Jithesh Ramesh - Beyond pixels at startups

Startups represent the desire and passion we all have for change, how can design researchers help the startup ecosystem to have another backer to prevent failure. Design in startup ecosystem is alarmingly driven by a need to make things look pretty. Learn how to go beyond the pixels and lay the foundation for good research operations in new and emerging startups

Transcript

1. Jithesh Ramesh
   Lead Product Designer at Mastt
   March 2022
   Beyond pixels
   at startups
   Leading design change through research
   

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2. Why do I like startups?
   Or why be the tail of a whale when you can be the head of a barracuda
   Scale-ups and startups that I have been at
   Now leading design at a construction tech startup
   Opportunity to
   • Learn
   • Make an impact
   Autonomy to
   • Make mistakes
   • Own your future
   And the rush you feel every day
   

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3. Why do founders design?
   Or the way designers see it
   • Felt the pain
   • Feel the need to act
   • Time to market
   • Consider design to be easier than
   software development
   • Availability of design talent
   

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4. The current state of construction tech
   and the opportunity out there
   • Least digitised industry
   • High labour shortage
   • High demands on productivity
   

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5. The current state of construction tech
   and the opportunity out there
   • Processes are fragmented
   • Scepticism towards the impact of
   digitisation amongst the workforce
   • Site safety and network
   connectivity issues
   

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6. What does Mastt do?
   We help Capital Works projects get built better
   • Three years old
   • Conceptualised by Doug Vincent, a
   Program Manager who felt the pains of
   managing many projects & programs
   using spreadsheets
   • Have 50+ accounts and counting
   • Growing customer base in Govt
   

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7. How are we moving away from pixels?
   Changing design’s role in product development
   • Understand the lay of the land
   • Help others do better research &
   design
   • Highlight the impact of visceral
   design choices
   • Balance the value
   between delivery and discovery
   

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8. Understand the lay of the land
   Start by doing internal research
   Purpose
   People
   Product
   Why?
   Who informs how?
   What?
   

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9. Understand the lay of the land
   Start by doing internal research
   Purpose
   People
   Product
   Uncover resident knowledge
   Hear their story
   Audit
   

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10. Purpose
    People
    Product
    • 1:1 Interviews
    • Group workshops on
    Design Direction
    • Surveys - NPS, SUS
    • Accessibility
    • Training and sales interviews
    • Design Maturity Survey Uncover resident knowledge
    Hear their story
    Audit
    Understand the lay of the land
    Start by doing internal research and move outward quickly
    Customers
    • Panel, key partners, community Build relationship
    

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11. Everyone was doing research & design
    Help them get better
    • Stand on the shoulders of giants
    • Pick established design systems
    • Start discussing behavioural and
    reflective topics
    • Guide others to get better at
    research and design activities
    

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12. Stand on the shoulders of giants
    There are plenty of established design systems out there now.
    Pick one and move
    on
    

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13. Start discussing behavioural and reflective
    topics
    Join forces with most customer-facing teams
    • Partner with customer success,
    support and sales
    • Help these teams bring back quality
    insights on customer behaviour
    • Create interview and note taking
    cheatsheets to capture situations,
    motivations and outcomes
    

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14. Be an enabler to
    Help others do research and design
    activities
    • Frame better questions
    • Improve efficient note taking
    • Instrument better success metrics
    • Provide reference material,
    guidelines & cheatsheets
    

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15. Examples
    Be an enabler
    Customer Success & Product Managers
    Product Managers & Engineering
    Sales & Customer Success
    Founders and Leadership
    

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16. The easiest way to sneak in other research activities
    Look for Trojans
    • Seek existing activities and
    opportunities to do research
    • NPS and customer sentiment
    results are often sought after by
    founders and investors
    

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17. The easiest way to sell UX & Design concepts
    Pick Magic potions that sell well.
    • Don’t overlook NPS, JTBD,
    Pretotyping & other design activities
    promoted by non-design leaders in
    the industry
    

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18. UX Magic potions that sell well in
    startups
    Some examples
    Follow me on LinkedIn : jitheshr & Dribbble : mrjithesh to get hold of these
    

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25. Map research value to business value
    Balance the value between delivery and discovery
    • Work with Product & Engineering to
    define the process and the effort
    involved in research methods
    

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26. Example
    

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27. Example
    

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28. Example
    

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29. Example
    

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30. Example
    

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31. Recap
    Beyond pixels at startups
    • Start Research internally and then
    externally
    • Deliberately move UI discussions to
    a Design System group
    • Use existing opportunities to sneak
    in mixed-method design research
    • Define the value of design research
    

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32. References
    All frameworks and photographs belong to these authors
    • Start with why - Simon Sinek
    • Net Promoter Score - Fred Reichheld
    • Jobs to be done - Clayton Christensen
    • Pretotyping - Alberto Savoia
    • Reach Impact Confidence Effort - Intercom product team
    • Photographs of Kerala from OFFSET - Marianna Jamadi, Peter Adams, Aaron
    Joel Sandos, Jakub Sliwa, Alejandro Moreno, Robert Harding, Olaf Kruger,
    

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33. Thank you
    

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