[Fluent 2018] Creating Products Users Love with Collaboration

To create a successful product, you need a solid understanding of your users. In a perfect world, there’s plenty of time available to do extensive user interviews and competitive research. However, most times we’re given a less-than-ideal amount of time to do this before development starts. How can we better understand who we’re building our product for given this short amount of time?

The key to success? Collaboration. Rachel Krause walks you through a collaborative process for creating a product users will love, from establishing users to creating a design that can be taken right into development without the need for high-fidelity mockups or detailed documentation. You’ll discover the value behind working collaboratively with your team and learn techniques on how to do it without a giant shift in corporate culture—including protopersonas, scenarios, user journeys, and design sessions—that you can implement right away.

In small groups, you’ll create proto-personas based on a hypothetical project and feature and then develop scenarios for your users, which will then be used to create a user journey. After the journey map is complete, groups will facilitate design sessions to draw out their features as a team.

Transcript

1. CREATING PRODUCTS USERS WITH COLLABORATION
2. HEY! I’M RACHEL
3. New Feature Create Mockups Write Documentation "Test" Development Write "Fix" Documentation DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT CYCLE (Current)
4. New Feature Team Consensus Development Review DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT CYCLE (Ideal)
5. DISCLAIMER!
7. WHAT WORKS BEST FOR MY SITUATION?
8. Trying to fit UX into the Agile Process
9. Cross-functional teams Removing waste Continuous discovery Shared understanding Permission to fail Getting out of the deliverables business LEAN UX PRINCIPLES
10. REAL LIFE PITFALLS We have no time to change. We don’t have the resources. Our clients don’t work that way. Our UX team is separated from development.
11. ACTIVITY Introductions
12. INTRODUCTIONS Introduce yourself: name, industry, what you do. Where do you struggle in your process?
13. COLLABORATION
14. “The biggest problem in the design community is our mindset.” Matthew Lavoie The Genius Designer Versus a Mindset of Experimentation
15. GENIUS DESIGNER Assumes their work is correct. Separated from development and rest of the team. UI design is to be implemented to pixel perfection. Technical constraints or feedback is irrelevant. Confused users must be ignorant or stupid.
16. MINDSET OF EXPERIMENTATION Accept that they will be wrong about something. Figure out what is wrong as quickly as possible. Iterate on process until they find what works for them.
17. TIPS FOR SUCCESS Give yourself permission to fail. Don’t be afraid to show your messy work or ideas. Don’t let your excuses get in the way.
18. ACTIVITY Define Your Product
19. DEFINE YOUR PRODUCT & TEAM What problem does it solve? Who will benefit from it? Agree on team name.
20. PROTO- PERSONAS
21. PERSONAS Your product or service will appeal to multiple demographics. Understanding demographics focuses your decisions. Removes team and self bias.
23. PROTO-PERSONAS Before, during, and after development. Based on real data and assumptions. Validate with real users and modify based on findings.
24. NAME & PICTURE Puts a face to a name BIO & TRAITS Description of person GOALS What makes user happy FRUSTRATIONS Pain points
25. NAME & PICTURE Puts a face to a name BIO & TRAITS Description of person GOALS What makes user happy FRUSTRATIONS Pain points
26. NAME & SKETCH BIO & TRAITS GOALS FRUSTRATIONS
27. HOW TO FACILITATE Define roles and pick one to focus on. Ask open-ended questions. Challenge answers if they don’t make sense.
28. ACTIVITY Create a Proto-Persona
29. CREATE A PROTO-PERSONA
30. SCENARIOS
31. SCENARIOS Explains the persona’s goal. Helps narrow focus and keep team from getting distracted. [Persona] wants to [action] because [need].
32. SCENARIOS ARE NOT A sales goal. An internal marketing focus. Focused on development.
33. SCENARIOS Told from the user’s perspective. Are narrow enough to tell a story about your user. Have a clear user goal represented.
34. SOME EXAMPLES Jane purchased a new iPad and wants to draw with the Apple Pencil she purchased with it. She is looking for a tutorial or guide for how to get started. Adam wants to order dinner delivered to his hotel room because he doesn’t know the area. Beverly feels she is paying too much for internet. She wants to compare plans so she can save money every month.
35. ACTIVITY Create a Scenario for your Persona
36. CREATE A SCENARIO What potential issue will your persona run into? What is a main goal for your persona? [Persona] wants to [action] because [need].
37. BREAK BACK AT 11AM
38. USER JOURNEYS
39. USER JOURNEYS Puts focus on user tasks, goals, and expectations. Identifies user needs and pain points. Puts yourself and your team in your user’s shoes.
40. FIVE MAIN COMPONENTS Persona & Scenario User Steps Needs, Activities, & Expectations User’s Emotional State Opportunities for Improvement
41. PERSONA & SCENARIO USER STEPS NEEDS, ACTIVITIES, & EXPECTATIONS USER’S EMOTIONAL STATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
45. PERSONA & SCENARIO USER STEPS NEEDS, ACTIVITIES, & EXPECTATIONS USER’S EMOTIONAL STATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
46. USER JOURNEYS Knowledge comes from the process, not the deliverable. Visualize how users currently use feature. Visualize how users could use feature.
47. HOW TO FACILITATE Ask open-ended questions. Challenge self-reflection of user’s emotional state. Be open-minded of potential solutions.
48. ACTIVITY Create a User Journey Map
49. CREATE A USER JOURNEY MAP Base on the scenario you created in the last activity. Think about user actions inside and outside of product. Choose your own format.
50. CREATE A USER JOURNEY MAP
51. DESIGN SESSIONS
52. DESIGN SESSIONS Help everyone get on the same page. Visualize a feature as a team. Bring up potential issues of design immediately.
53. “I’m glad we all agree then.”
54. ”Oh…”
55. ”Ah ha!”
56. “I’m glad we all agree then.”
57. What We Do Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer vel tempor justo, eget placerat purus. In ut augue sit amet nisi viverra ullamcorper. How We Do It Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer vel tempor justo, eget placerat purus. In ut augue sit amet nisi viverra ullamcorper. Our Cool Website This carousel will show you lots of content and only give you 5 seconds to read it. COMPANY NAME What We Do How We Do It Contact We Build for You We create custom software. View our work and get to know us better. View Our Work Get in Touch
62. HOW TO FACILITATE Define goals up front. Let everyone actively participate. Summarize and agree before leaving.
63. ACTIVITY Run a Design Session
64. RUN A DESIGN SESSION Base on the user journey map you just created. Try to think from perspective of multiple team roles. Choose your own format.
65. HOW IT ALL CONNECTS
66. FOCUS ON USERS Use personas to empathize with users. Put personas in scenarios to create journey maps. Create journey maps to tell stories and evaluate experiences.
67. GET EVERYONE INVOLVED Collaboration introduces multiple perspectives into process. Reduces back-and-forth and breaks down unnecessary silos. Entire team takes ownership of the user experience.
68. LETTING GO IS HARD Be open-minded to multiple perspectives. Don’t be afraid to show messy work. Don’t get caught up in excuses.
69. TWEAK TO YOUR LIKING These concepts are not all or nothing. Each team will work differently – embrace it! Keep iterating on your process.
70. THANK YOU!