My Process
The underpinnings of my process are rooted in Design Thinking and the consumer-centered approach that it’s based upon; a process that was solidified for me when I was assigned to be the Experience Lead on a UHC project with Continuum Innovation in Boston, MA. It was a digital weight loss initiative that was also meant to act as a hands-on training opportunity to learn the way they work. Their ‘Whitespace Innovation’ approach was based on the same principles that define Design Thinking, but it went one step further. The inclusive style and the extensive application of frameworks, mental models, psychological analysis and feedback loops that were used to promote and support behavior change were transformative. It was fast, flexible, adaptable and exploratory; promoting alignment in real-time through the hands-on need for the business, product and experience leads to participate as a team in all aspects of the solution. The usage of a discreet room for continuation of thought was paramount as was the absolute insistence on the time and space to iterate, try new things, chase ideas, fail and otherwise work in the dark were techniques that I still value today.
One of the deliverables for the project was a ‘playbook’ outlining how they did their work. On the last day of the project when our Innovation Lead turned it over to us he said, “When you get really good at this you’ll burn this playbook!” I still remember that and the underlying sentiment that went along with it - the fact that there are no checklists, no limits, that we should stop at nothing, that we should try everything to come up with the best possible solution. It is an important aspect that truly defines my process especially in light of so many looking to templatize the approach today.
Doing the Work
When it comes to AGILE development, my focus is aligning with the product and business owners. This leads to an environment where we have the time, space and maneuverability to try - iterating on solutions and producing wireframes and comps that we, as a group, can align to. Using kanban boards, tracking is light and lean allowing for changing in thought and direction as we collectively learn more about the complexity of the problems we are looking to solve. Continuous alignment with users through the implementation of the latest research techniques tell us along the way if we’re on the right track.
Some Helpful Hints
On top of that, here are a few things that I’ve learned along the way that are extremely important to the process when conducting this work successfully:
Initial Alignment: Starting off with a well-defined problem statement, design statement, clearly defined goals and success criteria are crucial to gaining alignment when it comes to this work. They stand as pillars for the project. Gaining this alignment by facilitating a Design Workshop that includes all of the principle stakeholders is the ideal scenario. Periodic followups help where these items can be reviewed and updated as the priorities for the project change (and they will!). These can be easily distributed or even printed out and hung in a shared project room and constantly referred to to root the team in their objectives.
Creating an Inclusionary ‘Whitespace’: Doing this work is exciting, dynamic, challenging and fun! Everyone on the team, especially the Product and Business owners, should be invited and encouraged to participate where applicable. Creating an inclusionary environment not only gives us the opportunity to teach and create ‘true’believers’, but drives support and project-wide alignment. It is also important to track the work. I use kanban boards for this. to make sure you are still evangelizing your findings for those who cannot participate in person.
Constant Learning and Constant Feedback: No matter where we are in the process, we always have the ability to garner feedback on our designs! We should never stop learning or reaching out to our consumers to help illuminate and validate our work. There are so many other tools at our disposal, be it surveys, moderated or unmoderated testing sessions, card sourts, tree tests, Mindswarms, peer reviews, guerrilla tests, etc. Usability tests, of course, are a big part of the process. They provide useful and structured bench-marking metrics like NPS, SUS, SEQ and SUPR-Q that allow us to continue to learn along the way.
Data and Analysis - The research cannot stop when products are released to production. It is imperative that the conversation starts about analytics as soon as development starts so we are prepared to vet the user experience. There are a host of analytic packages that allow us to understand how people are actually interacting with our applications on a daily basis. The insights we can gain and the subsequent data that goes along with it is invaluable in today’s digital world of development.