great wide open - design studio methodology

Jacklyn Burgan // @playfulpixel

Design Studio Methodology


True Fact:

• The vast majority of projects fail NOT because they couldn’t build a great product using the latest new technology.

• They failed because they built something no one wanted.


Let’s start with an exercise!

2 minutes


Why Are We Here?• All too often, leaders, managers, teams, designers rely

on common approaches that may work well in one context, and fail in another.

• Teams want to create better customer experiences (user experiences), but aren’t sure what that really means.

• Teams often find it difficult moving from insights to action (based on this research, what should we do now?).


Why Collaborative Design?

“Ninja. Rockstar. Gifted genius. Many of the ways we talk about creative work (whether it’s design or development) only capture the brilliance of a single individual.”

- Stefan Kloeck


Traditional Process

Discover Define Design Develop Deploy


Discover • Gather information

• Brainstorming

• Competitive analysis

• Define the project scope

• UX deliverables: personas + user scenarios


Define • Developing interaction model or UI framework

• Define the content + functionality requirements

• Define information architecture

• Create a project plan

• UX deliverables: product requirement document


Design • Create paper prototype / sketches

• Usability evaluation

• Create wireframes

• Visual design explorations

• Visual design approval

• UX deliverables: sitemap, user flows, wireframes + UI


Develop • Architecture design

• UML diagram / class diagram

• Daily scrum

• Code iteration cycles

• Interim installers

• Release management

• Unit testing

• Code refactoring

• Documentation

• UX deliverables: No key UX deliverables at this stage.


Deploy • Use cases

• Test cases

• Testing

• Regression testing

• Test reports

• Build releases


“Traditional” UX Practices

• Emphasize deliverables

• See the work as a solution that gets sold to stakeholders

• See the (UX) designer as the hero in charge of finding solutions to design challenges and getting approval before development starts


How Can We Improve Our Process?

• The design work we do is often limited to on-the-go type of decisions

• We struggle with approvals

• We don’t have an established process that involves UXD, thus our scenario is not “going from traditional UX to Lean”, but rather, “establishing our approach to UXD”


The “Traditional” Way

(Waterfall + Waterfall or Waterfall + Agile)

1. Have a great idea

2. Wireframe

3. Designer creates a static mockup

4. Static mockup & specs are thrown to devs to implement, QA to test

The Collaborative Way

(Lean UX + Agile Development)

1. Have a great idea

2. Sketch together

3. Engage team (BA, UX, Dev, QA) to build a prototype

4. Play, tweak, rinse, repeat

5. Once UX is nailed have a visual designer polish to perfection

Integrating Design into Development Process


Design Studio


Create. Pitch. Critique.


It’s about generating many safe-to-fail experiments,

not highly rendered solutions.


All ideas must map to a person’s goals & needs.


Design Studio • Generate lots of design concepts (options*)

• Present concepts as stories

• Critique using Ritual Dissent

• Integrate (steal) & Iterate

• Check stories for coherence

• Converge around testable solution hypotheses

*See Chris Matts Real Options Theory


Design Studio • Level playing field.

• Idea generation.

• Team buy-in.

• Ownership/investment.

• Vet design concepts.


Set A Timer


CREATE. Pitch. Critique. Create 6-8 concept sketches individually.


Line, Square, Circle, Triangle


Focus on the bare minimum


All ideas must map to person’s goals & needs.


Create. PITCH. Critique. 3 minutes to pitch how your concept solves the problem.


Create. Pitch. CRITIQUE. 2 minutes for critique.

2-3 ways it solves the problem and one 1-2 opportunities for improvement.


Larry “If I only had a photographic memory I wouldn’t need a shopping list.”

Larry is a 32 year old engineer that works for a major corporation building large-scale desktop applications. When he’s not in the office, he spends most of his time building side projects like mobile and web apps. Because Larry is always working on the next idea, he often forgets to make a list of items he needs from the grocery store and when he goes to make dinner, he doesn’t have the right ingredients to cook with.


Ready?


Create.5 minutes.


Pitch.[pick a time keeper]

3 minutes.


Critique.2 minutes.


2nd Iteration!


Create.5 minutes.



3 minutes.


Critique.2 minutes.


3rd Iteration!


Create 1 Solution.10 minutes.


“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes



3 minutes.


Critique.2 minutes.


Team Sketch.1 concept

25 minutes.


Ritual Dissent.


Ritual Dissent.

• The basic approach involves a spokesperson presenting a series of ideas to a group of investors who listen to them in silence.

• Your spokesperson will only have 5 minutes to present.

• Team must imagine they are a group of investors hearing a pitch from a startup.


Ritual Dissent.

• The spokesperson turns to face the wall, so that their back is to the investor team and listens in silence while the group attacks the idea.

• The spokesperson cannot respond to questions or defend the ideas.


“Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.”

- Karl Popper


Present.Pick a spokesperson 5 minutes to prepare


For all critique decide: • Ignore (backburner)

• Remove (de-solve)

• Research Solution (best practice)

• Research Problem (innovate)


Iterate as a team based on the critique.

15 minutes Then pitch to the whole workshop.


But first…

Rip Up Your Designs.


Team Sketch.1 concept

15 minutes.


Team Presentations.3 minutes.


Ritual Assent.2 minutes.


Tips For Running This At Your Workplace.

• Timebox: 5 minutes sketch / 5 minutes per person • No more than 6 or 7 people per table (4 is best) • Don’t introduce too many business rules up front • Imagine no technology constraints • Make explicit all potential channels (not just mobile or web)* • Move people from team to team to prevent premature

convergence • Don’t serve turkey sandwiches


Potential Pitfalls

• Having a solution before Design Studio starts – “we already have a solution – we just want buy-in”

• Not adequately scoping Design Studio to match the problem – “we can only spend 2 hours on Design Studio because of people’s schedules”

• Introducing blockers or business constraints too early • The invisible hand of the absent stakeholder


Maximize Optionality

• From insights, you can create multiple problem & solution hypotheses sets.

• It's not about designing the one right solution and refining. • It's about testing many solutions to multiple problem

hypotheses. • It's about many small bets.


Some Ideas for Good Product Design

• Create a balanced team • Design + PM + Development = One Team

• Externalize thought process • Flow: Think > Make > Check • Research to understand problem space • No proxies between customers and team • Generative ideation: it’s about optionality • Formulate many small tests & measure outcome


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Thank You!