Building Design Strategy at Dropbox: Co-Designing with Customers

UX STRAT USA •  SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

Ruth Buchanan • Design Research Lead • Dropbox

Hi! 👋

This talk is about a participatory approach to design as a way to do strategic research.

Enabling designers & non-designers to concept, develop, and evaluate ideas.

A DEFINITION

…all people are able to bring creative contributions to design processes.

– Liz Sanders, Convivial Toolbox

Let’s talk about making a cake. 🍰 🍰 🍰 🍰 🍰🍰 🍰

How do I know what kind of cake I should bake for you?

I could identify what you think and say

Yellow cake is also pretty delicious.

I think my favorite is chocolate with cream cheese frosting.

I hate nuts in my desserts.

I could identify what you do

Self-reports rarely buying desserts of any kind.

Buys a lot of coffee ice cream, fewer quantities of pre-made baked goods.

Buys cake decorating kit and leaves abandoned in cupboard

But…

I could identify what you know and feel and dream

Which ingredients would you choose?

What shape of cake?

What kind of decorations?

What flavors would you combine?

This is especially good for learning what and who people aspire to be.

Let’s talk about Dropbox.

Our research team is a little different.

We’re investing in the methods and the mindset.

If we go back to that cake metaphor…

So, what kind of cake do we bake?

A CASE STUDY IN 4 PARTS

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A CASE STUDY IN 4 PARTS

Identifying opportunities: What are the key problems people want to solve?

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A CASE STUDY IN 4 PARTS

Creating solutions: How might we alleviate the issues we identified?

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A CASE STUDY IN 4 PARTS

Enabling mutual benefit: Why are we doing this, and why are our customers?

1 2 3 4

A CASE STUDY IN 4 PARTS

What we’ve learned: How we’re using what we learn to bake this into our processes

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Identifying opportunities in customer workshops

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💡 🏁

We asked them to highlight areas of difficulty that they wanted to resolve.

People silently reviewed one another’s maps, noting any phases they shared with a small dot.

What are the reasons that area is red? What are the problems or opportunities to address?

People described the impact these opportunity areas currently had on their work.

We narrowed in on the key problem or opportunity to innovate around

Developing concepts based on opportunities

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Sensitization and reflection enables better participation when we reconvene

Silent brainstorming helps avoid group dynamics, and generates a lot of ideas.

Screenshots – how it works/features included

App nameLogo

Tagline

Key benefits/features

Reviews (different roles)

“ “– _____________

“ “

– _____________

APP STORE LISTING

This app is for ____________________ who has ____________________________. It’s a _______________ that ____________________________.[target customer(s)] [need] [category of app] [one key benefit]

Unlike ____________________, this app __________________________________________________.[competition] [unique differentiator]

It’s about understanding their goals and their dreams – and the ways they want to execute on them.

Enabling mutual benefit for teams and customers

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Benefits for Dropboxers

Artifacts designed for fast, meaningful synthesis

Opportunities and concepts prioritized by impact to people’s workflows – straight from the experts themselves.

Benefits for participants

For people seeking out ways to work better, meeting with like-minded peers is an exciting reward.

Learn a new approach to problem-solving and experience our design process first-hand.

What we’ve learned and where we’re going with this

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1. Give people time to prepare (sensitize).

2. Metaphors are a superpower. Embrace them, even if they’re weird.

Tell me about the start of the relationship. Did it start on a good note, or did you know it was doomed to fail from the start?

💔

3. Tactile UI kits let people communicate their goals through a common language.

4. Generative research isn’t appropriate for every project, but a co-creative mindset is.

5. Be generous about what you’ve learned, and who you invite to design with you.

We’re intentionally building this process for design strategy.

It’s about enabling the people we design for to have a say in how they work, and how they use tools.

It’s about letting people speak for themselves, and have greater agency.

It’s also about minimizing risk and reducing the chances that our concepts aren’t valuable to people.

It’s about reaching deep, tacit knowledge, and learning what people know, feel, and dream

Life’s too short to eat mediocre cake.

Thanks!

ruthb@dropbox.com • @ruth_buchanan