UX14 - Show Me What You’re Thinking (Ray Delapena)

This is a hands-on workshop that explores the value of visualizing and communicating your strategy in the context of lean UX design project.

The structure of the workshop is:

1. Start off with setting the context for a successful project -- focusing on our work environment. We'll set up a project space by finding imagery and visuals that communicate the essence of the problem we are solving, key quotes that will inspire the team, and other visuals that will remind everyone of the goal (or just make them smile).

2. Work to understand the customer. We'll focus on clarifying the team's understanding of who we're working for. We'll also infuse them with personality to increase our empathy. (As a project progresses these would be validated by research and updated accordingly.)

3. Visualize the journey our customer takes and identify their pain points, our solutions, and the assumptions we make along the way. Ultimately we'll come up with a value hypothesis and consider ways to validate it.

All of the above exercises focus on creating lean visual artifacts and how, when they are shared among the team and stakeholders, can keep the momentum and focus on moving the project forward. They create a shared sense of purpose, and encourage participation and group ownership of the process.

Transcript

1. 1 LeanUX NYC 2014 Show Me What You’re Thinking A lean visual approach to foster feeling UX India 2014
2. 2 Hi. I’m Ray Ray DeLaPena Director of Strategy, Catalyst Group catalystnyc.com Introduction
3. 3 Who are you? Introduction
4. 4 About this workshop Introduction • Preface • Setting the Stage • Collage Exercise • Understanding the Players • Character Exercise • Telling the Story • Story mapping Exercise
5. 5 Let’s start a project! Preface We’re going to identify a product opportunity in a known market space. We’ll focus on how “lean artifacts,” visible together, tell a story the team can connect with and evolve rapidly. This process would set the stage for a series of Lean UX design cycles where the team would make a version of the proposed solution, check the performance of that solution with customers, think about the findings of that experiment, and repeat.
6. 6 Attending a Conference Our Problem Travel & Logistics • Where am I going and when? Social & Networking • Where’s the party? Who should/did I meet? Content • What did I learn?
7. 7 Setting the Stage Setting the Stage • Work in a space with feeling • Sets the tone for the project • Not just pictures, but words too
8. 8 Collage Setting the Stage Definition: A technique of an art production, primarily used in the visual arts, where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. • Helps overcome hindrances • Fear of drawing • Lack of inspiration • Not just pictures... Words help too Image courtesy of Susannah Conway www.susannahconway.com.
9. 9 Concept Mapping Setting the Stage Definition: A diagram that depicts suggested relationships between concepts. It is a graphical tool that designers, engineers, technical writers, and others use to organize and structure knowledge. • Similar to mind maps or topic maps • Adding collage will infuse it with depth and emotion.
10. 10 Cut! Paste! Draw! Write! (30 minutes) Collage Exercise • What speaks to you about the problem space? • Help your team relate to the attendee • What do you want the experience to look and feel like?
11. 11 The Players The Players Personas, proto-personas, characters… • What are they? • Why do we create them? • How do we use them?
12. 12 Characters The Players How are they different from “traditional” personas?* • Create them vs. describe them • Deeper emotional connection * Keep in mind, you’d revise and evolve these as you engage with real customers.
13. 13 Our method The Players 1. Fill in their attributes 2. Draw them. Represent important characteristics. 3. Speak for them
14. 14 Who are we designing for? (10 minutes) Character Exercise Fill in the attributes of your character What’s their role? How far did they travel? Who paid? How connected are they? Why are they here?
15. 15 Give them a face (10 minutes) Character Exercise Draw your character Don’t worry if it’s ugly Put them in context Have fun with it!
16. 16 Tell us what bothers you (15 minutes) Character Exercise WW_S (What Would your character Say?) Take 5 minutes each to role play your character What are they nervous about? What are they annoyed about? Use their voice
17. 17 Telling the Story Telling the Story Track our characters through all the steps/ stages of our story Call out moments of: • opportunity • pain • emotion • conversion
18. 18 The Narrative Arc Telling the Story Beginning > middle > end 1. Exposition 2. Inciting Incident 3. Rising Action 4. Crisis 5. Climax 6. Denouement, or Falling Action 7. Resolution
19. 19 Finding our moments Characters Identify key moments of opportunity for your product along the arc Think about hypotheses that could validate the value of your product
20. 20 UX India 2014 -- Back to Bangalore (15 minutes) Exercise Plot your story • Awareness (Exposition) • Investigation (Inciting Incident) • Decision/Justification (Rising Action) • Registration & Payment (Crisis) • Conference Begins! (Climax) • Talks & Workshops (Denouement or Falling Action) • Post-conference Reflection and Sharing (Resolution)
21. 21 UX India 2014 -- Back to Bangalore (30 minutes) Exercise Insert your moments* • Confusion • Need for information • Opportunity to delight * These are the assumptions you’d validate or the hypotheses you’d test
22. 22 Let’s share. Characters
23. 23 The End. Thank you! Ray DeLaPena Director of Strategy, Catalyst Group catalystnyc.com Thank You