My approach
In a modern human centric organization, user research & design are weaved deeply into the fabric of the development process. This approach improves upon the traditional double diamond design process.
User research & design collaborate closely with strategy, product management, development and other stakeholders to ensure that the result of the development process are solutions, products and features that resonate with users. I.e. the result achieves valuable outcomes for the users.
User research & design contribute to an organization's success by uncovering answers to these three essential questions:
What can we do to make people's lives better?
This defines the solution(s).
How do we strategically achieve this outcome?
This defines the products and services.
How do we tactically achieve this outcome?
This defines the features.
1) My Design Approach
Establish best practices
Design operations are fundamental in capturing best practices. These practices covers everything from research insights, tools, methods, design considerations to design systems. The result is a clear, shared understanding of the design process, consistent high quality designs and predictable delivery schedules.
Objectives and key results (OKRs)
Experience metrics can show the impact that design has on an organization.
Continuous improvement
No process is perfect - and therefore it's critical to innovate on the design process. This is a design exercise in itself; identify problems and solving the right ones. My goal is 1% improvement every day, which is easy to achieve and leads to substantial gains over time.
2) My Process Approach
Build & nourish
Every design effort starts with the right people. So building the right multi-disciplinary team is critical.
Here are my main criteria for each team member:
Be passionate about the company's purpose and mission.
Have the expertise and an eagerness to learn and improve.
Bring something new to the team; add to the diversity, equity and inclusiveness of the team.
Once a team is established, the role of the team leader is to nourish and serve that team leveraging radical candor; really bring out the best of the team by understanding each individual and their contributions. Based on this, the design leader, manager and team members work together to improve the team member's strengths, alleviate weaknesses and promote unique attributes
Challenge & engage
Every team member wants to improve, be challenged and engaged. I achieved this by:
Assigning the right projects.
Give appropriate responsibility.
Provide timely, clear, candor and actionable feedback.
Create a culture where one can expect the candor feedback in return.
Ensure work/life balance.
Re-evaluate frequently.
Better together
I drive close collaboration, both within the design team but also with key internal and external stakeholders.
Design team members work is small multi-disciplinary teams, divided up along projects, users or a user's workflow. They communicate directly with product owners and development team leads. This creates short communication lines and builds flexibility.
As a team leader, I take responsibility for the team and will shield, represent and develop the team and team culture.
3) My team approach
Journey maps provides holistic views across a customer's journey. They document the phases that a user is going through to achieve a certain outcome. Journey maps form a bridge between the current and the new, and as such provides a great starting point for envisioning, alignment and redesign efforts.
Unlike traditional journey maps, these are far more comprehensive:
All actors & non-actors
All products/ services encountered along the way
All stakeholders
Emotions, motivations, questions & concerns of key stakeholders.
Decision points
Alternative routes
Innovation opportunities
In addition, comprehensive journey maps have the ability to scale in fidelity, tailoring to different audiences.
Comprehensive Journey Mapping
Wireframes provide low fidelity screen designs that focus on flow, layout and overall functionality, without distracting the designer and their audience with UI specific (e.g. colors/fonts) choices.
Wireframing
