Designing the right thing Donna Spencer

About me ● Principal Product Designer at MakerX ● 20+ years of design experience ● Author of 5 UX books ● @maadonna ● Linkedin: Donna Spencer

It’s easy to design the thing right… It’s better to design the right thing

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A design funnel instead

Research expands our options

Customer / user research lets us check fitness of the idea

Idea generation

Generate more ideas from the original

Select some to continue with

Idea exploration

Deepen the ideas by going into them in more detail

Select ideas to prototype

Prototype

Prototypes test feasibility and desirability

Idea generation methods

Brainstorming Free-form idea generation No critique/judgement Doesn’t happen naturally Structure and prompts can improve outcomes

Paperclip brainstorm Give people a paperclip Think about how many uses it could have Good warmup before brainstorming

3-12-3 brainstorming 3 min: write starting ideas individually and throw them in the pool 12 min: pair up, draw 3 ideas and develop a concept 3 min: report back Needs strict timekeeping and a ticking clock. Another good warmup

Collaborative sketching Sketch an initial idea Share with the group Using the ideas shared, sketch again Variant – pass your idea to someone else and they revise your idea (this is also called brainwriting)

SCAMPER Substitute Combine Adapt Magnify/Modify Put to other uses Eliminate Rearrange / Reverse

Reversal A specific version of SCAMPER Ask people to create a worse idea than the starting prompt Good for loosening up a group Always fun!

Keyword combinations Create a list of words related to the problem Technology, adjectives, different markets Use these words in novel combinations

Idea exploration methods

Bodystorming Brainstorming in physical space by acting out an idea

Elevator pitch For (user or customer) who has (a particular need) the (thing – idea, feature or product) is a (category – broad idea that describes these kind of things) that (main benefit). Unlike (closest competitor if there is one) the thing (unique differentiator).

Newspaper story from the future Imagine it’s 3 years from now. What would put your product on the front page of the newspaper?

Design the box Design the box for a product ● Name ● Tagline ● Features ● Description

Prioritisation and selection methods

Prioritisation matrix 2x2 matrices to help determine priorities

Divide the dollar Give everyone $100 They can allocate features to that $100

MoSCoW Must: essential to the product, legal requirements, safety requirements or that other features are dependent on. Should: provide significant value. Could: technically feasible, but may need more research to determine if they are valuable. Won’t: technically not feasible, that yet have no known value, are included in a different product or are otherwise out of scope.

Thank you! Find me at ● @maadonna ● Linkedin: Donna Spencer (tell me you met me here) ● Work: makerx.com.au ● Methods at designmethods.com.au (very unfinished)

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