Shaping Organizations to Deliver Great User Experiences

Shaping Organizations to Deliver Great User Experiences Peter Merholz e: [email protected] t: @peterme

To deliver great user experiences…

I just need to get the design rightstrategy

organization

When I started

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Internal ServicesYour in-house agency Project-based, organized by function

PROS

Strong design community Wide range of projects Design costs understood

CONS

Design is not strategic Little influence on important “upstream” decisions Designers easily dismissed Us vs Them

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Decentralized and Embedded

Decentralized and EmbeddedEveryone Gets A Designer! Program-based

PROS

Design included throughout entire lifecycle Part of the team

CONS One narrow problem for a long time Lonely Fractured user experience

I opted for a different model

Organize for the customer journey

Think in terms of design teams

Booking GIG Funnel Opt

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LUGC

Pull

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Merchant Pages

City Guides

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Brand Design

User Research

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Leadership

Centralized Partnership

Centralized PartnershipBest of both worlds

Organized for the customer journey Design teams maintain commitment across a meaningful set of products/features. Yet centralization helps maintain a holistic view across the entire customer experience. Side benefit: inevitable re-orgs don’t disrupt the customer experience.

Something else about this group…

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Structure of each design team

4-7 folks Singular strong leadership

• Manages down – gets the most and best out of their team • Manages across – collaborates with cross-functional partners • Manages up – presents to executives and other stakeholders

Best organized around business problems, not functions Spread of skills – strategy, planning, research, IxD, IA, visual design, prototyping

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Teams at multiple levels

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Teams at multiple levels

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Brand DesignMarketing

Design

If you’re designing for this...

Then it is senseless to have marketing and product/UX design on different teams. It’s all the same customer journey.

The next hurdle I faced...

Flesh out solution Refine

User test Build

Initial Insight Plan Ship

Analyze

A common project plan...

Here’s what it needs to do.

I have an idea!

Wait... How do we know if we’re successful?

Prototype solutions


Sketch options

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User test Build


Analyze

A slightly more enlightened plan...

Let’s try some stuff out first!

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Analyze

Teams with strong leadership enable...

Definition Execution

Definitio

n / Requirem

entsIterative design Implem

entation

Strategy and plan, aka “Build the right thing.”

Working through tradeoffs to deliver optimal solution, aka “Build the thing right.”

Ideation/Generation

Understand the market

Product Strategy

Prototype

Customer empathy Ideation

Experience strategy

Prototype solutions


Sketch options

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design makes strategy concrete design supports delightful, engaging experiences

Plan Ship

Analyze

By Peter Merholz, http://peterme.com. If you use it, please attribute it. Thanks.

Initial Insight



Product Strategy

Prototype


Experience strategy

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Product Strategy

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Experience strategy

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Plan

That said...



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Experience strategy

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Plan

It’s better to iterate here...

...than here

This doesn’t seem very lean/agileBe wary of people espousing methodologies. Typically, they are crutches to free people from critical thinking. Also, lean and agile are focused on execution (i.e., once you already have a plan).

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Goods/Getaways

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Don’t understand the ‘costs’ of design Don’t have control over their own destiny So, lots of coordination and communication

Working with partner teams

Maintaining singular leadershipAs the design team grows, having a single leader becomes more difficult. Operational matters trump creative matters. Models from tech and journalism:

• CTO and VP of Engineering • Editor-in-chief and Managing Editor

Designers can keep a lot of other people busy

Booking GIG Funnel Opt

P13n Email

LUGC

Pull

Reserve

SocialGifting Redemption

Merchant Pages

City Guides

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Global Header

Homepage Goods

Goods L and S

Getaways Search iPad

iPhone Android

Touch

BPOS

BPRO

Payments

Sinai

Search

Booking Engine

S3Merchant Center

Mobile Merchant

Getaways Extranet

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Deal WizardDeal Estate

Unified

Coffee Customer Service

GWorks Deal Preview 500-600 PMs and engineers

=

Subscriptons

Display

Affiliate

Booking

GIG

Funnel Opt

P13n

Email

LUGC

Pull Reserve

Social

Gifting

Redemption

Merchant Pages


Homepage

Goods

Goods L and S

Getaways Search

iPadiPhone

AndroidTouch

BPOSBPRO

Payments

Sinai

Search

Booking Engine

S3

Merchant Center

Mobile Merchant

Getaways Extranet

Getaways MR

BWeb

Quantum Lead

Deal Wizard

Deal Estate

Unified

Coffee

Customer Service

GWorks

PlatformLocal

Goods/Getaways

Mobile


OS

Internal Tools

Brand Design

User Research

Deal Preview

60 people=

Prototyping

Marketing Design

Subscriptons

Display

Affiliate

With a 1) centralized partnership, 2) teams with strong leadership, 3) influencing definition, and 4) a relatively small team, you have leverage.

Leverage = Power

There’s no reason design can’t be the driving force.

We just need confidence, evidence, and commitment.

One more thing...

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Decentralized and Embedded

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Leadership

Centralized Partnership

Technology Features Experience

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Leadership

Still stuck in a “features” world

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Shopping Experience

Gifting Merchandising Sharing Social Wishlists In-store pickup Style guidePLUS

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Thank you for your consideration.Peter Merholz e: [email protected] t: @peterme