Let’s begin our Design Challenge.
Is it going to be a design audit on an existing product or are you going to build something new?
Regardless of which mission you have embarked on, crafting a challenge statement is just as important.
A great design challenge strikes a balance between providing clear direction and enabling creativity. It never prescribes a particular solution.
A Challenge statement needs to be:
- purposeful (key result)
- Concise and Inspiring
- Targeted to users
- aligned and timely
Challenge Statement
It must be relevant, focused on a target audience or target segment and tied to the team goals. Above is an example.
The first steps is to
- interview key stakeholders
- identify or review use cases
- review all relevant research
- review current designs (if any)
Lightning Talks
360 degree view Lightning Talks
Based on the design challenge you came up with, get together and understand from many different points of view from each of these three business functions and learn what each group needs.
The talks should include
- Business goals and success metrics / 5 min
- Technical capacities and challenges / 5 min
- Relevant user research / 5 min
User Interviews
User Interviews
Find out how to conduct effective user interview from Research Sprint.
Stakeholder Map
Stakeholder Map
Products and services often have multiple types of people they are designed for. The stakeholder map lists all the possible people concerned in a situation.
30 minute how-to
- List all possible stakeholders in a project / 10 mins
- Group the stakeholders in meaningful sections / 5 mins
- Decide what stakeholders you will design for during the sprint, and in what order / 10 mins
- Plan need finding activities and consider creating a team to work on each group / 5 mins
It’s important to know the the people along the entire value chain or ecosystem. If the customer segment that you are targeting is not willing to pay, there might be other customer segments somewhere along the chain who are willing to.
Creating a Persona
Zeek’s profile
After you have identified a customer segment, create a persona from that group.
List down the
- Name
- Demographics
- Behaviors
- Needs & goals
Who are you designing for? What are his/her biggest needs?
Look for extreme users. Try not to design for your “Average Joe” — instead, find people with very specific (and even challenging!) needs. These will spark more innovative ideas.
The point is to explore the needs of one particular person, just one.
Persona should be specific enough to feel real and allow participants to understand who they are, how they relate to the design challenge and what they need from technology to make their lives better.
Persona’s description
Then put down the information down in writing arranged in this format.
Summarize the learnings
Summarize the learnings
At Lefty Talents Group, we find it useful to conclude the Understand section by summarizing all the learnings.
- Share first set of ideas and insights.
- Group them into themes.
- Vote on the best ideas, the ones that bring the most insight and should be pursued.
This exercise is a “first check” and not a final decision on a direction. The team will continue to learn and decide in the later stages, so nothing at this point is final.