Skill Building For Design Innovators
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The document discusses essential skills for design innovators, emphasizing the importance of 'muscles' like noticing, listening, understanding cultural context, synthesizing, wordsmithing, drawing, and engaging with pop culture. Each skill is explained with methods for improvement and its relevance to understanding users and creating effective design solutions. The session includes a Q&A segment to further explore these skills and their applications.
Skill Building For Design Innovators
- 1. Skill Building For Design Innovators@steveportigal
- 2. Portigal Consulting is a bite-sized California firm that helps companies discover and act on new insights about their customers and themselves
- 3. The Promise of Mastery
- 5. Today’s SessionI’ll review some of the muscles I think are importantNoticingListeningUnderstanding cultural contextSynthesizingWordsmithingDrawingEmbracing pop cultureThese muscles drive how we understand users, collaborate with each other, and create design solutionsFor each, at varying levels of detailWhat are we talking aboutWhy does it matterHow to build these musclesI’ll talk steadily for the first 40 min. or so, then we’ll have Q & A at the end
- 6. 1. NoticingNoticing the noticing sensationThings that make you go “Hmm”Your attention is grabbedYou stop what you are doingLaugh/point/cringeFurrow brow in confusionWhuttha…?
- 7. Noticing Our UsersGaps between self-reported and actual behaviorWorkarounds, hacks and kludgesProcess breakdownsArtifacts or details to ask aboutNot only what people say, but how they say it
- 8. Noticing helps you to notice later
- 9. Noticing helps you to notice later
- 10. Noticing helps you to notice later
- 11. Noticing helps you to notice later
- 12. Noticing helps you to notice later
- 13. Building Noticing MusclesCarry a camera/notepad and use itThinkaloud protocol – say what you’re seeingTo a friendTo your deviceGet out of your regular/comfort zone
- 15. 2. ListeningInterpersonally, we’re trained to hear the breath signals that it’s our turn to talk. This is not really listening.FINISHED
- 16. Listening Body LanguageYes!Not so much.
- 17. You can demonstrate that you are listening by asking questions!Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up
- 18. “Earlier, you told us that…”
- 19. “I want to go back to something else you said…”Signal your transitions: “Great, now I’d like to move onto a totally different topic”This level of listening is not how we normally talk to each otherRemember that you are interviewing, not having a friendly chatThis is really hardExpert Listening in User Research
- 20. Building Listening MusclesUse serendipitous encounters with loquacious taxi drivers, airplane neighbors, or social-cue-missing party chattersEven if we can’t repair society’s listening inequity, we can use it to provide endless practice space Are you talking to me?
- 21. 3. Understanding Cultural Context
- 22. What is Culture?
- 23. Culture DefinedHow a group of people make sense of the worldCommonExperiencesBeliefsKnowledgeValuesAttitudesBehaviorsMeaningsPatternsSymbols
- 24. But First: Cultural NormsArticulates what is normalSeen in artifactsMediaProductsAdvertisementsStreet cultureTrends and fadsNormal isn’t “right or wrong” – it’s the set of background rules that define much of what people choose or ignore
- 25. What is Normal?
- 28. Cultural Context ExperiencesWith these examples, think about your own experiences with cultureIs this outside your norm?Is this something you have an analog for in your own culture?Is it your own culture?Have you observed this? Or something similar?
- 35. Cultural Context Muscles: Collect Your Stories
- 36. Cultural Context Muscles: Collect Your Stories
- 37. Cultural Context Muscles: Collect Your Stories
- 38. Cultural Context Muscles: Observe Observers
- 39. 4. SynthesizingSynthesis is essential if we want to use customer information to do more than solve “point needs”, i.e., to innovate
- 40. Idealized Synthesis Process452316ObjectivesFindingsUser Experience BriefIdeationQuestionsPossible StrategiesPossible SolutionsDetailedSolutions7
- 42. Expert Synthesis Process452316ObjectivesFindingsUser Experience BriefIdeationQuestionsPossible StrategiesPossible SolutionsDetailedSolutions7
- 43. 5. WordsmithingDifferent than writing proseWe draw on this whenWriting PowerPointCreating effective hyperlink labelsNaming UI or product functionalityArticulate findings about customer mental models (i.e., difference between automatic and smart)
- 45. 6. Drawing
- 46. Drawing
- 47. Drawing
- 48. Why Drawing?The more ways you have to work out ideas (alone or with others), the more impactful you will beMoving a pen on paper will to engage your brain (and your audience’s brain) in a different way than moving a mouse or typing on a keyboard
- 54. Building Drawing MusclesDrawIt doesn’t matter that you “can’t draw”Kate Rutter calls it putting marks on paper to take the fear out of itGet other people to draw
- 55. 7. Pop Culture“Pop culture is a rich source of information that can often be crucial for our work. When the public begins to compare and contrast the voting for American Idol with voting for the American president, that’s something we want to pay attention to. Dismissing this cultural data by sniffing ‘I don’t watch American Idol’isn’t a relevant response.”Steve PortigalLiving In the Overlapinteractions, Sep+Oct 2008
- 56. Pop Quiz
- 57. Pop Quiz
- 58. Pop Quiz
- 59. Pop Quiz
- 60. Pop Quiz
- 61. Pop Quiz
- 62. To Know (About) Him Is Not To Love Him
- 63. Building Pop Culture MusclesRead/watch broadly yet shallowlyGo outside your interestsNot about being complete, but about expanding your baseSkim, surf, flip – TV, RSS, headlines, publications, etc.
- 64. Building Pop Culture MusclesConsume the meatConsume the meta
- 65. Muscles and Where We’ll Use ‘Em
- 66. Another muscle to consider might be…Yeah, I’ve got a question for ya…One new thing I learned today is…