Changing Ways of Working & Thinking
While at Retail Business Services, I continue to express the importance of adding UX research to our projects and that communication with the end user is key in order to create a successful product. With that in mind, I introduced the concept of Design Thinking to our team and then established a Design Thinking League with three other colleagues.
I started orchestrating and facilitating large and smaller scale workshops for teams throughout the company to make sure we are solving the right problem(s) and are keeping the end user in mind at all times. One of these workshops my colleagues and I set up was for the VP of IT Infrastructure and her immediate team, this workshop taught them the process and importance of design thinking. I later received an award from the Retail Business Services IT Executive Leadership Team for creating the league and bringing their design mindset to the next level.
Let’s Break it Down
What: Collecting any information from external sources based on the initial project brief. What is out there for us to analyze?
How: Desk research, analyzing information already gathered.
Outcome: Overview of articles/data read in a consolidated form.
What: Tied closely with research, empathizing will help us understand the users true needs, desired, emotions, and challenges in relation to the topic at hand.
How: Interviews, Shadowing, field research
Outcome: Persona creation with bios, goals/activities, wants/needs, and struggles/pains.
What: Synthesizing information collected during research and empathizing to assist in stating the user’s need(s) and problem(s).
How: Identifying key pain points, 5 Whys exercise, problem statement creation
Outcome: Root cause and “How might we...” statement(s)
What: Challenging assumptions and thinking outside of the box to identify idea(s) that will address the “How might we...” statements.
How: Idea generations, coming up with as many ideas and possible, big or small.
Outcome: Group of ideas categorized within similar groups. Voting up the top idea(s) to begin with- what ideas best solve for the user needs and pain?
What: Trying out different ideas in a low and inexpensive way to that you can identify the best option/concept.
How: Creating low fidelity prototypes based on the tops ideas.
Outcomes: Pen and paper prototypes, Lo-fi screens to be able to test with users.
What: Creating a continuous feedback loop to collect insights and feedback from users with prototypes.
How: Conduct a user testing session- create a list of tasks for the user to complete, ask them to do so and watch how they react and interact with the prototype.
Outcome: An understand if the solution is working so far or if adjustments need to be made- this could push you back just to prototyping or back to your initial research.