disrupting business with design thinking. · we apply design thinking at enterprise and strategic...
TRANSCRIPT
Disrupting business with design thinking.
OverviewDesign thinking - what is it?How we are redefining the BA world - why is it a fit for Redvespa?Why is design relevant to our customers?
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PART ONE
New to design thinking.
redvespa.com
Redvespa Consultants Limited
RedvespaConsultantsLtd
30333648546470
OverviewRedvespa Design Framework, tools, techniques and methodsDiscoverSimplifyIdeateProtoShare
PART ONE
New to design thinking.
PART TWO
Making it work.
Our design thinking guide. We’ve done it and so can you!
We set out to write Disrupting Business with Design Thinking with the intention of helping our Redvespa people learn and embrace design thinking: to ask the same questions that our Chief Designer and other design thinkers have in mind when trying to make something more usable. To encourage people to step outside the comfort of their desk space and see and experience the world with their own eyes. To adjust their mindset and start looking at the world through a lens less familiar; the lens of the customer and not solely the business and technology.
We see the application of design thinking practices and techniques as complementary and a natural
extension to the discipline of business analysis. With a little guidance and encouragement most people could do what we are doing at Redvespa. And in doing so enjoy creating their own design thinking mojo & satisfy their own curiosity.
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Disrupting Business with Design Thinking was destined for our office coffee tables. However, we have been overwhelmed by the interest and curiosity our design thinking story has generated amongst the Business Analysis community around the globe and our clients seeking out creative and innovative solutions. Our culture of helping has taken over and we hope that in sharing our story, learnings and experiences, others can find the courage and confidence to #daretodesign and become the difference within their practice, capability and organisation.
Disrupting Business with Design Thinking differs from the many design thinking books available. We have written this for people looking to incorporate design thinking into their existing capabilities and practices. We have researched, analysed, and highlighted business analysis techniques also being used by designers. We’ve done this so that it brings home what you may already be thinking...you have the design thinking mojo. We have referenced simple yet effective techniques from our own creativity toolkit. And we have experimented and listed popular design techniques that allow you to step into the customer’s shoes and extend your design thinking capability. The design techniques listed are not exhaustive, however should be enough to give you a taste for design thinking and decide whether this is right for you. The design techniques can be incorporated into your own toolkit or that of your practice, capability or organisation without anyone screaming “good morning designers.”
With this guide we have attempted to follow the principle of practice-what-you-preach. It is not only
intended for the growing Business Analysis community interested in design thinking but for anyone wanting to
grow their people, practice or capability.
This book is structured into two main parts.
NEW TO DESIGN THINKING illustrates the fundamental concepts of design thinking. How Redvespa is applying
design thinking to disrupt our business and the discipline of business analysis, and its relevance to our clients and
their customers. In the case studies we show how our people are incorporating design elements to deliver business value
outcomes.
MAKING IT WORK enables people to further satisfy their curiosity with design, learn more about the design stages and
try out techniques that “designers” use. From rapid prototyping, ethnographic research, to deep dives, personas and surveys,
techniques like these are used repeatedly for bringing about dramatic improvements to the way we think and deliver products,
and services, ensuring they are clearly focused on the needs of users. Have fun implementing them in your own way!
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New to design thinking.
PART ONE
Overview.
Design at Redvespa is about how we can consciously apply design thinking within our current roles. How we can use it to improve outcomes for our clients, and tackle their customer challenges and opportunities enterprise wide.
Our design story combines our expertise and passion for business analysis with design thinking to create business solutions for business problems or opportunities. We have positioned our design story at the intersection of inspired design, business and people. We’re different from design companies, because of our strong analytical background. We’re already very good at understanding our clients’
“Design is not a department, but a behaviour.”
business, their customers and their problem(s). And we’re different from other business analysis providers too, because we recognise that we’re not solely analysing a business, we’re also designing it.
Design thinking in your daily activities is Human centred, collaborative, optimistic, experimental and curious. You may already be doing some of these things; like having a focus on the customer perspective, or facilitating a workshop to create a new business process, or designing a wireframe or undertaking rapid prototyping to test out an idea.
Design thinking provides a structure to apply these techniques more consistently and more
widely. Redvespa has experience in design thinking through our work in the Public Sector,
Financial Services, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Healthcare Services, Engineering & Transportation
industries. We also have design tools and frameworks such as the Creativity Toolkit and the
CXJM framework already in place.
Design has many flavours. At Redvespa, we do not intentionally seek out engagements that are design
specific. Simply, our starting point is that someone has a problem that needs solving. We place a lot of emphasis
on listening to our clients and as we interact and learn more about their problem, more often than not, design
thinking comes into the conversation.
And one of our biggest learnings has been to adapt our design vocabulary to match our clients’ needs and their
understanding (and experiences) of design thinking.
Closer to home, our designing thinking engagements can have a more service design vibe to them (Service Design). By this we
mean applying design thinking to create or improve a service or product offering by addressing the entire customer lifecycle. It’s
not solely about improving the website shopping cart; it’s about understanding and addressing the entire customer lifecycle from
when the customer first hears about a product or service to when they finish using it. Redvespa uses our customer experience journey
mapping (CXJM) tools to design services and products. We also use them for new product launches. Applying design thinking techniques
allows us to achieve better outcomes for organisations and their customers.
We apply design thinking at Enterprise and Strategic level to create or improve a business model (Business Design). This impacts an entire
organisation and addresses every aspect of how they do business - customer experience, supply chain, vendors and organisational
capabilities. Again, if we apply design thinking techniques we can help to create a better outcome, a more well-designed solution.
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Design thinking.
We can provide tools, teach you techniques and grow your skills, but we are no jedi-mind masters.
Learning to think like a designer is as much about attitude and having the belief that you can make a difference, as having a process in place to get to new, relevant solutions that create positive impact. What we love about design thinking is that you are in control of when and where you use it. And the key to this is having the right mindset to tackle the task at hand. Easy said, but not easy done.
It is important to understand that design thinking is not new. Design thinking has moved on from the days of meaning how a product looks, creating eye-pleasing, functional products. Now design thinking has broader aims, understanding how it really works and creating faster, more productive ways of working: We look at problems first through the lens of the customers (and/or users) needs, researching those needs with real people and then building prototype products quickly.
There is no one set definition for designing thinking. When asked what design thinking means, we like to describe it as
• Creative problem solving with a human centred lens: beginning from deep empathy and understanding of needs and motivations of people.
• Experiencing the world instead of talking about experiencing the world.
• The “agile” for business problem solving: Design thinkers work iteratively in cycles of ideate, proto, test and feedback. Co-designing with the customer, learning along the way, responding to change.
Design thinking is a mindset.
This alone does not complete the Design Thinking picture. Design Thinking also draws on
EMPATHY:being able to see and feel what others see and feel, leading to a deeper understanding of the opportunity to better serve needs.
OPENNESS:being receptive to new ideas, new people, and new ways of doing things, often characterized by curiosity, an active imagination, and an ability to suspend judgment.
MINDFULNESS:being aware of people, places, and things in order to develop deeper understanding and an expanded repertoire of reference points and position yourself to capitalise on serendipity in seizing unexpected design opportunities.
EMBRACING CONSTRAINTS:seeing constraints as a source of creativity, to avoid trade-offs and compromises in the pursuit of the ideal solution and the most distinct enterprise strategy.
RESILIENCE:driving forward toward creative and productive resolutions, even in the face of minor setbacks or failures along the way.
WHAT IF:developing an insatiable curiosity for exploring wide ranging changes rather than specific product or service experiences. This can often mean presenting people with a challenging question on how their product or service would be affected by changes taking place at the technological, societal or cultural level.
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Our design thinking benefits greatly from the views of multiple perspectives, and others’ creativity bolstering our own.
COLLABORATION: UNITY IN DIVERSITY
Collaboration is hot and design is a collaborative process. It’s nothing new to many of us, but when we talk about collaboration in a design sense, it’s about getting the right people in the room and capitalising on diverse perspectives and types of expertise within cross-disciplinary teams to create richer, more robust, unexpected outcomes.
And we have learned that design thinking has the greatest impact when it’s taken out of the hands of ‘designers’ and put in the hands of everyone.
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In short this requires defining “the day in the life of” for our customers.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: SHARE A LITTLE EMPATHY
Steve Jobs summed it up best when he said “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology - not the other way around.”
And if we had a dollar for everytime we heard Business Analysis professionals tell us that they focus on the customer experience in equal doses as they do on defining the business needs and technology solution, we reckon we could make a deserving charity very happy.
That’s not to say, this doesn’t happen. We actually think this happens more than we know. Within our BA Profession and wider professions there is a rising enthusiasm for using design thinking to shape decisions of all kinds.
Many organisations are setting up (service) design teams or encouraging their business analysis team to explore the use of design to raise their profile and improve business value outcomes. We believe there is an opportunity for all of us to do this better. And in doing so, creating a more sustainable practice or capability model whilst showcasing the diverse talent within the discipline of Business Analysis. The Customer Experience begins with developing deep empathy and understanding of needs and motivations of our customers. Gaining empathy hinges on good observation skills and understanding not just fundamental use and usability needs, but also the customers meaning-based needs.
With our design thinking lens and natural curiosity, we elicit stories by setting aside our existing assumptions and becoming naïve, asking insightful questions, and trying to understand what customer stories say about their needs.
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How we are redefining the BA world.
Our approach can be compared to that of human beings, with no two exactly the same.
Sure, our design influence, thinking and approach is made up of similar design elements found in design companies, design books etc, but the way we apply the sum total of these parts for each problem is distinctive - different from every other organisation that has come before, and any that might follow.
Design is not revolutionary, but our deliberate design approach within our profession is.
OUR DESIGN MESSAGE IS SIMPLE
We combine creative problem solving with a human-centred focus to turn great ideas into tangible business outcomes.
OUR ROOTS ARE IN BUSINESS ANALYSIS
We’re proud of what’s under our hood and it is not lost on us that we still get our biggest kick from helping grow our customers’ BA capability and our BA profession.
Our design story combines our expertise and passion for business analysis with a multi-disciplined design thinking approach that enables us to work with our customers to not just realise solutions, but design them.
We see the application of design practices and techniques as complementary and a natural extension of our business analysis profession. It incorporates collaboration, creativity and deliberate design. Collaboration and creativity are synonymous with Redvespa. Never one to follow the pack, we’ve deliberately turned design red.
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OUR NOT SO SECRET SAUCE
We are fearless in our pursuit of results and innovation.
Frameworks, tools and techniques are great. They give us structure, purpose and grounding, but what really makes design hum are people. So, it’s a good thing that Redvespa is full of smart, interesting, innovative, and good-looking people - and we have loads of ideas. As a result, this design guide is a true testament of that we really are 50 flowers blooming rather than one driven by management.
Essential to our innovation, is the need for us to continue attracting people who have a sense of enquiry, curiosity and empathy for the world and the people whose problems we are trying to solve.
We share the view that the quickest way to remove innovation from our company, is to be too inward facing. So, our business model is geared to support us all being out in the world gaining insights, sharing our experiences and making a positive difference, rather than watching the world through the beautiful windows in our Kauri Timber Building in Auckland or Druids Chamber in Wellington, New Zealand.
RISK AND FAILURE IS PART OF THE DEAL
Organisations tend to design out as much risk as they can from their practices and processes, but you won’t find this at Redvespa. Our values, culture and design philosophy have enabled us to create a space where trust thrives and risks can be taken. To innovate well, we need to take risks, and to be successful, we have to trust each other within our company.
And we know, we are not always going to get it right. In our design world, it’s this type of failure that can be the most useful because it is where we learn the most.
JUMPING TO THE NEXT CURVE
Just as our growth and capability has grown, so too has our profession. With Gilles delivering outstanding BA Capability Development offerings, the calibre of Business Analysis professionals, our customer BA capability and even our competitors is improving year on year.
The flip side is that today, we face an even greater need to engage with our eyes wide open and position ourselves ahead of the next jump. We are using design thinking to validate that our service offerings have a distinct point of difference and agility so that they continue to be delivered in different ways to different customers and that we can demonstrate business value.
OUR DESIGN HUBS
We have created design hubs in each office that are conducive to creative collaboration and
innovation. Our design hubs give us faith in our creative abilities and a process for transforming
difficult challenges into opportunities for design.
It’s a safe place for us to challenge our thinking and to mythbust. And with Agile now being our bestie... a
post-it art challenge could be on the cards.
The design hubs can also double as a project space (refer Part Two - Discover stage). Creating a project
space can help make sense of large amounts of information, keep it organised, give your project visibility
and communicate the story of your project to others.
We would like to encourage all Business Analysis Practices to create a design space where possible. It
fosters creativity meeting in a space surrounded by design mojo. Use the space to construct your design story
so that you can share it with others and invite them to contribute.
Try not to be too precious or perfectionist about the way you present your work as people are more likely to make
constructive comments on work in progress than something that looks polished. As the project progresses, you can
reorganise the space to tell the relevant story for the stage of the project.
Finally, the design hub should be a place for everyone to enjoy, and yes that includes your clients. Next time you run a creative workshop
bring them to your place...and treat them to some of your design mojo.
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Why is design relevant to our customers?
Our take on service design is that it is a holistic approach to improve existing services and to innovate new service experiences. It starts with having fresh, original insights about our markets and our customers. These insights come only when we extract ourselves from our desks and our increasing reliance on technology and search engines to witness and experience first hand aspects of behaviour in the real world. This is a proven way of inspiring and informing (new) ideas.
We consider design thinking to be the overarching interdisciplinary approach with service design and business design being flavours (variations) of design thinking.
The insights that emerge from careful observation of people’s behaviour, uncover all kinds of “moments of truth” and opportunities that were not previously evident.
Often, we’re inspired by people who’d
succeeded in the system. But where
we are likely to find the real insights
and little gems is when we look even
more closely at those who struggled
to figure it out, challenged it, avoided
it, and ultimately failed within it. This
leads to identifying and prototyping
opportunity areas and captures a
fundamental paradigm shift that looks
beyond the sequence of functional
processes and covers the entire
customer experience.
We consider the end to end service
journey across all channels and
touchpoints not only from a customer,
but also from an organisational
perspective. It’s an evolving field and
is also referred to as user experience
(UX) design, user-based design,
customer experience design and
customer centric design.
What we love is that it provides a
backstage pass perspective that
enables organisations to enhance
their strategies, business models and
operations by breaking through silos.
It aims to improve the behind the
scenes activities and processes that
enable organisations to deliver great
services and experiences.
We can build an entire service design
strategy based on the experiences
our customers go through in their
interactions with us.
Some organisations make a
horrible habit of focusing on the one
interaction where they think they can
make money. But if we map out the
entire journey, capturing a whole
series of relevant interactions
that customers have, we begin to
understand how we might innovate
to create a much more robust and
engaging customer experience.
Service design draws on a different
range of skills and attributes.
People well attuned to others needs,
with curious minds, strong in creative
problem solving, and the ability to
connect diverse concepts and map out
a way forward are needed to deliver
on the potential of this different way
of working.
Make service design work - we draw on the best tools, techniques, methods and approaches that our core BA practitioners and fellow service designers have used for many years to tackle the design of services and processes.
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Our take on business design is that it is a holistic approach for enhancing an organisation’s capability to continually seize new opportunities and gain enterprise-wide competitive advantages.
Today, organisations are developing incredibly sophisticated advanced analytics capabilities that allow them to spot opportunities in new markets, segments, and locations. But this investment is meaningless if they can’t then take that insight and convert it into something that their customers want to buy.
Smart executives are starting to turn their attention to design because they have realised it’s really hard to be competitive and stay in business if you cannot design a good product, service, or experience.
Making design core to how their company functions requires them to set a tone of wanting to understand how an idea reflects insights about customer needs. This is leading them to ask the questions that excite us at Redvespa. How is this experience going to help the customer? What customer journey are we helping? What compromises, that the customer faces, are we breaking?
Making business design work - we draw the best tools, techniques, methods and approaches that our core BA practitioners and fellow designers, have used for many years to tackle the design of products, services and processes, but apply them far more broadly, consistently and deliberately to the problems facing the ‘C Suite Level’ executives, the enterprise (not Star Trek) and our community as a whole.
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v ‘
When done well, the practice of business design can help us boost our clients’ performance on many levels. This includes:
• Focusing on the individual, it’s about better equipping them to lead by harnessing the power of their teams, envisioning new possibilities, and navigating the course of progress.
• Focusing on the team, it’s about having a greater sense of alignment and the ability to create and act on opportunities in a more productive and accelerated fashion.
• Focusing on the enterprise, its about enhancing their ability to continually seize new opportunities and gain competitive advantage.
Consistent with our design story, our business design approach focuses onensuring our clients’ customers are at the absolute heart of everything they do. This is achieved by fostering a stronger ‘human’ focus within the organisation. The best companies are going beyond deep customer research; they are actually embedding the customer viewpoint as a critical input for making decisions and they are constantly testing their ideas with real customers in real environments.
And we lift the collaboration effort within their organisation achieved by identifying the right people needed to tackle the problem. We harness the collective ingenuity to create bigger ideas faster and more efficiently. This leads to discovering insights that matter, design things their customers want, and then deliver them effectively to the market.
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Design works - Rotman School of Management
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Making it work.
PART TWO
Overview.
So, you’ve read Part One, and you
are starting to feel more comfortable
with design thinking. Awesome, it’s
great to have you on board and now
it’s business time.
This section is for anyone who wants
to further satisfy their curiosity
with design, learn more about the
design stages and try out techniques
that “designers” use. From rapid
prototyping, ethnographic research,
to deep dives, personas and surveys.
Techniques like these are used all
the time for bringing about dramatic
improvements to the way we think
and deliver products, and services,
ensuring they are clearly focused on
the needs of users.
We don’t own creativity but we
have the ability to take an idea and
make it real. Showing the real value
of naturally integrating strategy
and design through creativity is the
future.
In this section we bring together
everything good about Redvespa
and Business Analysis. Having
already covered off our clever peeps,
we turn our attention to our home-
grown creativity toolkit and CXJM
offerings, common BA techniques,
and design techniques that make
up our design world. We guide
you through our take on a design
framework that incorporates our
own thinking and “borrowed” design
framework ideas, techniques; tip’s
and tricks from (in our opinion) some
of the coolest innovation and design
companies in the world.
We hope that as you browse through the BA techniques
also being used by designers, it brings home what you may
have already been thinking…you have the design mojo. The
design techniques listed should be enough to not overwhelm
you whilst extending your design capability. Rest assured,
design is a big world so if you want more or you want to share
your favourite design techniques, just holla because…
What makes us smile the most is putting design tools and techniques in the hands
of people who may never have thought of themselves as designers and watching
them apply the tools to a vastly greater range of problems.
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Our design process is what puts our design thinking into action. It’s an approach to generating and evolving ideas. It has five stages that help navigate identifying a design challenge through to finding and building a solution. It’s a deeply human approach that relies on our ability to be intuitive, to interpret what we observe and to develop ideas that are emotionally meaningful to those we are designing for.
The Framework is based around 5 stages, DISCOVER - SIMPLIFY - IDEATE - PROTO - SHARE
While our design approach describes a way of working it is not a step by step workflow process. It provides a good overview of design but also provides a quick reference guide that can be used on a regular basis. Its stages are iterative and non-linear and broadly describe design practice but we encourage you to customise for application to specific initiatives.
We believe that having it this way allows our people to flourish and come up with the right approach for each piece of work and deliver it the right way. Under each stage we’ve suggested some techniques to help achieve the outcomes. Our design world is not about tick boxes, and the way we approach each piece of work will be different, but will be underpinned by an approach, which is based on good practice.
Redvespa design framework.Design has many flavours. Applying it to our business analysis profession, design thinking can sometimes be less about design and more about designing to think better. And sometimes it’s less about thinking and more about doing.
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GUIDING PRINCIPLES
The following guiding principles that
can be applied in every stage of the
design framework;
Collaboration (capitalizing on diverse
perspectives and types of expertise
within cross-disciplinary teams to
create richer, more robust, and more
unexpected outcomes)
3. Ethnographic research - understand current state
11. Storyboards, Lo-Fi prototypes (dependant on channel/product)
Act
ivit
y/ou
tput
Ste
p
12. Customer testing and validation
9. Rank and validate against CSF’s
1. Perceived issue - why is the customer not interacting?
4. Vaild business challenge
7. Idea generation with customer centric lens
10. Understand impacts of new service Idea
13. Storytelling
14. Move to implementation
13. Proposed options report
14. Success drinks!!
11. Develop prototypes
12. Test and validate prototypes
10. Future state CXJM (and service blueprint??)
8. Determine Critical Success Factors (CSF’s)
9. Align ideas with CSF’s
7. Idea generation workshop - deep dive Activity
8. Workshop with business to determine CSF’s
5. What the customer wants or needs
Discover Simplify Ideate Proto Share
6. KPI’s - how we measure success
4,5,6. Simplified story on a page - see template idea
2. Current state service offering for external customers?
1. Problem definition workshop
2. E.g. Mystery shopping, exercise
3. Current state CXJM, customer typologies
Design journal
Redvespa design framework.
Design is not a department, but a behaviour
Design thinking is a mindset
Our design thinking benefits greatly from the views of multiple perspectives, and others' creativity - bolstering our own
What makes us smile the most is putting design tools and techniques in the hands of people who may never have thought of themselves as designers and watching them take their business where no one else can see it
Design Journal
Co-creation (inviting users and other
stakeholders into the development
process to gain valuable feedback
and advance solutions and
strategic models)
Storytelling - Storytelling supports
the exploration of the service idea.
Through the use of simple words,
the teller will illustrate the solution
as if it is a story. This allows the
communication of the idea inside a
group but also the preparation of
the first sketches for the storyboard.
Storytelling leaves some blanks to be
filled in by the suggestions of other
stakeholders and users.
Design Journal
3. Ethnographic research - understand current state
11. Storyboards, Lo-Fi prototypes (dependant on channel/product)
Act
ivit
y/ou
tpu
tS
tep
12. Customer testing and validation
9. Rank and validate against CSF’s
1. Perceived issue - why is the customer not interacting?
4. Vaild business challenge
7. Idea generation with customer centric lens
10. Understand impacts of new service Idea
13. Storytelling
14. Move to implementation
13. Proposed options report
14. Success drinks!!
11. Develop prototypes
12. Test and validate prototypes
10. Future state CXJM (and service blueprint??)
8. Determine Critical Success Factors (CSF’s)
9. Align ideas with CSF’s
7. Idea generation workshop - deep dive Activity
8. Workshop with business to determine CSF’s
5. What the customer wants or needs
Discover Simplify Ideate Proto Share
6. KPI’s - how we measure success
4,5,6. Simplified story on a page - see template idea
2. Current state service offering for external customers?
1. Problem definition workshop
2. E.g. Mystery shopping, exercise
3. Current state CXJM, customer typologies
Design journal
Redvespa design framework.
Design is not a department, but a behaviour
Design thinking is a mindset
Our design thinking benefits greatly from the views of multiple perspectives, and others' creativity - bolstering our own
What makes us smile the most is putting design tools and techniques in the hands of people who may never have thought of themselves as designers and watching them take their business where no one else can see it
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Discover.
The Discover stage is all about understanding
the “outside-in” view of the world. We take time to understand the real problems faced by our
clients and their customers.
The outcome of this stage is gaining empathy with the customer and an understanding of the experience and their interactions with the product and service.
Design Framework Activity/Output steps 1. Problem Definition Workshop
2. Mystery Shopping Exercise
3. Current State CXJM, Customer Typologies
What’s its purpose?The main purpose for the Discover stage are to put ourselves in the shoes of the customer. By doing this, we start to gain an empathy for them and understand their points of pain and points of delight.
What are its goals?The goals of the Discover stage is to
• understand the challenge
• prepare the research
• gather inspiration
• understand current state of the customer experience. This may be achieved to a degree where our CXJM outputs are used, or to a degree where just a high level understanding is needed
• find needs - developing a deeper understanding of the people who matter is the focus, complementing quantitative analysis with more ethnographic methods like observation and listening to user stories
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• Stakeholder list, maps and personas: Stakeholder lists, maps, and personas assist the business analyst in analysing stakeholders and their characteristics. This analysis is important in ensuring that the business analyst identifies all possible sources of requirements and that the stakeholder is fully understood so decisions made regarding stakeholder engagement, collaboration, and communication are the best choices for the stakeholder and for the success of the initiative
• Stakeholder interviews: An interview is a systematic approach designed to elicit business analysis information from a person or group of people by talking to the interviewee(s), asking relevant questions, and documenting the responses. The interview can also be used for establishing relationships and building trust between business analysts and stakeholders in order to increase stakeholder involvement or build support for a proposed solution.
• Brainstorming: From a business analysis lens, it is used to identify possible business analysis activities, techniques, risks and other relevant items to help build the business analysis approach. From a design lens it’s an excellent way to foster creative thinking about a problem. The aim is to produce numerous new ideas, and to derive from them themes for further analysis.
• Surveys or Questionnaires: A survey or questionnaire is used to elicit business analysis information—including information about customers, products, work practices, and attitudes—from a group of people in a structured way and in a relatively short period of time.
• Observation: Observation is used to elicit information by viewing and understanding activities and their context. It is used as a basis for identifying needs and opportunities, understanding a business process, setting performance standards, evaluating solution performance, or supporting training and development.
• Map the current state (e.g. process maps and modelling, organisation structure).
• SWOT analysis: SWOT analysis is a simple yet effective tool used to evaluate an organisation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to both internal and external conditions.
• Mind maps: The mind map is a tool for the visual elicitation of our thoughts and their connections. The visualisation begins with a problem or an idea put in the centre of the representation. Then signs, lines, words and drawings are used in order to build a system of thoughts around the starting point. The hand and the mind work simultaneously.
BA Techniques.
• The “5 why’s”: The 5 why’s is an iterative question-asking technique used to explore the cause and effect relationships underlying a particular problem. The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem. Whilst the exercise may be effective some of the time to understand the high level root cause, it may only skim the surface of the root problem. Further analysis is always needed to delve deeper. An example of the 5 why’s in action could be: The vehicle will not start. (The problem)
1. Why? - The battery is dead. (first why)
2. Why? - The alternator is not functioning. (second why)
3. Why? - The alternator belt has broken. (third why)
4. Why? - The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (fourth why)
5. Why? - The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, a root cause)
• Fishbone Diagrams: Are causal diagrams that show the causes of a specific event. Common uses of the diagram are product design and quality defect prevention, to identify potential factors causing an overall effect. Each cause or reason for imperfection is a source of variation. Causes are usually grouped into major categories to identify these sources of variation. The categories typically include People, Methods, Machines, Materials, Measurements & Environment.
• Focus groups: Is a means to elicit ideas and opinions about a specific product, service, or opportunity in an interactive group environment. The participants, guided by a moderator, share their impressions, preferences, and needs.
• Glossary: Glossaries are used to provide a common understanding of terms that are used by stakeholders. A term may have different meanings for any two people. A list of terms and established definitions provides a common language that can be used to communicate and exchange ideas. A glossary is organised and continuously accessible to all stakeholders.
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Now is a good time to start using the Explorers techniques from our Creativity Tool. These techniques help to discover and tease out issues associated with the problem, and identify pain points and points of delight.
SIX THINKING HATS: Framework to explore six thinking styles, which can be used to view the business challenge from different perspectives. The hats are used to focus on one perspective at a time.
UPSIDE DOWN: Turning the business challenge on its head and asking the team to solve the reverse problem. What is the worst customer experience that we could give our customers? How do we prevent our customers from buying the product?
LEGO LAND: Using lego to build a representation of the business challenge.
YEAH RIGHT: Using a Tui billboard to gather information about a business challenge. (Tip – This goes down a storm for clients based on the banks of the Mangatainoka and in countries that consume large quantities of Tui beer).
EMPATHY MAP: Simple visual tool to create a customer profile.
ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
Ethnographic research generally involves observing target users in a real-life setting, rather than in a staged environment such as a focus group. The aim is to gather insight into how people live; what they do; how they use things; or what they need in their everyday or professional lives. This is an incredibly powerful tool both for research into the current state of a service, and testing future state prototypes. Ethnographic Research (and testing) methods can vary depending on the context of the piece of work and can vary in intensity. Examples of ethnographic research could be:
CASE STUDY 1: Completing an online application form or process.
To understand the current state, Service Designers may place selected individuals (based on specific criteria, or a random sample) in front of a computer to complete a task. A webcam and a mouse/keystroke app can help us gain an insight into the participant’s behaviour, frustrations and actions.
Designers may follow up on observations by asking a number of interview questions to record responses to specific areas of the service they are interested in understanding further.
Creativity Toolkit Techniques.
Design Techniques.
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CASE STUDY 2: Testing a new airplane seat
To test the effectiveness of a new airplane seat, simulated flights using real crew and customers could be used. The experience starts when the customers go through boarding and continues when they experience a safety briefing, PA announcements, meals, sleeping with real aircraft noise playing in the background and landing. Much like the example above, the customer’s experiences are recorded and observed by designers. The results of the testing are used to validate the perceived improvements to the customer experience of flying.
Having airline crew playing their part also allows Designers to get an understanding of the effect of the changes on business process. Having a “cooked to order” steak available for business class customers may be a great idea, however how does the efficiency suffer when a member of staff is trying to cook 45 medium-rare eye fillets!
PERSONAS
The personas are archetypes built after an exhaustive observation of the potential users. Each persona is based on a fictional character whose profile gathers up the features of an existing social group. In this way the personas assume the attributes of the groups they represent: from their social and demographic characteristics, to their own needs, desires, habits and cultural backgrounds.
MYSTERY SHOPPERS
Mystery shopping is a tool used to gather specific information about products and services.
Mystery shoppers perform specific tasks such as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or behaving in a certain way, and then provide detailed reports or feedback about their experiences. The organisation (or service) being measured are unaware of the exercise being completed.
If actors are used to perform the mystery shopping experience, the shoppers may also be observed interacting with the service. Recordings of the interaction may be made.
There is a methodology to Mystery Shopping, which includes determining the survey model to be used. This model defines what is to be measured, and then what parameters will be measured. It may include a script a mystery shopper is to use.
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A DAY IN THE LIFE OF
A Day in the Life of captures various events and interactions of a specific type of customer (captured using Personas) for a typical day and adds great value when the information is represented in great detail and shares insights into the customer’s eco system.
A Day in the Life of enables the service designer to look at the service through a customer’s lens and factor in external variables like the customer’s environment, motivations and feelings, that may influence the customer while interacting with a touchpoint, while designing an optimum service.
STORYBOARD
The storyboard is a tool derived from the cinematographic tradition; it is the representation of use cases through a series of drawings or pictures, put together in a narrative sequence. The service storyboard shows the manifestation of every touchpoint and the relationships between them and the user in the creation of the experience.
DESIGN SCENARIOS
Are situational stories created to explore the behaviour of a product or service based on a specific scenario. Design Scenarios can be represented through textual or visual mediums and could be enriched by adding personas portraying a well defined character based on the expected end state.
Design Scenarios are commonly used as a trigger point to invoke counterfactual or alternative path thinking to identify solutions or problems and choose the ideal approach for the service or product. Design Scenarios, utilising the collective knowledge of the group, encourages better team dynamics and improved support and buy in from all the stakeholders.
CUSTOMER TYPOLOGIES (see over page)
Customer Typologies are a great way to get an early understanding of the different customer types that interact with a service. These typologies are generally based on an assumption made by the Business itself, or at the conclusion of desk research completed by the Designer. We start by building a picture of the customer’s life, including their passions, what they are unsure of, their business and personal lives and then introduce them within the context of the service. Typologies are a great introduction tool for a designer to use to gain an understanding of the service, but should not be used in isolation to understand the customer experience. This is very similar to the Empathy map activity in our Creativity toolkit.
Over the page is an example of a Customer Typology (at a high level). This example does not go into developing the next level of detail of understanding the different types of students.
DESIGN JOURNAL
A Design Journal is the one stop for all work completed throughout the design journey. It is designed to be a form of repository of all the work completed as you work through the process. If a consultant is brought off a piece of work or the work is stopped, it becomes a snapshot of a moment in time.
There is no specific template for a design journal. The journal may be an overarching document that journals all work to date, or a well organised folder structure that acts as a database of design information.
MOODBOARD
A mood board is a visual composition of pictures and materials that propose an atmosphere by giving the generic perception of it. The mood board helps in the elicitation of some values the service has that are difficult to describe using words.
The use of a visual representation fixes unequivocally the perception of the service inside the team.
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DIRECTOR OF HOUSING & DINING
Makes decisions associated with campus hired and independent vendors.
Concerned with cutting costs, saving time and maintaining a sanitary environment.
VENDOR
Selected by Auckland University to provide food services to campus.
Concerned with providing excellent food and customer service to AU to maintain vending contract.
CHEF
Works for Auckland University or an independent vendor to prepare food for campus.
Concerned with cooking food that customers will enjoy and want to pay for.
Customer Typologies.
CASHIER
Works for Auckland University or an independent vendor to conduct dining transactions.
Concerned with providing quick and efficient customer service to diners.
STUDENT
Attends school at Auckland University. Purchases and eats food at campus dining locations.
Concerned primarily with the convenience, cost and taste of the food on campus.
TRASH COLLECTOR
Works for an independent company to collect trash on campus.
Concerned with the quick, clean and efficient collection of trash across campus.
Director of Housing & Dining
Vendor Chef Cashier Student Trash Collector
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simplify.
The Simplify stage is about simplifying the issue, and adding a business context to the problem. It is often
wrapped up as a “story on a page”.
Design Framework Activity / Output steps 4, 5 & 6 Simplified story on a page
What’s its purpose?The Simplify stage are our time to understand the business context of the current service and apply a level of convergent thinking to the piece of work.
What are its goals?The goals of the Simplify stage is to
• define the business problem and understand the salient points of pain and delight
• tell stories
• search for meaning
• frame opportunities
We need to understand• customer groups
• process/tasks
• touchpoints
• likes
• dislikes
• expectations
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• Business context diagram: A business context model needs to express the current business problem and to propose the goodness and scope of a project. The business context model should identify the actors (people, organisations, systems) who play a significant role in the business process or in the business domain, and the business areas of interest relevant to the scope of the work and potential change that may require exploration and further analysis.
• Decision tree: Decision tables and decision trees define how a specific decision is made. A graphical decision model can be constructed at various levels. A high-level model may only show the business decisions as they appear in business processes, while a more detailed model might show as-is or to-be decision making in enough detail to act as a structure for all the relevant business rules.
• Gap analysis: Is a technique used for assessing the differences in performance between a business’ information systems or applications to determine whether the system requirements are being met and, if not, the steps needed to do so. Gap refers to the space between “where we are” (the company’s present state) and “where we want to be” (its target state). Gap analysis is also known as a needs analysis, needs assessment or need-gap analysis. In addition to traditional gap analysis, companies can also use the more specialised techniques of SWOT analysis or benchmarking.
• Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria: Acceptance Criteria are used to define the requirements, outcomes, or conditions that must be met in order for a solution to be considered acceptable to key stakeholders. Evaluation Criteria are the measures used to assess a set of requirements in order to choose between multiple solutions.
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CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP
The Customer Journey Map is an oriented graph that describes the journey of a user by representing the different touch points that characterise their interaction with the service. In this kind of visualisation, the interaction is described step by step as in the classical blueprint, but there is a stronger emphasis on some aspects as the flux of information and the physical devices involved. At the same time there is a higher level of synthesis than in the blueprint. The representation is simplified through the loss of the redundant information and of the deepest details.
VISUALISING
Helping others to “see” relationships, new concepts, and even new strategies in visual ways instead of relying on documents and verbal descriptions - watch out for the artwork from our data visualisation guru, Tom Shanley, who has developed 100 Data Visualisations in conjunction with Redvespa.
STORY ON A PAGE
The Story on a Page should clearly articulate both the business challenge and the customer desires. It is designed to be an elevator pitch style document that clearly articulates the outcome (on a page) of the work done throughout the Discover Phase.
Ultimately the “story on a page” culminates in a statement that describes what success looks like and aligns back to a number of key performance measures.
The Simplify stage of the Design Story is about adding business context to the insights we gained from the customer research in the Discover stage. It allows the Business to review the customer feedback and understand their service. A business idea is developed that may align with the customer want or need.
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(What problems make up the challenge?)
(Customer need/want and business idea)
(What does success look like)
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ideate.
The Ideate stage is coming up with the ideas that will
improve the product, service or experience. It involves talking with stakeholders
(both Customers and Business Reps), deep
dive activities and idea generation workshops
to look for ways to both mitigate points of pain and
identify better ways the business can provide for the
customer. It also gives an avenue to bring in Business Design strategies where it becomes obvious that the
current business model just will not support change.
Design Framework Activity / Output steps 4. Idea Generation workshop
5. Workshop with Business to determine Critical Success Factors (CSFs)
6. Rank and validate against CSFs.
What’s its purpose?The purpose of the Ideate stage are to start understanding ways to improve the current state by collaborating with stakeholders, users and customers where appropriate, to develop solutions to improve the customer experience, product and the overall service. It involves a number of collaborative workshops with appropriate audiences. Towards the end of this stage, we can simulate the future state by overlaying the current state customer experience and service blueprint with future state opportunities for change.
What are its goals?The goals of the Ideate stage is to
• move from understanding the current state to starting to develop a view of the future state. By the end of this stage, we should understand what a proposed future state may look like at a concept level.
• generate, elaborate and refine ideas
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• Workshops and brainstorming sessions
• Acceptance and evaluation criteria definition – refer simplify section for explanation
• Decision analysis: Decision analysis examines and models the possible consequences of different decisions about a given problem. A decision is the act of choosing a single course of action from several uncertain outcomes with different values. The outcome value may take different forms depending on the domain, but commonly include financial value, scoring, or a relative ranking dependent on the approach and evaluation criteria used by the business analyst. Decisions are often difficult to assess when:
• the problem is poorly defined,
• the action leading to a desired outcome is not fully understood,
• the external factors affecting a decision are not fully understood, or
• the value of different outcomes is not understood or agreed upon by the various stakeholders and does not allow for direct comparison.
• Scenarios and use cases: Describe how a person or system interacts with the solution being modelled to achieve a goal. Use cases describe the interactions between the primary actor, the solution, and any secondary actors needed to achieve the primary actor’s goal. Use cases are usually triggered by the primary actor, but in some methods may also be triggered by another system or by an external event or timer. A scenario describes just one way that an actor can accomplish a particular goal. Scenarios are written as a series of steps performed by actors or by the solution that enable an actor to achieve a goal. A use case describes several scenarios.
• Mind-mapping – refer discover section for explanation.
• Focus groups – refer discover section for explanation. A focus group is a means to elicit ideas and opinions about a specific product, service, or opportunity in an interactive group environment. The participants, guided by a moderator, share their impressions, preferences, and needs.
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This is where our Creativity Toolkit really comes into its own. Use the brain stretchers games to warm up the crowd in the ideation session and prepare them for awesome idea generation. The blue sky techniques are not only a catalyst to stimulate and challenge our thinking, they are actually real fun to use. Our back to earth techniques provide appropriate grounding tools to capture the ideas. And our evaluators techniques bring it all home by helping us to decide which ideas to explore further.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: A tricky challenge with an impossible time constraint.
BRO SHAKE: Invent a four-step hand shake.
WHO AM I: Twenty-question game to identify a famous person.
THE MEANING OF LIFE: Invent a meaning for a word. There are so many situations for which a word really should exist in the English language, but sadly it doesn’t. Until now…
TREND SPOTTING: Look for emerging trends in the outside world, which could be applied to the business challenge.
TRANSFORMERS: Identify and solve a related problem, and use these ideas to trigger associations to the business challenge.
X-BOARDS: Stepping into someone else’s shoes to view the business challenge from a different angle.
TUNNEL VISION: Identifying and challenging the assumptions which restrict our thinking.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: A recipe card approach to capture your ideas.
POSTER POWER: Simple visual tool to communicate ideas.
NEWS FLASH: Capturing your ideas as a newspaper front page article.
HEAD, HAND, HEART: To identify ideas which are both feasible and exciting.
TRAFFIC LIGHT: To identify which ideas are ready to evaluate further.
HEART VOTING: Quick voting method to identify the most popular ideas.
Creativity Toolkit Techniques.
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CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
Critical Success Factors (CSFs) allow us to measure the feasibility of our long list of options. After going through a deep dive exercise of idea generation, we develop a list of CSFs with the business to understand the ability to implement the desire of the business to change.
Rank the long list of options against the CSFs as a group of stakeholders. To gain the customers view and input, you can bring customers in as a focus group to rank against the customer CSFs.
DEEP DIVE
Deep Dive is a technique to rapidly immerse a group or team into a situation for problem solving or idea creation. It is often used for brainstorming product or process development.
Originally developed by the IDEO group (an innovative design company) for rapid product development, the technique is now widely and increasingly used for innovation not only in product development, but process improvement and customer service strategies.
This approach to innovation often focuses on four distinct areas: Process, Organisation, Culture and Leadership.
The key to a successful Deep Dive session(s) is for participants to arrive with information about the needs of their customers – and most importantly an open mind of what they can offer and how they can meet clients’ needs and expectations. Often Deep Dive sessions are run off-site, however this has the disadvantage of helping to ‘educate’ the participants that they can only think ‘off-site’. To help support and engender a spirit of creative thinking it is recommended that all Deep Dive sessions occur on-site.
BRAINWRITING
As its name implies, Brainwriting uses writing as its creative modus operandi. Each participant writes down an idea they would like the group to consider. Then, they pass their sheet to their immediate neighbour who uses this idea to a) trigger a build-on for the original idea or b) trigger an entirely new idea. Sheets are passed and passed again until each idea sheet arrives back at its original owner.
BRAINWALKING
Instead of writing ideas on sheets of paper, participants write their ideas on posted sheets of flip chart paper on the wall. (You’ll need as many posted sheets as there are participants.) There are two major advantages to doing it this way: 1)
Design Techniques.
participants are up and moving. It’s more fun to generate ideas this way…and typically there’s greater group energy and 2) ideas end up being posted around the room for everyone to see and read. It’s reinforcing for participants to see so many ideas generated in such a short time. Also, participants will often find themselves reading (during breaks) and building on these ideas throughout the day.
DESIGN SCENARIOS
Developing detailed accounts of situations in which your users will interact with the product, service or environment over a period of time.
ROLE-PLAYING (KUPE KUPERSMITH’S FAVOURITE)
Some actors, the sample users or the designers themselves perform a hypothetical service experience. The implied condition is thinking that the service really exists and then building a potential journey through some of its functionalities.
A possible evolution of this tool consists in the performance of the same scene several times, changing the character profiles on each scene in order to understand how different users would act in the same situation.
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
LEGO Serious Play is an innovative, experiential process designed to enhance the generation of innovative solutions.
The process is based on the use of common LEGO in order to envision and share thoughts inside a team while discussing about the context and the system in which the new offering has to be positioned.
This kind of hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities; moreover LEGO Serious Play deepens the reflection process and supports an effective dialogue.
VISUALISING
Helping others to “see” relationships, new concepts, and even new strategies in visual ways instead of relying on documents and verbal descriptions.
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GROUP SKETCHING
The group sketching is a quick, fast and economic tool for developing and explaining ideas simultaneously.
It is used during the design sessions in order to share the insights inside the team: this tool offers a common ground for the discussion even when the participants have different cultural and social backgrounds.
It is based on basic and simple drawings in order to encourage the participation of everybody.
AFFINITY DIAGRAM
The affinity diagram is a creative process used for gathering and organising large amounts of data, ideas and insights by evidencing their natural correlations. It starts with a statement of the problem or the goal.
During the first session each participant should think of ideas and write them on small pieces of paper (cards or stickers). Then those cards would become the physical instrument to work on their contents, find the correlations and identify the significant groups of sense.
The result is a sort of verbal and visual representation describing the first exploration of design solutions.
TOMORROW’S HEADLINES
The tomorrow’s headlines are fictional articles published on magazines or journals that the designers imagine by projecting themselves in the future and trying to understand what kind of impact the service will have on society. This brings the designers to ask themselves how the service will be presented to the potential users and what reactions it will cause. This tool is also a way to visualise the idea and make it more tangible, more real and more univocally perceived among the team and the stakeholders.
MOCK UP
The mock up is a model, an illustration or a collage describing an idea.
At the beginning of the design process, the mock up is mainly made through the use of photomontages, created with photos of existing situations, products or services combined with other elements.
During the next phases the mock up get more and more realistic, till they become real prototypes representing the main features of the project.
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proto.
The Proto stage is about developing and testing any future state solutions from
a simple concept to a model that can be tested. To do this we develop lo-fidelity
prototypes that allow us to simulate the new service,
and then test them with real customers.
Design Framework Activity / Output steps 7. Future State CXJM
8. Storyboards, Lo Fi Prototypes
9. Testing and Validation
Use these techniques and methods to test your ideas, gather feedback and finalise your choices. Note, we are translating abstract concepts into concrete prototypes – tangible representations of solutions and business models in rough form early on (before the big bucks get spent) – as a catalyst for thinking, dialogue, learning, and accelerated development.
What’s its purpose?The purpose of the Proto stage are to move from a future state concept to a tangible output, and then test that output. We develop lo-fidelity prototypes that are then tested with real customers to simulate their interaction with service. These prototypes may be at a storyboard level, simulate a specific product within a service, the whole service itself or customer experience.
What are its goals?The goals of the Proto stage is to
• validate our assumptions of the optimal future state. By testing the future state with customers, the proposal can become validated. If we have developed a great future state, customers will interact with it.
• make prototypes
• get feedback
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• Horizontal and vertical prototype / Proof of concept: Horizontal and vertical prototype / Proof of concept: There are a number of ways you can produce your prototypes, from simply using paper and pens to using specialist tools and programming languages. Your choice of tool or technology will often be driven by the project, its budget, resources and your own skills.
You may decide to quickly sketch a simple search results list in your notebook or on a larger sheet of paper and get it circulated around the business for feedback. If you have the time and experience you may decide to use a specialist tool to work up the results list into a more interactive design and present it back to the team. Although the approaches or fidelity of the prototypes are different the aim is still the same – getting the prototype back in front of stakeholders and users to capture their feedback and input.
• Use Cases: The use cases are traditionally used in interaction design projects for the development of interaction flows. They are a means of roughing out the functionality of a product or of a service. Developers are very accustomed to seeing them and will understand them immediately, as will the business people who have, over the years, used them to communicate with programmers.
• Traceability matrix (e.g. verify requirements to logical interface)
• Structured walkthrough workshops
• Wireframes
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LO-FIDELITY AND HI-FIDELITY PROTOTYPING (ITERATIVE) (see next page)
Prototyping allows us to test a change in a cost effective and agile way. The further down the design journey you go, prototypes move from a Lo-Fidelity stage to Hi-Fidelity.
Whilst every prototype may not be as cool as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun, you can have a lot of fun along the way.
Lo-Fidelity prototypes are generally paper based stories of a customer interaction, or may be a rough sketch to be presented to a customer to gain initial insights. This may be a story board illustrating a face to face interaction, a handwritten form that hasn’t been formatted correctly, or a Power-Point style tool being used to simulate an online interaction.
Lo-Fidelity sketches are really useful where a design may not be finalised, and customers have the opportunity to be involved in the iterative design process. Generally when a design prototype is in a fluid state, customers feel more comfortable to suggest changes.
Hi-Fidelity prototypes are generally at a stage where a level of iteration has been completed and we are happy to test the final product. N.B. This may or may not include an amount of “development” as we understand it from a SDLC perspective.
Hi-Fidelity prototypes are developed and should simulate (as close as possible) the real-life service.
COGNITIVE WALKTHROUGH
One or more evaluators observe a service by going through the stages of the client journey. The input to the walkthrough is represented by the character profiles: in this way the evaluators could act as specific users and experience the service considering a specific level of knowledge and also specific needs.
EXPERIENCE PROTOTYPE
The experience prototype is a simulation of the service experience that foresees some of its performances through the use of the specific physical touchpoints involved. The experience prototype allows designers to show and test the solution through an active participation of the users.
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CONSTRUCTIVE INTERACTION
The constructive interaction is a method based on the observation of a user during their service experience. The user is asked to think out loud while performing a given set of tasks, so that the evaluators could listen to and record their thoughts.
If this kind of evaluation takes place with two users interacting with the system simultaneously, the inspectors could obtain a more natural way of thinking aloud and gather more effective results.
USABILITY TESTING
Testing the service usability means observing and asking a number of users about the use of existing or future products or services in a situation of absolutely normal everyday life. The evaluator asks the user to reach a sequence of tasks, after each task there is a short survey (the user has to answer in that precise moment) and then the test goes on.
STORY BOARDS - see discover section for explanation.
FEEDBACK LOOPS
Visceral design is the key to creating experiences people can’t get enough of. Game designers and mobile app developers have done a great job of leveraging visceral design, web designers can and should leverage it too. The key to creating visceral design is to focus on the feedback loops inherent in your user experience. The pull-to-refresh mechanics that every app has come to know and love are perfect examples of mechanics that elicit visceral response.
Lo-Fidelity and Hi-Fidelity prototyping (iterative)
Lo-Fidelity Hi-Fidelity
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share.
The Share stage is about “sharing the story”. It is walking our clients through the design
journey we have taken.
Design Framework Activity / Output steps 13. Propose Option Report
14. Success drinks
What’s its purpose?The purpose of the share stage are to walk our client through our work to date. This is wrapped up in a proposed options report which details our journey from understanding the current state to validating our future state options. It details the proposed solution at a level which explains what will be needed to move from where our client is, to where they want be.
What are its goals?The goals of the Share stage is to
• create buy-in at a client level to the proposed future state. It tells the story, and gives the client a breakdown on what business change is required to support a validated future state.
• track learnings
• move forward
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• Use Cases: The use cases are traditionally used in interaction design projects for the development of interaction flows. They are a means of roughing out the functionality of a product or of a service. Developers are very accustomed to seeing them and will understand them immediately, as will the business people who have, over the years, used them to communicate with programmers.
• Timeline reports (e.g. results of surveys)
• Process maps (e.g. future state)
• Recommendations
SERVICE BLUEPRINTING
The blueprint sets out how the customer and organisation (back-office supporting people, processes and systems) interact through five components and three lines. It ultimately brings together the world of Customer Experience Journey Mapping and Business Process Mapping. The framework for a Service Blueprint is as follows:
Physical evidence
Customer actions
———— Line of interaction
Visible contact, employee actions (onstage)
———— Line of visibility
Invisible contact, employee actions (backstage)
———— Line of internal interaction
Support processes
Unlike a customer experience journey map this framework remains the same for each map. How you plot within that is up to the intent of the problem/opportunity, information you have (current or future state) and the nature of the service itself. A Service Blueprint also makes sense of other factors a standard Process Map may not delve into, such as the time and motion factors a customer experiences throughout a process.
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TASK ANALYSIS GRID
When designers have to communicate decisions to stakeholders, one possibility is to use a requirements document. Another strategy could be using something different in order to avoid the risk of “taking a couple of days to get everyone on the same page”: the task analysis grid is an interesting alternative to the standard requirements documents.
The aim is to see the entire scope of the project and all the features of the first and future releases on the same page in a unique schematic description.
How is it structured?
Each column starts out with a scenario, describes a task and is followed by all the sub-tasks necessary to complete the task. The sub tasks are colour-coded and prioritised. Influences and pain-points are highlighted for each task in order to complete the whole description.
SPECIFICATION
The service specification is a written document that grows up during the design process. It describes the aim of the project in a detailed way and the evolution of the ideas developed step by step. The service specification helps the team sharing the design principles they are working on. It could eventually include some drawings, pictures and other relevant documents.
This tool becomes essential in case of long-term processes or projects involving a wide range of figures.
For more information on techniques and tools relating to our design story, please touch base with Blair, our Chief Culture Officer.
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