Talk It Out, Or Write It Down?
- 1. Talk It Out, Or Write It Down?Thoughts on communicating digital experience design
- 2. the next 30 min 1. What is this guy talking about? 2. Evaluate process with 5 questions 3. Real-world scenarios 4. Takeaways / Q&A
- 3. Hi, I’m mike I consult with early-stage product companies to help them create awesome digital experiences ! @jefftheturtle
- 4. At the time that I was asked to speak to you, I was co-teaching UXD at General Assembly. When teaching, Core UX values were on my brain more than ever. Not me
- 5. We are meant to empathize with our users and advocate for their needs ! That we are meant to instill purpose in products and experiences ! We are meant to educate our collaborators on the human centered design process 1 2 3 I believe…
- 6. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should” – Dr. Ian Malcom
- 7. Spread the “why” •We all agree that our work should be research driven…but we are practiced in being investigative •We have to be as adept at communicating our informed reasoning to our collective team as we are at forming it •Top quality design is more than the sum of our deliverables
- 8. Unless you are a one-person product company, design work never occurs in a vacuum. Unicorns are great, But it’s all about playing well with others.
- 9. Consistent Methodology, Tailored process •Embracing communication starts by accepting that one size does not fit all •Even in a stable company, the environmental elements that impact a project will always vary •Advocate for the time to evaluate process just as you we evaluate our design problems •Don’t abandon methodology, scale it •Talk, talk, talk, talk… then consider what to write down
- 10. Evaluate your task’s goals and resources ! Customize the macro approach ! Employ a standard library of deliverables 1 2 3 To be custom yet consistent… Be really, really respectful of your team4
- 11. When you kick off a project, start here. 5 questions that will Ensure everyone profits
- 12. 1. What is our environment? •Are we working in-house at a product company, as a freelancer, at an agency, for ourselves? •Are we bootstrapped? Funded? Part of a marketing campaign? Retained? •Is this a new concept or an evolution/iteration? •How established is our team? Seasoned together, recently assembled, cross-department? Are we all in one place?
- 13. 2. Where are my developers? •Are my developers sitting next to me, on the other side of the office, or on the other side of the ocean? •Are there natural communication barriers such as language, technical vocabulary, or time zone? •Are their software formats they are not adept at using?
- 14. 3. What stages of the project are UXD’s directly involved in? •Are we in the room from day 1 to completion? Or are we responsible for just research, just strategy, just design, just development, or some combination of several? •Do we have equal voice? Do we own a particular stage but are subordinate in others? •Did we weigh in on scope or has that been predetermined?
- 15. 4. To whom are we handing off? •Are we presenting to a group or 1 to 1? •Is the primary recipient a designer, a developer, a project manager, or a business stakeholder? •Is the recipient in place because of their hard skills or because of their bureaucratic position? What is their level of design/tech knowledge?
- 16. 5. How long is the lifespan of our deliverables? •Are they selling an idea or providing actual reference for future actions? •Do they instantly get converted into a new format or do they maintain their original format during ongoing use? •Are they digitally or physically archived?
- 17. Funded digital product company Consumer application MVP live in the app store Senior internal design & tech team ! Mid-sized Eastern European agency Dedicated project staff ! Research, strategy, concepting, UX design, visual design ! Deliverables presented to internal design & tech leadership UX documents are appended to Jira stories Devs begin from UX handoff, prior to visual design ! Rapid agile development, deliverables are “archived” quickly Example 1 Re-envisioning an IOS App Environment Developers Involvement Hand Off Lifespan
- 18. Re-envisioning an IOS App: Process Audit of existing research data Additional user/ competitive research Documentation / presentation of strategic approach Updated personas Steps 1-4 were independent from sprints Steps 5-7 were modularized and integrated with development sprints Paper prototyping Invision prototyping Annotated wireframes
- 19. Consumer goods company Customer audience No prior version Internal design, social media, & tech team ! In-house Wordpress dev Dedicated project staff ! Visual design, QA ! Deliverables presented to project management, design, and social media stakeholders UX documents used by dev in support of Photoshop comps to fill in the blanks ! Deliverables are trashed once dev is complete Example 2 In-Progress marketing blog Environment Developers Involvement Hand Off Lifespan
- 20. Bailing out a marketing blog Process Audit of existing design Audit of existing user research SketchingAdditional research Steps 1-6 were completed after visual design and prior to development Annotated zone diagrams Strategic presentation
- 21. Constantly self-evaluate your process looking for means to improve the communication ! Respect your collaborators, respect you scope, and create documentation accordingly ! Never abandon UX methodology, but always scale to achieve maximum efficiency 1 2 3 Takeaways…