creating design principles through collaboration

DESIGN PRINCIPLES Creating Your Own Through Collaboration

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of theDon’t let good enough be the enemy of the GOOD

Details Matter

STYLE MATTERS

http://ui-animations.tumblr.com/page/2

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...FACILITATED by the designers

...but OWNED by the whole team, to the highest stakeholder

STRONG FOUNDATIONS What do we need before we start developing?

COMMON VOCABULARY How do we speak about experience design details?

VALUED CHECKPOINTS When does “good enough” become “good” or “great?”

Design Principles help you with all three

Design PrinciplesBrand-rooted guiding statements that help your team make decisions about which features to build, and how they work

The French

The British

In the 1970’s, Ann C Noble, professor emeritus of the University of California Davis created the aroma wheel

Brand Attributes

q Corporate

q Cutting-Edge

q Decisive

q Deliberate

q Detailed

q Dominating

q Educated

q Elitist

q Energetic

q Essential

q Ethical

q Exacting

q Exciting

q Exclusive

q Experienced

q Adaptable

q Adventurous

q Approachable

q Assertive

q Busy

q Candid

q Caring

q Commercial

q Communal

q Complex

q Concise

q Conservative

q Confident

q Confidential

q Conscientious

q Familial

q Fearless

q Fresh

q Friendly

q Fun

q Functional

q Giving

q Growing

q Heavy

q Honest

q Hopeful

q Humble

q Impactful

q Informed

q Innovative

q Inspiring

q Modern

q Nostalgic

q Open

q Organic

q Organized

q Outgoing

q Political

q Refined

q Refreshing

q Safe

q Self-aware

q Simplistic

q Spontaneous

q Stable

q Sterile

q Timeless

q Transparent

q Trusted

q Vibrant

q Warm

q Welcoming

q Youthful

!ADD YOUR OWN:

!!!!!

INSPIRATIONAL

Great design principles are

ACCESSIBLE & PRECISE

Great design principles are both

HELP YOU SAY A SAVVY NO

Great design principles

SPONGE SPARK SPLATTER SCULPT STORYTELL

One of the hardest jobs of a design team is effective use of a SAVVY NO

Choose a design challenge and immerse in the related context. What do you want to make better? For who?

Take insights from Sponge. Define your audience and their needs. Generate the solution idea you want to design.

Brainstorm multiple ideas (quantity over quality). Explore possible features and content. !

Form and refine your solution with user insights and design strategy. !

Express the importance and meaning of your solution.

Design Principle Examples

Fast

We value our users time more than our own. We recognize faster experiences are more efficient and feel more effortless. As such, site performance is something our users should never notice. Our site should move as fast as we do. !- Facebook

Time matters, so build for people on the go

• All UX principles apply equally at 12-inch and 20-inch screen sizes.

• Be interruptible. • Account for starting and

stopping (fast return, and do not get in the way of other UX).

• Account for getting and losing connectivity.

• Performance is the universal UX killer.

!- Windows 7

BASED ON REAL RESEARCH

Great design principles are

Our challenge:

How might we make learning about experience design more fun and accessible for curious beginners?

Related Problems: • Design practices are best learned in a hands-on way, but

not everyone can learn straight from a designer. • The full design process can be daunting!

User Focus

Our target audiences:

• Beginners in career exploration (late high school, early college)

• Complete design beginners

• Professional groups that want to learn together playfully

User Insight: Many students - and schools! - are cash-strapped. Not everyone will have an iPad or Android.

DESIGN PRINCIPLE

The product and required materials should be low-cost and highly available.

= Accessible Play

Why are design principles so rare?

1. You need the organization to have established brand values and genuine user insights to really give them weight.

2.By the time you realize you need them on a particular project, it’s often too late to make them.

project time

kickoff

“…”

requirements & design

design review

project time

kickoff requirements & design

design review

complaint from strategic customer

new release from a competitor

change in business strategy

high visibility conference is approaching

CEO at the design review

Using chaos

Don’t hold a design principle workshop during a crisis...

...but use the energy of a crisis to get it on the calendar

Why are design principles so rare?

1. You need the organization to have established brand values and genuine user insights to really give them weight.

2.By the time you realize you need them on a particular project, it’s often too late to make them.

3.Teams don’t know how to engage stakeholders to make them.

Co-creation breaks down walls

Create something together that’s relevant, but possibly unreal

Co-creation breaks down walls

Creating real things right away activates agendas and defenses

Creating irrelevant things don’t hold the attention of your stakeholders

Try a “design challenge” workshop that inspires meaningful play

Spa Day Planner (Hypothetical Challenge)

Hosted parties are a common approach that our consultants use to share their passion for products, and to gain new customers. Our company and its consultants have a business goal to increase the number of parties hosted. !However, encouraging non-consultants to host parties can sometimes be difficult due to: !• Scheduling difficulties • Reluctance of potential guests to attend a “product-centric” party • Other reasons?

Challenge: Design a party-scheduling tool that also helps overcome other obstacles that may interfere with attendance. !

Spa Day Planner: Personas

Patricia the Planner (32) Patricia is an avid explorer of her city - if you go to a fest in the summer, you’ll probably run in to her. She’s also the magnet that draws her friends together. About once a month, she tries to plan a get-together.

Patricia really likes the idea of doing double-duty, supporting her friend (who is a consultant for the company) and hosting a spa event that will draw out her friends. As a vegan, she’s also interested in our products herself, but hasn’t tried them yet.

Goals

• Find or host interesting events - ones that will get several of her friends together.

• Be a supportive friend.

• Have an event that she can host with minimal work, so she can enjoy the party itself. !Frustrations

• It’s so hard to get friends to commit! Everyone has such busy schedules, and many of Patricia’s friends have kids, so they have to arrange for babysitters or work with their spouse’s schedules. Patricia feels like she spends most of her time negotiating dates, or trying to think of events that will really get friends interested and excited.

• Patricia is worried that some of her friends may feel pressured to come to a party where products are being sold.

Spa Day Planner: PersonasSpa Day Planner: Personas

Meredith the Multi-Tasker (36) Meredith is the mother of two girls, Alyssa and Suzy. Between working full-time, and managing events for Alyssa’s theater group and Suzy’s after-school tennis practice, she often feels like she spends all of her “free” time driving around or planning schedules with her husband Ben.

Meredith has made it a resolution to stay in touch with her friends and to make time for herself as well, something her husband is very supportive of when they can make it happen. She has to balance budget and schedules, and is hesitant to commit to things, but makes a great effort to attend once she’s decided to join.

Goals

• Make sure she doesn’t “disappear” on her friends. That’s happened off and on and she knows she’s happier with some regular girl-time.

• Take care of herself. Living a healthy lifestyle - and modeling one for her daughters - is a priority. !Frustrations

• Some of her friends don’t have kids, and it seems so much easier for them to get together last-minute! She has to plan weeks in advance, most of the time.

• Meredith is trying to keep to a budget and is wary of parties where she might feel pressure to buy something. She’s open to the possibility but doesn’t want a hard sell, and doesn’t want to appear “cheap” to her friends.

Spa Day Planner: Personas

Ambitious Amy (39) Amy is a live-theater actor at heart. She loves the stage, and spends her summers as cast in open summer-theater festivals. During the fall and winter, she finds shows in her hometown and makes whatever money she can to keep her schedule and lifestyle flexible.

Rita has been a company representative for 3 years now. It’s been a great way to supplement her income - it provides her the flexibility needed for her schedule, and is something she can do as a third job if she’s between shows. She’s gotten to the point where she thinks she could just act and represent the company, if she can reach her sales goals.

Goals

• Reach her sales goals in order to advance to the next level.

• Share her love of our products with her friends, to convert them to happy customers. !

Frustrations

• Encouraging people in her network to host parties can be very difficult. There are several obstacles that come up: scheduling, the work hosts perceive will be needed, the hesitance potential hosts have to invite their friends to a product-sponsored party...

What a workshop might look like...

Pre-work for the facilitator

Gather resources on:

• Company brand values & expressions

• Customer insights

Create a design challenge that is:

• Industry-specific

• Not on the roadmap

Have each attendee bring at least 3 insights or “a-ha” moments about your customers

• Personal Anecdotes (try to limit)

• Field Observation

• Contextual Inquiry

• Usability Testing

• Interviews

• Surveys

• Web Analytics / Logs

...and the following:

• One example of an industry-related amazing experience with a company

• One example of a non-industry amazing experience with a company

• Thoughts on the question - what would you take a stand for?

Workshop Objective

3-5 collaboratively created, potential design principles

Each should make you feel:

• Inspired to create

• Connected to brand values

• Empathetic to your users

• Able to say a savvy no

After the workshop:

• Iterate with more relevant examples - or real projects - until accepted principles emerge

• Make your principles pithy and visual

• Socialize! Socialize! Socialize!

To continue with activities like this…

!

ADMCi offers 10 week classes Custom corporate training is also available.

school.admci.org

!

“Adventures in Experience Design”

adventuresxd.com !

Questions? Carolyn Chandler@chanan