Design Strategy: Aligning Business Goals and User Needs

DESIGN STRATEGY:
ALIGNING BUSINESS GOALS AND USER NEEDS

Chris Avore
UPA-DC UserFocus: October 15 2010
@erova
avore@erova.com
http://erova.com

Monday, October 18, 2010

agenda

1. brief introduction
2. define the damn thing:
design strategy
3. design strategy in practice
a. collaborative design strategy
b. design strategy as a deliverable
c. examples
4. questions


brief introduction

1
brief introduction


let’s set expectations

Adaptive Path has an 8 hour design strategy
workshop led by 2 people
Nathan Shedroff leads an entire MBA program in
Design Strategy
You have me for 40 minutes, including Q/A.


let’s set expectations

NO
Criticism of your current approach
Empty promises
Discussing software or platforms
Venn diagrams, Chart PR0N

YES
Definitions of Design Strategy
A buzzword or two (but hear me out)
A useful and implementable approach
How to use what you already know


define the damn thing

2
defining design strategy


conventional strategy

executives make the key business decisions
transpose into business strategy
bring in design team to implement the strategy


defining design strategy (part 1 of 3)

design strategy:
the process of carefully framing a
project of what to design before
you figure out how it should be
designed

Brandon Schauer
Adaptive Path



design strategy:
the use of design processes,
perspectives, and tools to create
truly meaningful, sustainable, and
successful innovation across a
variety of design disciplines
Nathan Shedroff
chairperson, MBA in Design Strategy program
at California College of the Arts



design strategy:
[defines the design activities] within
the constraints of time and
resources...to help the designer
select the best mix of creative and
rational methods.

Richard Branham, Alp Tiritoglu
CHI 97: Design Strategies and Methods in
Interaction Design



tangible design strategy:
baseline analysis & current state of where you’re at
roadmap & vision
research-based personas
decision, process or task flows
rough prototypes or sketches
competitive & market analysis
balanced scorecard
feature/value analysis
measuring results:
what, when, how to define success


so that’s a theoretical deﬁnition. What about a tangible design strategy? What’s it actually
made of?



Strategy isn’t following an instruction manual.


design strategy is fluid


You keep you eyes open to see what’s missing, where opportunities exist, and where
pursuing


not a rigid process



expect new insights & opportunities
in unlikely places



but be prepared to align it with your
roadmap and vision, so you’re not chasing
features and functionality



and measure progress & success
if you pursue the new path


recap (1 of 2)

goals of design strategy:

clarify a feasible, viable vision
discover threats, insights & opportunities via research
determine how to measure success over time
articulate how your product fits within the ecosystem
a plan to make it happen over time
and how to complement and enhance product strategy,
business strategy, and other corporate goals


recap (2 of 2)
design strategy is:

a collaborative process to
understand what to design before
you design it
a plan to align business objectives
with design goals
documentation to align stakeholders,
colleagues & investors with your
plan of attack


design strategy in practice

3


risks: lack of design strategy

is design strategy necessary for success?


risks: lack of design strategy

incremental innovation

feature-creep, feature-chasing, useless features

little differentiation from competitors or your
own offerings

functionality that may threaten the service/product’s
ecosystem within your organization


Many of us work in environments that don’t have a formal design strategy system in place. As
UX designers, usability specialists, and information architects, we can spot a lot of these
problems early, and recommend a better way.


how do you bring design strategy
into your organization?
or

now what?


where to start

knowns, assumptions, unknowns


By identifying what you know, what you think you know, and what you don’t know can go a
long way to understanding how you can create your strategic plan.

where to start
potential important unknowns:

product vision, roadmap, plans
origin of features
definition of success
customer (& user), CoP perception
concrete strategic business objectives
key performance indicators, targets


In some cases you’ll have this documentation elsewhere; in others it simply won’t exist, and
you have to determine the level of effort to create it.

Even the business objectives may need to be clariﬁed, particularly if you work in larger
organizations that will likely have people exclusively creating strategy. Use their work to
anchor your own, both for validity and consistency.

where to start

determine what you need now to
avoid disaster or follow a hunch


where to start

Don’t wait for project kickoff or sprint zero

You don’t need to wait for the start of a project to begin assessing it strategically. Beginning strategy work now will inform future decisions.

Every design strategy needs a benchmark or a current state, and you can do that tomorrow.

where to start

and don’t do it alone if you can help it.


Design strategy should be a collaborative process. Isolating yourself and hoping to come up
with all the answers yourself doesn’t work. In many cases those decisions have put your
product or service in the position you’re in today.

collaborative design strategy

Which stakeholders or business units might
have an opinion here?
Which ones are we assuming might not be
affected? How can we confirm?
Who’s left out of this discussion?
Where do we anticipate conflict?
The New How, Nilofer Merchant


Plus this also signals to your clients, partners, account stakeholders, or leadership that you’re
not trying to do it alone, or reinvent another take on strategy. Talk to product & project
managers, other designers, the customer service team, the sales force, and ask them to
contribute to the discussion.


not lockstep; alignment


You’re not looking to get everyone to agree, but everyone
should have an idea how and why decisions were made. Think
consensus, not concession.


collaborative strategy helps avoid:
the air sandwich
overly ambitious ideas
choosing certainty over clarity
individual status over team results
saving, preserving personal ideas
The New How, Nilofer Merchant

air sandwich: high level decisions at the top, poor communication from strategists to
implementers.

And then decide what fits the job.
baseline analysis & current state of where you’re at
roadmap & vision
research-based personas
decision, process or task flows
rough prototypes or sketches
competitive & market analysis
balanced scorecard
feature/value analysis
measuring results:
what, when, how to define success


Remember these? Now decide what to use.

tools of the UXer

strategic
experience diagrams
concept models
observation
process flows
interviews
personas prototypes

usability testing
wireframes mockups
tactical
kickoff
project duration


These are the usual deliverables we provide, in some form or another.

tools of the UXer as design strategist
strategic
roadmap balanced scorecard (strat maps)
competitive analysis
functionality/process/experience

gap analysis feature value analysis

experience diagrams
concept models
observation
process flows
interviews
personas
prototypes


But to address how the design will reconcile business objectives and user needs, we need a
few unique ways to think about, and visualize, the factors the make up the design strategy.

The roadmap provides the direction the product or service will progress through, the
balanced scorecard weighs criteria when prioritizing strategic objectives, competitive analysis
allows you to understand the environment your product or service will or already competes
in, the gap analysis examines where earlier versions, or your current state, differs from where
you want to be, and the feature value analysis provides a line by line examination of how
features and functionality measure against feasibility, desirability, and viability.

questions

a few examples


design strategy lifecycle

Redesign and Implementation Roadmap

Strategy and Design Implementation Post Launch

Visual Style
User Research IA Design Valida- URL Redirects
Visual Guide
Presentation Test / Test / Misc & Sundry IT
Discovery tion Input Templates Scripting
Design Templates QA QA Tasks
Interaction Testing Search
Content Analysis CSS & HTML
competitive Design Reindexing
analysis*
Content Strategy

primary feature/ URL Finish Controlled
baseline metrics of Design Vocabularies
Fine-level IA compare metrics/KPIs to
design value baseline and evaluate
current state
objectives analysis FInish Metadata Search Engine against success criteria
Content Inventory Metatagging

Q A
Strategy Optimization

&

L a u n c h
T e s t i n g
Step-by-Step Content
Guides Create New Content
Migration Editorial identify any unexpected/
identify key business needs deﬁne success criteria CMS Training Clean-
Voice Style
abnormal analytics, feedback
Up
ROT Removal Rewrite Existing Content
Guide

Freeze
Content Freeze 1 Freeze 3
2
continue marching toward
deﬁne product/service roadmap/vision
Create Visual Assets product/service roadmap
Address New
Fine-Level Visual
Photographic
Design
Needs Update Visual Assets

User Testing Design Updates

updates should
still be tied to
overall design
strategy

Legend
remarks in
Techno- User blue are by
adaptive path
Editorial IA & IxD Visual Strategy
logy Research Chris Avore


Design strategy within the full lifecycle of a release

examples: Feature/Value Analysis

Feature/Value Analysis
bridges strategic brainstorming into tactical, tangible ideas



feature description
business priority (1-3)
design level of effort (1-3)
technical level of effort (1-3)
strategic objectives


A simple spreadsheet that aligns each piece of functionality to weighted business priority, a
strategic objective, the design and technical level of effort. This can act as the lynchpin to a
design strategy simply because it encourages the designer to understand exactly why
something should or should not be included in future design phases.
Sometimes this can start to look like a standard requirements document.


What persona is
Is this feature in most likely to benefit
the roadmap? from this feature?


Can we What competitors
prototype this feature? currently provide this or
a similar feature?
Have we seen evidence of how
our customers already try to do this
with the current offering?

But the FVA can continue to mature into a lynchpin of design strategy. It can act as the center
of the design strategy ecosystem, reﬂecting numerous other design activities and
deliverables, ranging from observation exercises, competitor analyses, personas, prototypes,
and more.


Reference the documentation you use today to
reflect strategic objectives.


Not everything even has to be new documentation. You can frame existing work to reference
your design strategy.


Reference the documentation you use today to
reflect strategic objectives:
How does this wireframe align with the
roadmap? What could the next version look like?
How are this persona’s needs reconciled with
the strategic business objectives?
Where can the process flow reveal gaps from
our current state to future ideas?
Or our competitors?


other tips to documenting design strategy

Begin annotating wireframes, mockups, with business
goals or referencing the FVA
Convert process flows to experience flows
Beef up competitor research to include business
process (what they’re doing), not just functionality
Identify triggers, metrics to substantiate a hunch
Map primary business objectives to the customer
lifecycle: reinforce the customer/user experience



differentiate
the tactical problems


Remember to differentiate the tactical problems...


and see the big picture


As practitioners, we frequently test our products and services to make sure the ideas we’re
designing are usable. But design strategy attempts to conﬁrm we’re designing USEFUL
products and services too. Don’t get bogged down in tactical details if the fundamental
approach is off. And while it’s easier said than done, the evidence and supporting research
you’ve uncovered throughout the design strategy process will give additional credibility to
your arguments.

common useful resources

Design Management Institute
Harvard Business Review
strategy+business (booz allen)
BusinessWeek
Core77
MIT Sloan Management Review


questions

4
questions


collaborative strategy in practice

Big thanks to:
@dpan
@lishubert


Design strategy isn’t meant to be a one person exercise.

Neither are presentations about design strategy.

Thank you.

Chris Avore
UPA-DC UserFocus: October 15 2010
@erova
avore@erova.com
http://erova.com


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