Tagging: Collaboration

  1. Design X Stories: Customise

    Some really unique approaches to customisation in product design to increase creativity, collaboration and create more accessible and inclusive products for a diverse range of customers.

    Links to context and related content:

    • https://vuild.co.jp/en/projects/
    • https://www.whatdesigncando.com/stories/misaki-tanaka-on-making-sustainable-fashion-more-inclusive/

  3. Undemocratising User Research

    @SaswatiSM’s argument against democratised research.

    Love this definition of a researcher ❤️

    A researcher is a dynamic thinker who has to adapt their methods and questions based on who is in front of them, how much they have already learnt and what new areas could be probed on.

    Saswati makes some great observations about analysis paralysis.

    More data is not equal to better data.

    … the ambitious were burnt out and the less ambitious, lowered the quality of their output or just gave up. None of these are outcomes you would want in your organisation on a regular basis.

    Actual outcomes.

    So what we really got was not a new pool of researchers but an access to some skill sets which we would normally not have got if we went via the typical prioritization route for their time and skills.

    Goals for strategic researchers.

    As a UX Research Lead, I would like 80% of my team’s time to go towards discovering the right opportunities. This will require UX Researchers to enhance certain skills — do more literature reviews, get better at identifying and tracking trends over time, improve one’s story-telling and quantitative market sizing skills to be able to own the full narrative around an opportunity.

  5. Democratization is our Job

    @beh_zod describes the importance of democratising research.

    What is democratization?

    …the reality is that democratization is about being a good navigator and a good passenger.

    How does it work?

    You want to be able to partner with other disciplines, set expectations, and educate, enable, and empower them to be rigorous in their curiosity.

    What is the value?

    …any work we can do to help others with systems, processes, tools, and programs will make their work more impactful and give them a deeper understanding of why our expertise is valuable.

  6. An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery Practices

    @ttorres’s product discovery keynote from Productized Conference 2016.

    Goal: learn fast

    (Output » Outcome)

    • Are we meeting stakeholder needs?
    • Can customers us it?
    • Do customers want a solution?
    • Are we solving a problem customers care about?
    • Are we droving toward a desired outcome?

    The Opportunity Solution Tree: Desired Outcome (OKR) » Opportunity (JTBD/product strategy) » Solution » Experiment

  10. Five dysfunctions of ‘democratised’ research. Part 3 – Research as a weapon

    The third part in @leisa’s blog post series about scaling research. This post covering when team relationships go sour and research is ‘weaponised’.

    Why articulating the design is important.

    Another reason to see research being used as weaponry is to compensate for a lack of confidence or ability in discussing the design decisions that have been made.

    In a team where the designer is able to articulate the rationale and objectives for their design decisions, and there is trust and respect amongst team members, the need to ‘test and prove’ every decision is reduced.

    Research as a weapon.

    Feeling the need to ‘prove’ every design decision quickly leads to a validation mindset – thinking, ‘I must demonstrate that what I am proposing is the right thing, the best thing. I must win arguments in my team with ‘data”.

    If we focus entirely on validation and ‘proof’, we risk moving away from a learning, discovery mindset.

    Stoking the fire of conflict.

    Validation research can provide short term results to help move teams forward, but it can reinforce a combative relationship between designers and product managers.

  11. Five dysfunctions of ‘democratised’ research. Part 2 – Researching in our silos leads to false positives

    @leisa’s second post about the common dysfunctions about ‘democratised’ research, this focusing on researching in silos, the query effect and false positives.

    How do we fall victim to the query effect?

    By focussing our research around the specific thing our team is responsible for, we increase our vulnerability to the query effect. That little feature is everything to our product team and we want to understand everything our users might think or feel about it, but are we perhaps less inclined to question our team’s own existence in our research?

    What is a false positive?

    Research that is focussed too tightly on a product or a feature increases the risk of a false positive result. A false positive is a research result which wrongly indicates that a particular condition or attribute is present.

    Why are false positives a problem?

    False positives are problematic for at least two reasons. Firstly they can lead teams to believe that there is a greater success rate or demand for the product or feature they are researching than is actually the case when experienced in a more realistic context. And secondly, they can lead to a lack of trust in research – teams are frustrated because they have done all this research and it didn’t help them to succeed. This is not a good outcome for anyone.

    How do we avoid positives and gain more relevant insight?

    The role of the trained and experienced researcher is to not only have expertise in methodology but also to help guide teams to set focus at the right level, to avoid misleading ourselves with data. To ensure we not only gather data, but we are confident we are gathering data on the things that really matter. Even if that requires us to do research on things our team doesn’t own and cannot fix or to collaborate with others in our organisation. In many cases, the additional scope and effort can be essential to achieving a valid outcome from research that teams can trust to use to move forward.