:00 - 2:00 Elevator Pitch
2:00 - 2:10 Brief Break
2:10 - 3:00 Prioritize Business Objectives
3:00 – 3:20 Prioritize Site Audiences
2:30 - 2:45 Brief Break
3:30 – 4:30 Create & Present User Personas
4:30 - 5:00 Summary & Wrap Up

48. Schedule - Day 2
Time Activity & Description
8:00 - 8:20 Day 2 Kickoff
8:20 - 8:30 Stakeholder Comments on Day 1 Findings
8:30 – 9:20 Create & Present User Scenarios
9:20 - 9:30 Brief Break, Design Studio Setup
9:30 – 9:45 Feature Brainstorming Session
9:45- 10:00 Introduction to Conceptual Design & Design Studio
10:00 – 11:15 Homepage Design Sprints
11:15 – 11:45 Group Presentations of Designs
11:45 – 12:00 Wrap up

49. Samples of Each Step

50. Elevator Pitch

51. Prioritize Business Needs

52. Prioritize & Create Personas

53. Scenarios

54. Customer Experience Journey

55. Early Ideation

56. Sketching & Prototyping
‣ We were the first of the cleanup crews
‣ Primary subcontractor spent 2 years and built close to nothing that could be approved for launch
(issues with usability)
‣ SWAT team brought in to fix: IDEO, Brilliant
‣ Arrived at first meeting and learned that the problem needed to be fixed in two weeks with the first
review due in three days
‣ Drove to my nearest relative’s house (father), removed all art and photographs from the walls, and
got to work
Sketching & Prototyping

57. Today’s Workshop Challenge

58. Meet the Lemieux’s, “speak English little bit”

59. Lemieux’s plan for Washington DC

60. Meet the Washington Metro

61. Qu’est-ce que c’est???!!!

62. Excusé moi?

63. Will it take my children away from me?

64. Are there any signs?

65. Challenge:
Use the design studio to figure out how
to make it easier to get a family through
the Washington Metro using their
mobile phone(s).

66. Elevator Pitch

67. Elevator Pitch
‣ The elevator pitch is a quick assessment of team alignment. The goal
is to briefly describe your new product as if you were in an elevator
pitching it to a key stakeholder.
‣ We want each individual to describe its audience, their need, the
product’s category and biggest benefit, and how it uniquely serves
your audience.

68. Elevator Pitch
‣ Work independently
‣ One Post-It note per space

69. Customer Experience Journey

70. Customer Experience
Journey
‣ Consider the user journey, from
initial thoughts and concerns to
completed goals.
‣ How would they try to tackle the
problem? What would be each
step?
‣ What might be their typical
needs for that step?
‣ What questions would they want
answered?

71. Review our work
‣ Recognize priorities, top audience needs, promising design possibilities.

72. Congratulate the Team!Congratulate the Team!

73. Design Studio: Procedural Details

74. Duration of Meeting
‣ How long have yours been?
- Mine: 1/2 day to 3 days
- 1/2 day - well defined app
- 1-2 days - typical for larger group that needs to achieve alignment
- 2 days enough to allow for true design studio - detailed design and critique
- Sometimes need longer when there is detailed information about the users available

75. Selecting Features
‣ Elevator Pitch
‣ Affinity Diagraming
‣ Business Priorities
‣ Prioritizing and building Personas
‣ Prioritizing and building Scenarios
‣ User Experience Mapping
‣ Brainstorm sketch concepts, revise concepts

76. Who to Invite? When to get involved?
‣ Senior Executives / Executive Sponsor
‣ UX
‣ Design
‣ Marketing
‣ Development
‣ Operations
‣ Other channels (print, in-store, phone support)
‣ SMEs

77. Who to Invite? When to get involved?

78. Tools You’ll Need

79. If you follow exactly the steps we’ve outlined…

81. Thank you!
Psychology + Innovation + DesignBrilliant Experience

82. John Whalen
jw@brilliantexperience.com
slides and templates at:
brilliantexperience.com
Psychology + Innovation + DesignBrilliant Experience