Shift to Strategic Thinking

I began my career solving for “what.” What does the stakeholder want me to build? What do my users tell me to build? What should I do next? It’s better to ask why. Why does the stakeholder believe this is important? Why do users behave the way they do? Why are we prioritizing product A over product B? Uncertainty is uncomfortable, and the easiest way out is to lean on someone else to pave a path. Yet if we are to become design leaders and stop the churn of assignment-based design, we must take charge of our own work. We need to become strategic thinkers. 

Ben McAllister, formerly of frog design, described strategy as a sum of leadership and uncertainty. Strategic leaders suck the uncertainty out of the room. Design leaders do this through getting to the why behind the work. When you hear “we’ll fix it in phase 2” or “make the prototype now, we’ll improve it later,” these are clues that there is a large amount of uncertainty and the why is unknown. Designers have a special skill set to cut through the confusion. By doing the research and modeling those observations, you have the resources you need to discover the why that points out the most important problems to tackle.

Knowing What to Build

Research is the lens to see users as they really are. Research consists of three parts—secondary, stakeholder, and user research. Secondary research gives broad information about the domain and users. Stakeholders clarify the goals of the organization, a perspective on the domain, and the hypotheses they have about who the users are and the environment they operate within. User research gives the truest picture of users’ actions, their thoughts, and what they say about the product or service. Braiding these streams together results in an overall picture of the users’ and stakeholders’ goals, behaviors, frustrations, needs, current solutions, and how well they work. This is presented back to stakeholders in the User & Domain Analysis and includes an overview of the business, the organization’s perspective, and the persona set. 

With clarity on the problems, the people, and the system, the design team then examines possible solutions through creating scenarios. These are stories starring a persona, describing how the product helps them overcome challenges to achieve their goals. Once these are clear, the design team presents the Design Vision to stakeholders describing what the product will do, and the relevant requirements the product must achieve. If applicable, they present possible visual design directions also. With the puzzle pieces on the table, the teams decide on a Minimally Viable Experience (MVX) to build and test. There are several more methods to get at which puzzle pieces to start with, but here we’ll discuss two—the Kano Model and the 2×2 Grid.

The Kano Model

Features tend to fall into a few categories as described by the Kano model. Let’s look at these categories through the lens of a fictional smartphone manufacturer.

• Indifferent – The customers couldn’t care less about these. They can take it or leave it. For example, few if any people care whether or not their phone helps them brush their teeth better. It just doesn’t enter the equation.
• Basic expectations – Users don’t think about basic expectations unless they are missing. Be careful not to confuse basic expectations with indifference (above). A connection to the internet is essential to the usefulness of a phone, but most people probably don’t think about it until it doesn’t work.
• Performance – The more you have, the more users find performance features valuable. Take  speed—if your phone is fast, that’s good. If it is slow, it’s frustrating.
• Excitement generators – Think a really amazing camera, lens and software system so users can photograph their kids’ soccer games like a National Geographic photographer.

The Kano Model is an useful prism to separate out what you discover through research. While there is a standardized survey available (see the sidebar), qualitative techniques give you this information and the why behind it. 

Features change over time and are different for different people. What qualifies as an excitement generator to one may be indifferent to another. Predicting which is right for your product will come down to knowing the persona set.

2×2 Grid

Another popular method is a 2×2 grid. Plot potential features on two axes such as value to users and effort to build.This makes a great workshop component to get the whole team involved. Have everyone prioritize one axis at a time and then work out which quadrant each feature belongs in. Typically, teams will then focus on high value features that are simpler to build. 

There are even more methods that help, but each tool is only as good as the data you give it. What fuels these evaluations is “thick data” that comes from qualitative research with actual users. “Field studies are a defining characteristic of UX maturity” (Spillers, n.d.). A set of solid personas built from research and tools like the Kano model and 2×2 help us thing strategically about priorities. Now we need to sell it to the stakeholders.

Sell the Idea

Author Kevin Kruse defines leadership as “Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal” (Kruse, 2013, emphasis mine). Positional authority is not the determining factor—social influence is. To sell the idea, you don’t need a title, you need a compelling story.

“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal”

Kevin Kruse

Influence comes from understanding the goals of your business partners and recognizing the value each of their areas provide. Designers are already ahead here as they can use the same tactics to study stakeholders as they use to study users. Here are some I’ve come across.

• Product Manager (PM)
• Engineering Lead
• Executives
• Sales
• Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• Quality Assurance (QA)
• Customer Support
• Legal & Compliance

Put together an interview guide that seeks out the type of information they care about. During the interviews, listen for their design ideas, the root problem, and what problem they believe the product will solve. The idea is not just to build trust, but also to examine how you can best collaborate with and include stakeholders in the design process. Doing this should inform how you share the stories of the users you’ve encountered in your research. Draw contrasts where there are differences and reinforce where there are similarities. By situating your knowledge of the users within the context of your stakeholders, they will see the value of the design ideas you generate.  Approach the problem of selling the idea like this, and you’re likely to encounter assistance rather than resistance.

Reflect

Rather than simply taking an Assignment at face value, dive in to understand the mechanics of what is driving this request. The best way to start is to ask “why?” Why this project now? Why do we want to focus on this group of users? Why do we want to pivot here instead of persevering? The answers to these questions will guide your work towards achieving valuable outcomes for both users and the organization. One caveat, what if the information you turn up is murky? We will discuss more ways to see an accurate picture in the next installment, Make it Clear.

References

Kruse, K. (2013, April 9). What Is Leadership? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/

McAllister, B. (2011, May 11). The “Science” of Good Design: A Dangerous Idea. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/the-science-of-good-design-a-dangerous-idea/238750/

Spillers, F. (n.d.). UX Management: Strategy and Tactics. The Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved February 19, 2024, from https://www.interaction-design.org/courses/ux-management-strategy-and-tactics