walking the line: the line of product development - paul dawson, flux
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Walking the line: The Role of Product
Development
Paul Dawson Partner, Experience & Innovation, Fluxx
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
The boring cred’s bit
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
A product & service innovation company
Se#ng Strategy & Vision
Developing & valida5ng products
Innova5on prac5ces & long term change
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Ideal outcomes from this session?
Digital UX
Product design
Product development.
How to get better briefs that allow you to explore interesting opportunities and less dispute with the people who are ‘leading’ it
How to get closer to the product you had envisioned, and create greater harmony with the team tasked with making it great
“wtf ?”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
There are two types of organisation in the world
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Develop, design and sell products
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Behave like they are a product company
Don't behave like a product company
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
‘Product’ is what is on the shop floor ‘Product’ is what we do
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
New Product Development (NPD)
q Strategy q Ideas and insight q R&D Concepts q Developed & Validated Concepts
(Desirability, Viability, Feasibility) q Partnerships and organisation q Design & Build q Operate
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
The ‘Non Product’ Approach
q Strategy q Ideas and insight q R&D Concepts q Developed & Validated Concepts
(Desirability, Viability, Feasibility) q Partnerships and organisation q Design & Build q Operate
Research
Business Case
Investment decision
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
q Strategy q Ideas and insight q R&D Concepts q Developed & Validated Concepts
(Desirability, Viability, Feasibility) q Partnerships and organisation q Design & Build q Operate
Opinions, guesswork
and specula5on
The ‘Non Product’ Approach
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Fortunately, most digital projects I’ve worked on start here:
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
But then they go one of two ways: Exci5ng, interes5ng, innova5ve.
Empowered, crea5ve, inspired
Detailed, monotonous, not thinking for myself
Demo5vated, dis-‐spirited, ‘done to’
What if…
Wireframes
An explora5on of why What new opportuni5es there might be within it New ideas, ‘blue sky’ thinking,…
Well, they seem to have made up their minds, we’ll just get on and be the wireframe monkeys shall we?
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
What if companies who know they are product companies did not behave like product
companies?
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
An imaginary new product “A new range of luggage specifically for the family”
The budget is set
The board is all behind it
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Stage 1: Research
When product companies don’t behave like product companies
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Stage 2: Envisioning
When product companies don’t behave like product companies
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
We could pre-load them with things people need
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
We could do niche products for specialist audiences
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Hey, what if the suitcase became a mode of transport?!
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Hey, what if the suitcase actually became the holiday?
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
But then…
“Product Owner”
But suddenly…
The more radical thinking simply gets dropped as it can’t be validated
Ideas may be good, they might not. Nobody is in a posi5on to judge before 5me starts running out.
“We’ve got a whole stack of basics to do first”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Agile approaches in non-product thinking companies…
Things we know we can do
Things we know our customers value
The unproven ideas domain
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Stage 3: New ideas get pushed to the back and we focus in on the basics, having no time, resource or remit to progress our
half-formed ideas, no matter how brilliant they were…
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
but…
We have bright people, all eager to unleash their creative juices and we lost them quite
early on…
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
The Line
Exci5ng, interes5ng, innova5ve.
Empowered, crea5ve, inspiring
Detailed, monotonous, not thinking for myself
Demo5vated, dis-‐spirited, ‘done to’
Anything is possible
I have a very 5ght, prescrip5ve brief
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
We might have had the ‘right ideas’
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
but we haven’t been able to ‘make those ideas right’
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Now design something magnificent
What we needed was an inspiring brief with real possibilities
“Design a suitcase that children and parents will love.
We know that hassled parents and kids will love a ride-‐on case. We can save 5red parent arms and 5red toddler legs and
make travel fun.”
Research & Insight:
A clear product proposi8on:
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
And that’s what product development is
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Product Development is pure UCD
But it doesn’t design interfaces, and it’s not concerned with usability or ergonomics
desirable feasible
viable
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Product Development’s Goals
1. To flesh out and validate product and service propositions
Desirable: Customers will find value in it Feasible: We can make it work Viable: It can be an economic success
2. Prove that this is the right thing to do, kill it early, or learn enough to turn it into the right thing to do
3. To arm a design and build team with all they need to get the product designed and built in the right way
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
But what many product development teams miss is… That once they’ve ‘developed’ the idea into a
product, the customer experience still has to be designed
(because generally, they’re a bit crap at doing that bit!)
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
I’ve been on both sides
Digital UX Product development.
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
“The CEO had a designer mock something up”
“We’ve had a product design consultancy working on it”
“We’ve developed a new brand, and the branding agency have
done some mock-‐ups”
Words that strike terror…
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
“Here’s how it could look”
Movie UI Design by Jayse Hansen
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Getting the wrong side of the line only leads to conflict…
“Arrogant tossers, they just don’t get it!”
“Ha, they’re so wrong. This is a much beCer idea.”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Today’s Line
Exci5ng, interes5ng, innova5ve.
Empowered, crea5ve, inspiring
Detailed, monotonous, not thinking for myself
Demo5vated, dis-‐spirited, ‘done to’
Anything is possible
I have a very 5ght, prescrip5ve brief
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Setting out to raise the bar
Exci5ng, interes5ng, innova5ve.
Empowered, crea5ve, inspiring
Detailed, monotonous, not thinking for myself
Demo5vated, dis-‐spirited, ‘done to’
Anything is possible
I have a very 5ght, prescrip5ve brief
“Mmmm. Nice concept, full of possibility. Will be fun to see how we make it work.”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
So two key questions:
How do you do this cost-effectively? We already think we don’t have enough time for design – how do you make it worth investing in?
How do we ensure this process does not en5rely alienate design and development teams?
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Three answers
Focus on generating facts, not opinions; and be lean about it
Enable and equip your design & build team, don’t tell them what to do
Don’t be precious – about your ideas, or being right
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Focus on genera5ng facts, not opinions; and be lean about it
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Flux[x] Labs
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
insight idea feasibility
design & development manufacture distribu5on
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Hard to do, and a lot of risk
manufacture
design & development
feasibility
Idea
distribution
insight
Easy to do, and no risk
Star5ng to invest 5me & money
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Hard to do, and a lot of risk
manufacture
design & development
feasibility
Idea
insight
Easy to do, and no risk
Star5ng to invest 5me & money
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
MVP = Minimum Viable Product
Q: What is the absolute minimum we can do to see if people actually value
our product?
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
distribu5on
Dim and distant past
insight
concept
feasibility
design & development
manufacture
Painful, but we got there…
Dragon’s Den
Give it to the press
Bankrupt factory
Dodgy catches
People bought it
Licensee liquidated
Rob Law’s facts were generated by pu#ng
his product in the hands of the press,
and sure enough they loved it.
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
He believed strongly because he had generated real facts
So what do the opinions of the dragons matter?!
The toughness of his journey was testament to the fact that his MVP could not be that minimal
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Fortunately…
This now happens in days, or maybe weeks, but certainly not months.
The Lab’s job within a product development cycle is to generate evidence-based learning, to
help get the ideas right, and make good decisions based on facts
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labs
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labs
Basic Insight
We found it really hard to find a whiteboard the
size we want and think that other people will
have the same problem.
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labs
This leads to a value hypothesis that we can begin to test
“We think that people will value a premium service that makes and installs
whiteboards to a precise set of dimensions.”
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labs
1. Make a site that calculates the cost and puts customers in touch with us.���
2. Get a phone!���
If people value this service as
much as we do.���Volume of people searching for it on Google���Requests for pricing���People who buy���
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labs
The first MVP (c.2 days)
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labs
The 2nd MVP
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labs
The Lab’s Learnings
This is a viable, small, local business.
It would be a good idea to make the whiteboards erasable!
It is possible in a week to prove out a digital & physical business in a lean way
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labs
“The High Street Bank”
A real life case study
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labs
Amongst others, we created one
experiment designed to test
something that had been debated
for ages at the bank
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labs
It was a thorny subject.
It involved using customers’
personal data to do something we
thought they would like and value.
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labs
But would they accept it, or would
they go nuts and call the Daily Mail?
We put it l ive in a few weeks in an MVP to
several thousand real customers who didn’t know
it was just an experiment.
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labs
But before we did…
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labs
It was usability tested
It panned!
Only 24% of people said they would do it
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labs
How many ACTUALLY did it in
real life?
96% of people just jumped right on in!
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
“What people say they will do and what they actually do is often
very different and can be greatly affected by their level of
awareness of the task at hand”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Market Research (quant and qual)
Usability Testing Prototype Testing
A/B Testing Multi-variate testing
True ethnography
MVP/Lean
Market Intelligence and behavioural data
Unaware Aware
Product/Service Maturity Level
Idea/Concept
Partial/Fully Developed
Is the User aware of the test?
The fluxx ‘Tested User’ Framework
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
A wide variety of opinions, ideas and
stories
Usability Optimising where there are multiple
options
Proving an idea one way or the
other
History
Unaware Aware
Product/Service Maturity Level
Idea/Concept
Partial/Fully Developed
Is the User aware of the test?
The fluxx ‘Tested User’ Framework
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
The outcome of which is…
Armed with facts, a product development team can simply ‘tell’ they don’t ‘sell’
It’s hard to argue with, & people don’t want to
It’s equally obvious how to apply that data to influence the design later on
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
A key point here though is…
An MVP does not a design make
Which leads us to:
Enable and equip your design & build team; don’t tell them what to do
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Briefing the team means focusing on the outcome
“Nice concept, full of possibility. Will be fun to make it work.”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Briefing the team
Present the trail of evidence • A user-centred journey • Help the team understand the
insight on which the product was founded
• Don’t hide any facts • Show your wrong turns
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
What it should be like, not what it should look like
Briefing the team
Describe, don’t prescribe
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Create useful assets. Things that wi l l enable , not conf ine your des ign team
Draft Personas If you don’t know these, then the product you’ve developed isn’t worth the Omnigraffle it’s visualised on!
Product and Experience Principles Distil your experience of the product development learnings into principles that will help guide the design and build team
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
What we don’t say: “Yeah, we already prototyped it”
Product development should never be testing a UI, or a brand VI We ask questions like: • Is the content valuable to our audience? • Is the function that it performs valuable? • How easy or low cost does it have to be to become, in
order to become valuable?
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Which has led us to a unique design principle:
Make it as bad as you can get away with
(So long as you don’t get in the way of the core testing objective)
“I’ve never been asked to make my work
‘more sh*t before!”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
How do you brief in how a product ‘feels’?
I’ll give you a briefing I’ve used many a time
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Let me tell you why I love Virgin Atlantic
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
After a briefing like that, it should be easy to sum it up as something
as simple as: Brilliant basics, magic touches
… and a number of other principles to which a user experience or product would have to
conform in order to be the one that we believe customers will love
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Finally
Our brief must be full of possibility
“It’s clear to us that people want a degree of serendipity; for the finding of information to have
a ‘fuzzy edge’ that allows them to stumble on something that they love, but weren’t
expecting”
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Creating a product design brief with possibility
Always guide, never prescribe Set principles, not guidelines Design experiments, not UI Say how it feels, not what it does In short: Let the design team design it…
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Finally: Avoiding the ivory tower
Don’t be precious – about your ideas, or being right
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Talk about the dead ends Experiments never fail or succeed, they merely have outcomes
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Take input wherever you can
Regularly take time to gather intelligence, ideas and product
thoughts from everywhere you can, and credit your sources
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Be inclusive
Get the design and development team to develop the MVP
A RapidStart approach looks to get an
experiment out in under two days
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Product Development can be a state of mind, not a department
For complex products where there is a high degree of uncertainty, it’s
an upfront investment
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
For new features in existing products, it can become a ‘spike’
in the existing process
Product Development can be a state of mind, not a department
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flux[x] @fluxxstudios @poleydee
Playing to each other’s strengths