eewei.com http://www.eewei.com happy design Thu, 05 Apr 2012 08:14:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 Strategic User experience and why good design = good business http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/strategic-user-experience-and-why-good-design-equals-good-business/ http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/strategic-user-experience-and-why-good-design-equals-good-business/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:45:56 +0000 Ultraman http://www.eewei.com/?p=711 Throughout history we can find moments where strategic design decisions have fundamentally changed consumer habits, beliefs and their emotional connection to the environment around them. Think about Frank Lloyd Wright’s design of the Guggenheim Museum or Jonathan Ives design of Apple products, both involved a good understanding of the marketplace and public consumer behaviours. But many companies, in their haste to be first to market, forget the value of good early, strategic design thinking. It has become easy to reduce the costs or launch ‘on time’ by cutting back on the strategic design thinking time early on when creating a product or service. This results in mediocrity and ultimately to an unloved brand experience where consumers become fickle and  disloyal.

Now whether leading a design team, sitting on the board of directors or starting up company, UX practitioners have made their way back up the value chain; earning more respect along the way. We have been re-empowered to make decisions that really can change the world. This is a great responsibility. At times we may feel we have been thrown into the deep end and left to swim up the steep value curve stream. Would it have been useful to have had some core principles, processes and insights to help you on your way? I think so and I hope you all do too.

My talk at UX India pulls together insights and leanings I hope will help set those brave enough to take on this responsibility in the right direction. Having worked the last 16 years as a creative both internally for large corporates and externally consulting in to some large corporate brands, I am now straddling the cross roads and actively connecting that emotional relationship between the business and design. Strategic design is critical to the success of the business.

Talk outline:

How design has changed the world

  • History of great strategic design (and how it changed history)
  • Contemporary design heroes as role models (pay homage!)
  • What is an experience strategy? (do I have to wear a tie?)

The business strategy is the design strategy

  • Understand the business purpose – Golden circles, what is the problem you are solving?
  • Create a simple, clear and effective value proposition (elevator pitch)
  • Align your design principles to the business vision
  • Evaluate your business model (Business Model Canvas)
  • Appreciate how much great design costs. Efficient design resourcing, spend vs ROI

User centered design 101

  • Know your target audience – Empathy mapping, personas + customer needs
  • Define holistic customer journeys (case study)
  • Emphasise the value of great design (Value mapping, customer needs matched to business KPIs and metrics)
  • Prioritise ideas effectively (agile story mapping)
  • Validate assumptions early

Team, process and getting the job done

  • Build the ‘perfect’ design team and collaborate with the rest of the business
  • Define clear roles and responsibilities. Clarify the RACI (working with technology, marketing, editorial etc. through the design process)
  • Recognise the importance of a design authority (design advocacy, guidelines and rules)
  • Apply design methods and working practices (process fit with lean UX and Agile, co-location vs design studio)
  • Constantly evaluate your designs and align them to the business purpose (validate before, during and after)
  • Be accountable (team efficiency, delivery and impact on the business goals)
  • Thank you and Q and A

Interested in hearing what you guys think!

I will also be running one of my surprise challenge workshops where we  create a minimum viable product in 3 hours to address a real world issue!

]]> http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/strategic-user-experience-and-why-good-design-equals-good-business/feed/ 0 Can I create successful start-ups within large organizations? http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/agile/how-to-create-successful-start-ups-within-large-organizations/ http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/agile/how-to-create-successful-start-ups-within-large-organizations/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:58:29 +0000 Ultraman http://www.eewei.com/?p=701

Large organizations have the money, resources and research to put together strong business cases to deliver awesome products and services. So why do some of these big ideas fail in the long run yet take so long to deliver?

Failing fast and failing early are almost expected in any start up now a days and because start-ups are prepared for this they relish the opportunity to constantly adapt and change their ideas till they become something that customers really find valuable.

Can small startups really influence large organizations?
I am hoping to do a talk at Agile 2012, Texas, about my personal experiences working within large organisations as a consultant, in-house leader and as a mentor advising Internet start-ups. I will highlight differences between them as well as the powerful commonalities.

How does lean start up and agile work together in a large organisation?
In this talk, I will give you insight about how teams can embrace and combine lean, agile and start-up techniques to successfully improve the way organisations think, operate and value success to deliver truly valuable products and services.

I will be focusing on one main game changing project we ran as a start up (new brand) within BSkyB and give practical examples and lesson learned that not only help the new product break into a new market but also how we drew from the successes and brought it back into the larger corporate organization to help improve the way we create and run delivery projects.

Find out more and to let me know what you think, have a look here:

http://submit2012.agilealliance.org/node/14375

]]> http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/agile/how-to-create-successful-start-ups-within-large-organizations/feed/ 0 Advancing the state of the art @Agile2012 http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/advancing-the-state-of-the-art-agile2012/ http://www.eewei.com/design-thinking/advancing-the-state-of-the-art-agile2012/#comments Sat, 10 Dec 2011 06:30:45 +0000 Ultraman http://www.eewei.com/?p=680

Interested in defining the future of UX?

Adrian Howard (@adrianh) & I, Eewei Chen (@ultraman), invite you to submit sessions to the User Experience Stage of the Agile 2012 conference (Dallas, Texas, Aug 13-17 2012). The 2012 conference theme is “advancing the state of the art“.

User Experience practices have always helped agile teams discover, build and deliver the right product: putting the customer at the heart of every decision. The User Experience Stage at Agile 2012 is for anybody passionate about building products that truly delight their customers.

We are especially keen to demonstrate some of the ways Agile and User Experience practices are being combined in the Lean Startup and Lean UX communities: driving the iterative discovery and development of new products in new and exciting ways.

Questions this stage will attempt to answer:

  • What is the future role of UX?
  • How do you discover what users really want?
  • How can you better iterative to discover new product ideas?
  • How can generative user research be integrated with agile projects?
  • How can an agile team sustain a long-term product vision?
  • How do UX practices help agile teams build better products?
  • How do you put practical UX skills into the hands of the whole team?
  • How do you deal with the challenges of UX work on your agile team?
  • What are UX practitioners doing to enhance real world agile projects?

The stage aims to bring together practical and theoretical sessions from the best practitioners in the field. We want to see and hear about ways UX is evolving and improving to create awesome customer experiences. Please submit a session if you feel you have something important to share. And please, don’t hold back!

How do I submit a session proposal?

To submit sessions and find out more about speaker compensation, please visit:

http://agile2012.agilealliance.org/for-speakers/

NOTE: Please submit all UX related sessions to the User Experience Stage.

To encourage early submissions there are two submission rounds:
* January 15, 2012 – Early-bird submissions deadline
* Febuary 19, 2012 – Final submissions deadline

The earlier you submit, the more potential feedback you will get from our review team – helping you improve your proposal and making it much more likely to be accepted!

Anything you want to see or hear about specifically?

Don’t hesitate to let us know what you also want to see on the User Experience stage. Is there a tutorial you would like to see or a subject you would like to hear discussed? Is there someone from the agile or user experience world you would like us to invite? If you have a topic or presenter in mind, please let us know.

Thank you for your interest. We’re looking forward to meeting you in Dallas next August.

Sincerely,

Adrian Howard (@adrianh) & Eewei Chen (@ultraman), Agile 2012 – User Experience Stage producers

 

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