UX strategy. Part 6 - Implementation
In the first parts of this series of articles, I wrote about the key components of the UX-strategy in practice. The result is a model that describes the main levels of maturity and key areas of application of efforts, thanks to which the design will turn from a performer into a strategic partner:
But it is not enough to say “it’s good to be healthy and rich”. We need a long-term action plan. At the beginning of the journey there is always a huge list of what is wrong with the company and its products. He himself is frustrating - you see a huge number of pain points, each of which drives into anguish. I want to fix everything at once, but resources may be limited, and the current inefficient processes and narrow worldview in terms of design will not allow many of the troubles to be solved once and for all. And the value of any change at the current stage of the company's development is different - there is no point in increasing the overall design culture, if the designers themselves work anyhow.
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Article written for the magazine UXmatters.
The UX-strategy should improve the company's products through changes in the organization that produces these products. It is not enough to accomplish the feat in the form of a successful redesign of an outdated service - you need to ensure the repeatability of good results.
The task of design leaders is to find this path to a brighter future and to lead a company on it. What is a systematic approach to solving problems in general:
As you progress, several nice things will happen. It will become easier to work - process problems will be fixed and credibility will increase. The overall design level in the company will grow - in terms of basic quality, and in terms of opportunities to do strong things in the future. Well, since the appetite comes with eating, then the planning horizon for changes in design will expand and you will want to move forward even further.
Ideally, you need to go not only from ideas for fixing the design, but from business problems - to go over them, and then propose specific implementations and improvements that will give maximum exhaust. But in the early stages of changes in organizational problems there are so many that half of the proposed ideas will definitely fall into the problem of business and will be mandatory for implementation. And in general, at the start, you rather just need to survive, proving your worth.
When I came to Mail.Ru Group in the middle of 2011, my colleague Alexey Sergeev had already managed to prove to the top management the importance of good design. In his efforts for a couple of years, the first design team in the division appeared, usability testing began, several key products were updated. My task was to scale up success with a new team, and Aleksey left to deal with the product strategy.
However, in fact, it turned out that, although the importance of good design and proven by top managers, not all product managers imbued with it. On the whole, at the middle level of management and among the final executors, it is necessary to build confidence in the designers. I did not immediately realize this. Coming, I boasted that we set up the workflow for a month and then everything will go like clockwork. But there were always some trifles that were destroying clear work processes, delaying tasks, breaking plans, etc.
As a result, the first six months were the most difficult. Expectations on both sides did not all fall into reality and there was a feeling that we would soon be “asked”. I have seen a lot of failures in changing the design in other companies and the first six months is a critical point, after which either everything is getting better, or everyone diverges. On the other hand, during this time I understood in detail what exactly hinders us inside and outside the team and described the plan for dealing with these pain points. I thought that I would have to defend and prove it, but suddenly it turned out that everything was for nothing, and I just had to act.
Several years have passed since then and we made a mini-revolution in what Mail.Ru can be. At first, the pace was not very fast, but as basic problems were solved, the team and processes were built, knowledge accumulated and the authority of designers increased, and there were more and more positive changes in products. I regularly sum up the year and can be traced back to the changes:
Now there are 14 people in the team responsible for approximately 20 products - productivity (Mail, Cloud, Calendar, Mail.Ru for business), media projects (Auto, Horoscopes, Children, Welcome, Health, Lady, Cinema, Mediator, Real Estate, News , Answers, Weather, Sport, TV, Hi-Tech, SEOSan), mobile products (Beepcar, Artisto), the main page and general portal rules for Mail.Ru and My.com. Compared to what was six years ago, this is quite a lot, but if you look at the number of tasks, the load is huge. That is why we drown for any ways to automate the process - design systems, algorithms, removing unnecessary work steps, etc. Restrictions move design ideas and we have learned how to work with them.
Now: Mail My.com and Mail.Ru, News, Cloud, Horoscopes, Beepcar and others. Leaders in downloads and ratings
Before: a single Agent, Mail and Maps application for Symbian
Now: a design system combining 12 products (the rest are on the way). Unified approach to the interface, new services
Before: each in itself, not in the most modern form
Now: a design system combining 14 products. Unified approach to the interface, which guarantees quality and speed
Before: several services in austere way
A new brand is easier to do well without a legacy, when you do not need to take into account old practices.
Of course, not all products are still good, but somewhere the first redesign did not solve all the problems, but it is hard not to notice a huge leap over the years. We have formed a design system on which media projects work, a mobile web, partially productivity services (and other products are gradually connected), a style of pictograms and illustrations has been formed, promotional letters and promotional sites have been standardized.
Design system - started in 2012, since then we save a lot of time on launching new products and functions
Unified illustrations - juicy and modern style codenamed "emotional flat 3D" reinforces the brand
Common icons - several hundred vector icons in the same style (gradually rolling out products)
Mailing letters - a unified approach with the division into three branches (promo, digest and service)
Promo sites are bright and juicy, although I really want to add dynamics to them
Yes, there are a lot of services that my unit and other teams haven't gotten their hands on. But get there.
Although I want to part with the past one decisive restart, in fact it is not always possible and extremely risky - full of stories of hasty jerks when the redesign ruined the product and repelled users. Therefore, it is better to first make hell adequate; from adekvat - to make something modern and trend; and after that you can already think about how to set trends yourself. Moreover, in addition to updating products, invisible work on updating the organizational structure and production process is required - it is important to simply learn to produce a good result regularly, on stream, and not once every few years during the next redesign. Yes, a revolution is often needed to start a design change, but after that it develops in an evolutionary way. This experience of restructuring processes and products formed the basis of a series of articles on UX-strategy.
We started the changes in the company at a time when the concept of “ product designer ” with broad responsibility was not yet formed, and there was not much material on the UX-strategy and design management of digital products. But the bumps stuffed by us and other companies should simplify life.
I have compiled a checklist of improvements that will help start or accelerate changes in your company. It is based on our path and observation of change histories in other companies. Improvements will descend from business problems to specific recipes for design managers: business value → solution → pattern. Patterns are tied to maturity levels (O is operational, T is tactical, C is strategic).
Value for business : Zero phase of change - how to show business that design benefits.
Evaluation Criteria :
Product :
Organization :
Deliver the basics of good design:
Clearly show the problem:
Show the benefits of design in practice:
Value for business : Increase the quality of the product to increase its value to users and reduce support costs.
Evaluation Criteria :
Product :
Organization :
Quality control at the layout level:
Quality control at the implementation level:
Quality control at the product and company level:
Business Value : Accelerate the launch of new features and products to the market while maintaining an acceptable level of quality.
Evaluation Criteria :
Product :
Organization :
Reducing the number of iterations:
Predictable timing and quality:
Value for business : Increase the chances of success when launching new products or functions of existing ones.
Evaluation Criteria :
Product :
Organization :
Search for product solutions taking into account diverse requirements:
The ability to test the product hypothesis at an early stage:
Make the product more valuable and understandable:
Business Value : Increase product value for existing users and attract new ones.
Evaluation Criteria :
Product :
Organization :
Food insights emanating from designers:
Cross-functional interaction:
Predictability:
Value for business : Increase the loyalty of the existing audience and attract a new one.
Evaluation Criteria :
Product :
Organization :
Brand unity:
Cross-functional commands:
Business Value : Attract and retain a sufficient number of design professionals with the right qualifications.
Evaluation Criteria :
Product :
Organization :
Closing current and future company needs:
Attracting more powerful designers:
A set of design management patterns will help describe the interface and organizational debt, as well as identify the vision of the future of design. The next task is to assess changes in business value and implementation complexity. And after that - plan the stages of change implementation.
In the first part of the series I described the “portrait” of the company , which is important for the design manager to understand. Resources, processes and priorities are the three key components that influence the current state of the organization and its future. This is the environment in which UX will evolve and its features are crucial to the success of the implementation of the UX strategy. In order to implement it, you need to deeply understand the company's business. Most organizations have their own characteristics, so although the goals of UX implementation are similar or identical for most, the implementation of the strategy is almost always unique in details.
Resources :
Processes :
Priorities :
Understanding what tasks the company faces at the current stage of its development, it is necessary to rank the values ​​of design for business. We take them from the pattern catalog and rate them critically / tolerantly / unimportant. This should be done regularly - the company and its products are developing and their tasks change. As Michael Porter said, the essence of the strategy is to determine what not to do.
For example :
Now you need to describe the interface and organizational debt.The first will show problems in the product, the second - in the organization that creates this product. For this, checklists and heuristics work well. To evaluate the interface debt, a chic template from the Kimberly Dunwoody and the Susan Teague Rector or ready-made checklists like 10 Jacob Nielsen heuristics will work . For organizational evaluation - the design management patterns described above. By the way, in my concept, interface debt is in itself an organizational pattern.
Organizational duty :
For example :
Interface debt :
After passing the checklists, you will see problems that will need to be solved by the design team.
We have already figured out what tasks the company is facing now and in the near future, and white spots are clear from the checklist - what exactly needs to be tightened up. Now we need to visually show the vision of the future of design in the company - what products and organization can become in a few years when both debts will be significantly reduced. They work well here:
They will help to “sell” complex implementations to top management and product teams. In addition, there certainly will be something to supplement the interface and organizational debt.
The list of improvements in the interface and organization will certainly be impressive, especially at early levels of maturity. Here we need priorities - what to do in the first place, and what will give a return in the medium and long term. Once the company is not yet ready for the method or format of work, but once it grows over.
For organizational debt, you need to evaluate each improvement in business value (it was formed in the previous paragraph) and the complexity of implementation (is there enough design team effort or need outside help, are there external blocking factors). For interface debt, the impact on key product metrics, the number of affected users, and also the complexity of implementation.
Organizational duty :
Interface debt :
The result is a roadmap design team. This is an implementation plan with priorities and reference to business value in the current and near term. For each pattern, recommendations are given on implementation - what it is for, why it works, where to start. Ideally, every change should have success criteria - how we will understand that the organization and the products have become better.
The implementation of the change plan is not as straightforward as it seems from the resulting roadmap. Often this is non-food work, which distracts the designers from the main tasks, and not all product managers are ready for it. In addition, many organizational changes have a deferred effect, so the time you spent today and your management will see the exhaust much later. Two techniques will help:
Many organizational changes are multifaceted and require the solution of several different tasks at once in order to give the desired effect. In order to decompose them and get a holistic, rather than a half-effect, they need to be solved together. The OKR (Objective Key Results) planning method can be useful in this . We select three major topics per quarter (read - complex changes), each of them is described in the form of a problem-solving goal, and metrics that show the success of the implementation. Then we make a plan out of concrete actions and follow it during the quarter. This is a good way to focus and mobilize the team, so that the interface and organizational changes give a noticeable exhaust, and not just trifles, improve your well-being.
Example OKR :
Predictably high quality design on live products.
Objective : Launch quality assurance mechanisms.
Metrics :
Key results :
Well, at the end of each quarter, we return to the first point and update the understanding of the company and its design problems. After that, we define the next OKR and take up their implementation. Each accomplishment or success of a team and product is a holiday, at best a vacation. But not a "golden parachute" or retirement. As Andy Grove said, “only paranoids survive” - those who are constantly on the alert.
Medium and long term plans are useful for making public. This will help to make the understanding of the problems common, to devote the team and management to them in advance, and ideally to charge them with enthusiasm about what kind of design can be in the company. We use two tools:
The wall of the future
Many companies in the early stages of maturity of obvious problems will be above the roof, so you can just take the first one and deal with them. But a more meaningful approach, when you have a complete picture, will allow you to move faster and better understand the long-term UX strategy. The plan is a good start for system work. Let even its volume be frustrating at first glance - as you move through it, the rate of change will increase and you will be surprised how much strength and motivation the team adds along the way.
In recent years, there has been a huge leap in the digital product market in terms of institutionalizing design. As Thomas Lockwood says , if before the competition was between products with good design and not so much, now we are getting closer to the fact that the basic level of design will be good for everyone. And those companies which have built in design at the level of the general culture of the company will break free.
In recent years, several interesting studies have emerged that analyze successful companies in terms of design on the market. Although they often reflect the US market, digital products differ from country to country less than other industries.
Leah Buley conducted a very interesting market survey for Forrester Research in 2015. She interviewed 23 companies to find out how their design teams are organized . As a result, she was able to highlight a set of characteristics of internal organization and involvement in grocery work, which are inherent in the most powerful companies in terms of design. She spoke in detail about the conclusions of Interaction15 , and in 2016 she conducted a second survey (after leaving Forrester). Here are some of the characteristics of mature companies:
A similar survey among 360 companies was conducted by the Nielsen / Norman Group . His results show what problems the implementation of mature design practices at the company level face design teams. There are also many useful insights. For example, designers feel a return on their work in companies of small size and where they belong to a design team in one form or another.
In 2015, while at KPCB, John Maeda released his first report on the state of design in the digital products market . In 2016, he left the consulting company and now publishes reports on his own behalf. They have a lot of interesting figures and facts about what investment in design and why does business, gradually changing the industry.
Management theory has more than a hundred years of experience, and in relation to design agencies and industrial design, considerable expertise has been accumulated over the decades. But in the field of digital products, really bright stories of the introduction of design at all levels began only in the last decade. There are several patterns of change that will be useful to explore.
Design thinking is considered a good methodology to come up with a future, but then everything is often sad - it still remains a beautiful visionary. But in conjunction with adaptive leadership, a modern approach to management, you can realize your plans. Maya Bernstein and Marty Linsky offer a methodology of “adaptive design” at the intersection of design thinking and adaptive leadership, which allows you to implement bold ideas and changes. The name, however, is not very good, because it is responsive and adaptive-technicians working with a string of devices and screens. Model adaptive design from Maya Bernstein and Marty Linsky
Donald Norman in recent years has been actively promoting the DesignX methodology for solving complex social, economic and political problems. This theory helps to rebuild socio-technical systems step by step, with a series of small changes instead of a single large-scale redesign. Such initiatives require intervention in cultural characteristics, methods and practices, the reorganization of working groups of different specialties, so that they are expected to cause conflicts in which domestic policies emerge. As a result, so many compromises and unforeseen changes in course are required, that “with a hitch” you can only come to failure. Therefore, it is necessary to “eat the elephant in parts” and constantly adjust the vision of the future. This theory is perfectly described in his joint article with Pieter Jan Stappers .
An interesting approach to linking business and UX strategies is using Intuit . It operates on three levels - the mission (design as an agent of social change), the company (design as a unit and professional skill) and the product (design of good experiences). A combination of business and UX strategies in Intuit The “missions” approach allows achieving long-term goals , each of which is described at several levels (values, goals, strategy, priorities, metrics) and ideally should define each product solution. The “missions” approach for achieving long-term goals in Intuit
UX STRAT USA 2016 Jeffrey Onken UX customer journey map . , .
In his book How to Make an Enterprise UX Friendly: A Quick Guide , Justinmind offers a template for describing a UX strategy:
Justinmind template for describing corporate UX strategy
Theories and models of the process of change in the classical theory of management abound. For example, the 8-step approach of John Kotter .
Change Model Kotter International
Leah Buley sensibly describes the difference between a business strategy and a UX strategy, pointing to the weak points of the latter. She has two interpretations:
In the master class for UX STRAT USA 2016, she describes her approach to redesign in companies .
Leah Buley: The Difference Between Business and UX Strategy
Brian Solis uses the OPPOSITE methodology for step-by-step digital transformation of the company:
In this publication, everything is interesting - and the fact that it focuses on understanding the business with the right words, and the fact that it was released already in 2006. Rosa Wu and Jess McMullin describe their approach to change, consisting of three stages :
Well, then the process goes in a circle - to evaluate the success of the pilot, launch a new one and tell you more about success. This will help find like-minded people and new projects for improvements.
The head of Salesforce Marc Benioff created the company's V2MOM methodology for determining future plans. Each department and employee writes them, so that the result is a complete chain of management from the main business goals to specific actions, linking all the parts of the strategy together:
The general idea is very similar to OKR in its entirety.
Japanese management practices have been in great demand in recent decades due to a mixture of simplicity and methodicalness. Toyota uses the 4-step Kata approach to move from the current situation to the future:
Bosch's Darren Hood at the UX Strategies Summit 2015 talked about how to use Kaizen to change the company's design . This, again, is a set of continuous small improvements, each of which increases user value or reduces company costs. And on all fronts, not only within the framework of the product itself - training and motivation of employees, relationships with users, etc.
Although more and more companies are gaining momentum in terms of rethinking and systematizing the design, there are not many bright reference cases. I will give a number of characteristic examples.
In 2013, a large consulting company Accenture bought the well-known design agency Fjord. Celia Romaniuk, the head of the studio's London office, says that Accenture's CEO was the protagonist of the studio and the design in general, so he gave a place at the decision-making table and strongly supported, although he did not fully understand the designers themselves. At the same time, the head of Celia in Accenture told her that the company is full of good and bad people, so you have to stick to the first and not think about the second, then everything will turn out. As a result, Fjord became a catalyst for changes in the company, because it clearly showed what could be done, so other divisions gradually began to penetrate. At the same time, they selectively introduce things common for Accenture to preserve the original Fjord culture - they do not use the grade system, they have separate marketing and other activities, although they try to integrate to the maximum. It is important to pay attention to the design management and the value it brings. As a result, people become more educated in design and overall design helps a lot in organizational change.
Fjord design scaling rule
They now use this integration experience in client projects — for example, for their customer Commerzbank, the design agency bought was a similar catalyst for change , changing the bank from the inside.
The company has created the role of vice president of product design and has begun a change from pilot projects . Instead of imposing the need to redesign all departments at once (not everyone understood the value of design), they worked in turn with everyone who was ready himself. The results of the first pilot were so successful that the rest of the products also wanted to work with sensible designers. They gained credibility through this example and have since worked closely with cross-functional teams to achieve critical business goals. As Julie Baher says, your task is to change the company's operating system .
Coca-Cola's David Butler studied the principles of other companies that learned how to use design to solve strategic problems. He began working in a team of branding and communications, then moved to packaging and equipment, then to retail sales, and at the end - business operations, including distribution and supply. Although he spends a lot of time on professional design development, he does not use words like “design thinking” when communicating with business, but tries to speak their language - all initiatives must increase sales.
Brian Beaver from Eventbrite tells how the design team was able to convince management to allocate resources to create a design system . Together with marketers and financiers, they figured out how much it would cost the company to launch functions with the current set of technologies and how much more profitable and fast the new approach would become.
Explanatory story Parrish Hanna, head of ergonomics and user interaction Ford, about how the company is changing itself . One of the key points was the linking of the UX improvement to the company's mission - “making people’s lives better”.
Google
The first attempt to put the product line in order in 2007 failed, but when the founder of Larry Page became the head of the company in 2011, he made a quality UX one of the key tasks . The leader of the changes from the design itself was Matias Duarte, head of Android design. He sensibly considered that the centralization of design in a company with so many products was impossible and brought together a small working group of UXA. After they found a strong visual-interface concept, this team worked with product-specific designers to implement it. Now the connection between the team of the visual language and the products works in both directions - the designers in the margins bring fresh patterns and solutions to the common pot. And Matias acts as an evangelist of combining the efforts of different teams under a unified design vision - this was largely helped by his close interaction with Larry Page and his ability to convey ideas to top management.
The head of IBM Virginia Rometty saw that the corporate software market is changing - instead of complex implementations for the entire company, where the decision is often taken by the IT procurement department, more often specific functional departments pay for subscription to a suitable service, and they are more demanding on the quality of the product (including usability) . The head of a recently purchased startup Phil Gilbert, who was an evangelist of good design, was offered to scale his best practices to the entire company. He announced a rather ambitious goal - to hire and train 1000 designers - but did not expect it to be real. But he received not only good, but also an unexpected question: how quickly can this plan be implemented?
In total, the company has 400,000 employees and the centralization of expertise is impossible in practice. A bet was made on the laboratory incubator in Austin (Texas), which is engaged in the development of typical processes, visual language, training. As a result, the main goal is to increase the overall design culture in the company, to “sell” the value of design to management at various levels, to hold working sessions and master classes for the transfer of knowledge and experience. One of the tools for this is mentoring.
Serious attention to users in the company began to be paid in 2004 with the introduction of NPS. But by 2007 the growth rate slowed down - the number of critics was reduced, but evangelicals did not appear. The founder of Intuit Scott Cook gave a 5-hour lecture on the benefits of design for company managers, but didn’t touch them much. But Alex Kazaks, who spoke after him, held a small master class on problem solving with the help of a design that “hooked” on almost everyone. This prompted Kaaren Hanson to be responsible for spreading best practices throughout the company and Intuit launched a “innovation catalysts” program that helped product teams improve UX and then do it themselves. The number of "catalysts" has since grown, largely due to the goal - to try to do at least 3-4 projects per year with a clear exhaust.
PepsiCo's Mauro Porcini considers the key components of design success in a company to be a strong design leader who is able to integrate different components into a coherent picture (brand, industrial design, interior, UX, innovations), as well as support from top management and confirmation of the design team’s success. and from the side. Quick wins will help start the journey through the five stages of design maturity.
The head of the company Indra Nooyi praises his approach . One of the first steps to change was the task for the company's management: to photograph the design examples that they consider good. Albums brought only a couple of people - the rest asked for their wives or did nothing at all. This showed that they do not understand what design is. Since then, much has changed and the company, for example, clearly sees the connection between design and innovation - the latter brought the company 9% of profit in 2014. In order to systematically engage in innovations, it was necessary, among other things, to rebuild the culture and to treat the failures and fast product creation cycles more easily. Indra is sure that if before companies needed to reinvent themselves every 10 years, now the speed has increased and this should happen every 2-3 years.
In the second half of the 90s, Samsung’s vice president of design strategy, An Yong-Il, suggested that companies move away from the practice of making cheap copies of competing products with a new design philosophy. He did not meet with broad support, and after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the company cut back on investment in design. An wanted to leave, but his boss offered him serious training in management and organizational planning. In 2000, the Corporate Design Center was created, which is responsible for the vision of the future and its implementation in different departments. And although the company is still periodically criticized for copying, a significant amount of its products are more than worthy.
How Samsung determines the future of its product design
Although over the years the company has accumulated a very heavy legacy of complex and inconvenient corporate systems, SAP invests a lot of resources in restructuring the company. Chronology of key initiatives :
Chronology of SAP design change initiatives
In this series of articles, I described how companies are becoming more mature in terms of design, revealed the main points of focus for a design manager (hiring the right designers, creating a design system, building a design culture, competently setting goals), and also suggested checking sheet that allows you to embed it all. I hope that thanks to this you can change your company.
For me, this series was not only a presentation and structuring of thoughts, but also an opportunity to think about the future of design in the Mail.Ru Group portal team. Each article described approximately the middle of the way - where we are now and where we are going. A kind of public commitment that additionally encourages movement forward.
One of the main thoughts that I want to additionally mention at the end is that the designers themselves must initiate changes in the company. No one will take you by the hand, put you at the decision-making table and say: “there’s a plan, it remains only to realize it”. You are hired so that you are more experienced and far-sighted than anyone else in your business, and they themselves show where the problems are and how to solve them. And after that - gritting his teeth went through all the difficulties and hardships. Change your attitude to change and just take action:
And most importantly - play "in the long." Design change in a company is a task for several years, not months. It affects not only the products and their visual component, but also the organization itself, its world view and culture. Think of your task as a restructuring of the socio-technical system , rather than just updating multiple screens. After all, the cause of bad products is a bad machine that produces them, so you first need to repair it.
PS Thanks to Kristine Sonne Berg, Sam de Jongh Hepworth and Katrine Hansted from the Systematic UX team who helped transform the raw checklist idea based on my idea of ​​maturity into a more or less holistic approach.
- Design maturity levels in a company
- The role of the product designer
- Design system as a way to manage the quality of product interface and speed to market
- Organization of design work and design culture
- Targeting through analytics and research
But it is not enough to say “it’s good to be healthy and rich”. We need a long-term action plan. At the beginning of the journey there is always a huge list of what is wrong with the company and its products. He himself is frustrating - you see a huge number of pain points, each of which drives into anguish. I want to fix everything at once, but resources may be limited, and the current inefficient processes and narrow worldview in terms of design will not allow many of the troubles to be solved once and for all. And the value of any change at the current stage of the company's development is different - there is no point in increasing the overall design culture, if the designers themselves work anyhow.
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Article written for the magazine UXmatters.
Organization redesign
The UX-strategy should improve the company's products through changes in the organization that produces these products. It is not enough to accomplish the feat in the form of a successful redesign of an outdated service - you need to ensure the repeatability of good results.
The task of design leaders is to find this path to a brighter future and to lead a company on it. What is a systematic approach to solving problems in general:
- Describe the current interface and organizational debt that make it difficult to create quality products.
- Show the vision of the future - how you see the perfect design of the company's products and what should be earned for this.
- To point out what the current problems are hindering in the product and what exactly will improve the changes. This will show their value to the company and the products.
- Assess the complexity of the changes - what needs to be done within the design team and in the organization as a whole, for a bright future to come.
- Determine the stages of implementation of changes - priority, medium and long-term.
- Start to include changes in the overall work plan and track their accomplishment and talk extensively about positive changes.
As you progress, several nice things will happen. It will become easier to work - process problems will be fixed and credibility will increase. The overall design level in the company will grow - in terms of basic quality, and in terms of opportunities to do strong things in the future. Well, since the appetite comes with eating, then the planning horizon for changes in design will expand and you will want to move forward even further.
Difficult to start perfectly
Ideally, you need to go not only from ideas for fixing the design, but from business problems - to go over them, and then propose specific implementations and improvements that will give maximum exhaust. But in the early stages of changes in organizational problems there are so many that half of the proposed ideas will definitely fall into the problem of business and will be mandatory for implementation. And in general, at the start, you rather just need to survive, proving your worth.
When I came to Mail.Ru Group in the middle of 2011, my colleague Alexey Sergeev had already managed to prove to the top management the importance of good design. In his efforts for a couple of years, the first design team in the division appeared, usability testing began, several key products were updated. My task was to scale up success with a new team, and Aleksey left to deal with the product strategy.
However, in fact, it turned out that, although the importance of good design and proven by top managers, not all product managers imbued with it. On the whole, at the middle level of management and among the final executors, it is necessary to build confidence in the designers. I did not immediately realize this. Coming, I boasted that we set up the workflow for a month and then everything will go like clockwork. But there were always some trifles that were destroying clear work processes, delaying tasks, breaking plans, etc.
As a result, the first six months were the most difficult. Expectations on both sides did not all fall into reality and there was a feeling that we would soon be “asked”. I have seen a lot of failures in changing the design in other companies and the first six months is a critical point, after which either everything is getting better, or everyone diverges. On the other hand, during this time I understood in detail what exactly hinders us inside and outside the team and described the plan for dealing with these pain points. I thought that I would have to defend and prove it, but suddenly it turned out that everything was for nothing, and I just had to act.
Several years have passed since then and we made a mini-revolution in what Mail.Ru can be. At first, the pace was not very fast, but as basic problems were solved, the team and processes were built, knowledge accumulated and the authority of designers increased, and there were more and more positive changes in products. I regularly sum up the year and can be traced back to the changes:
Now there are 14 people in the team responsible for approximately 20 products - productivity (Mail, Cloud, Calendar, Mail.Ru for business), media projects (Auto, Horoscopes, Children, Welcome, Health, Lady, Cinema, Mediator, Real Estate, News , Answers, Weather, Sport, TV, Hi-Tech, SEOSan), mobile products (Beepcar, Artisto), the main page and general portal rules for Mail.Ru and My.com. Compared to what was six years ago, this is quite a lot, but if you look at the number of tasks, the load is huge. That is why we drown for any ways to automate the process - design systems, algorithms, removing unnecessary work steps, etc. Restrictions move design ideas and we have learned how to work with them.
Mobile applications
Now: Mail My.com and Mail.Ru, News, Cloud, Horoscopes, Beepcar and others. Leaders in downloads and ratings
Before: a single Agent, Mail and Maps application for Symbian
Media Projects
Now: a design system combining 12 products (the rest are on the way). Unified approach to the interface, new services
Before: each in itself, not in the most modern form
Mobile web
Now: a design system combining 14 products. Unified approach to the interface, which guarantees quality and speed
Before: several services in austere way
My.com
A new brand is easier to do well without a legacy, when you do not need to take into account old practices.
Of course, not all products are still good, but somewhere the first redesign did not solve all the problems, but it is hard not to notice a huge leap over the years. We have formed a design system on which media projects work, a mobile web, partially productivity services (and other products are gradually connected), a style of pictograms and illustrations has been formed, promotional letters and promotional sites have been standardized.
Design system - started in 2012, since then we save a lot of time on launching new products and functions
Unified illustrations - juicy and modern style codenamed "emotional flat 3D" reinforces the brand
Common icons - several hundred vector icons in the same style (gradually rolling out products)
Mailing letters - a unified approach with the division into three branches (promo, digest and service)
Promo sites are bright and juicy, although I really want to add dynamics to them
And how about...
Yes, there are a lot of services that my unit and other teams haven't gotten their hands on. But get there.
Although I want to part with the past one decisive restart, in fact it is not always possible and extremely risky - full of stories of hasty jerks when the redesign ruined the product and repelled users. Therefore, it is better to first make hell adequate; from adekvat - to make something modern and trend; and after that you can already think about how to set trends yourself. Moreover, in addition to updating products, invisible work on updating the organizational structure and production process is required - it is important to simply learn to produce a good result regularly, on stream, and not once every few years during the next redesign. Yes, a revolution is often needed to start a design change, but after that it develops in an evolutionary way. This experience of restructuring processes and products formed the basis of a series of articles on UX-strategy.
Design Management Patterns
We started the changes in the company at a time when the concept of “ product designer ” with broad responsibility was not yet formed, and there was not much material on the UX-strategy and design management of digital products. But the bumps stuffed by us and other companies should simplify life.
I have compiled a checklist of improvements that will help start or accelerate changes in your company. It is based on our path and observation of change histories in other companies. Improvements will descend from business problems to specific recipes for design managers: business value → solution → pattern. Patterns are tied to maturity levels (O is operational, T is tactical, C is strategic).
0. Awareness of the value of design
Value for business : Zero phase of change - how to show business that design benefits.
Evaluation Criteria :
- Trust managers. They come with a problem, not a ready-made solution.
- Trust the end experts. Directly seek solutions for working problems, bypassing managers.
- Tasks come in advance, there is time to think through the interface.
- The number of iterations on tasks decreases.
Symptoms symptoms
Product :
- Weak or even harmful design solutions.
- Different screens of the same product look and work differently.
Organization :
- Designers have no influence on product solutions.
- Designers are attracted to the tasks at the last moment, "to induce marafet."
- Managers and developers themselves make design decisions.
Solution → pattern
Deliver the basics of good design:
- A : Design leader (part 4)
- A : Argumentation, presentation and facilitation skills
- T : Trust (part 1)
- T : Map of decision makers
- C : Co-design (part 4)
- C : General Design Literacy (Part 4)
- S : Lawyer design among top managers
Clearly show the problem:
- T : Usability testing, which runs the entire product team (part 5)
- T : Analytics and experiments (part 5)
Show the benefits of design in practice:
- A : Quick wins (part 6)
- T : Internal marketing design success.
- C : Business-related design metrics (part 5)
1. Product quality
Value for business : Increase the quality of the product to increase its value to users and reduce support costs.
Evaluation Criteria :
- Worthy quality of the product in the implementation, not only layouts.
- Better attitude of users to the product, which is reflected in the growth of key metrics.
- Fewer resources to maintain an acceptable level of quality.
Symptoms symptoms
Product :
- The interface visually collapsed.
- Do not work out some functions.
- Some functions are incomprehensible, the user cannot work with them.
- Purchased or just launched product is worse than the rest.
Organization :
- Developers inattentively implement layouts.
- The design is issued ahead of time, until the implementation quality is checked.
- Designers give out not fully thought out or incomplete layouts, so developers have to think out themselves (and they are not experts).
Solution → pattern
Quality control at the layout level:
- A : Responsibility is broader than just creating mockups (part 2)
- A : T-shaped specialists (part 2)
- A : Map of skills and their development (part 4)
- A : Design Review team (part 4)
- : General tools (part 4)
- T : Creative problem-solving techniques (part 4, 5)
Quality control at the implementation level:
- T : Design system (part 3)
- T : Check lists
- T : Expert evaluation with the ability to delay the release
- T : Usability Testing (Part 5)
- T : Reducing Interface Debt (Part 6)
- C : Impact on the grocery plan (part 5)
- C : Increasing the overall design culture and developer care (part 4)
Quality control at the product and company level:
- C : Long-term planning (part 4, 6)
- S : Design Leaders Club (part 4)
- C : Business-related design metrics (part 5)
2. Speed ​​to market
Business Value : Accelerate the launch of new features and products to the market while maintaining an acceptable level of quality.
Evaluation Criteria :
- Work on the creation of project artifacts takes less time by reducing the overall time, and due to better getting into the task.
- Design quality does not suffer from acceleration.
Symptoms symptoms
Product :
- Launching new features and products takes a lot of time and effort.
- Updates to existing functions are rare.
- When you run and updates, the quality of the product suffers.
Organization :
- The unpredictable number of iterations for each task, which delays time and reduces involvement.
- Shifting responsibility for problems to other members of the product team.
- There are not enough designers or they do not have the necessary skills for the product.
Solution → pattern
Reducing the number of iterations:
- A : T-shaped specialists (part 2)
- A : Map of skills and their development (part 4)
- A : Trusted outsourcers (part 4)
- T : Trust (part 1)
Predictable timing and quality:
- A : Planning (short and medium term) (part 4)
- : General tools (part 4)
- C : Design system (part 3)
- C : Planning (long-term) (part 4, 6)
3. Reducing risks when entering the market
Value for business : Increase the chances of success when launching new products or functions of existing ones.
Evaluation Criteria :
- Users see the value of a new product or feature for themselves.
- Users understand and successfully use the product.
Symptoms symptoms
Product :
- The product is poorly accepted by users, the activity in its use is less than expected.
Organization :
- Making decisions about what the product should be, is not systematic (blind copying of competitors, panic reaction to deviation from the expected values ​​of metrics).
- The product manager and team do not know how well the solutions worked.
- Designers have no influence on product solutions.
Solution → pattern
Search for product solutions taking into account diverse requirements:
- T : Search for alternative solutions to the problem (part 5)
- C : Co-design (part 4)
- C : General Design Literacy (Part 4)
The ability to test the product hypothesis at an early stage:
- T : Early prototypes and methods for testing them (Part 5)
- C : Exploratory User Research (Part 5)
Make the product more valuable and understandable:
- T : Usability Testing (Part 5)
- T : Analytics and experiments (part 5)
- C : Customer Journey Map and Optimization of All Channels (Part 5)
- C : Business-related design metrics (part 5)
4. Increase audience and product profit
Business Value : Increase product value for existing users and attract new ones.
Evaluation Criteria :
- Designers help find successful solutions for complex product problems.
- Designers offer new opportunities for product growth, which fall into the implementation and bring measurable benefits.
- The product is effective and understandable to users at all stages of the interaction map.
- The entire product team understands the goals and objectives of the business.
Symptoms symptoms
Product :
- The product does not make a profit or other good company.
- The audience of the product stagnates or falls.
- Use of “dark patterns” to increase profits.
- Unsuccessful front-end solutions reduce user efficiency.
Organization :
- Making decisions about what the product should be, is not systematic (blind copying of competitors, panic reaction to deviation from the expected values ​​of metrics).
- The product manager and team do not know how well the solutions worked.
- Designers have no influence on product solutions.
Solution → pattern
Food insights emanating from designers:
- T : Creative problem-solving techniques (part 4, 5)
- C : Business-related design metrics (part 5)
- C : Exploratory user research for finding problems and "windows of opportunity" (Part 5)
- C : Segmentation and other ways of assessing the importance of problems for users (Part 5)
- C : Interface and User Knowledge Base (Part 5)
Cross-functional interaction:
- T : Reducing Interface Debt (Part 6)
- C : Co-design (part 4)
- C : Customer Journey Map and Optimization of All Channels (Part 5)
Predictability:
- C : Planning (long-term) (part 4, 6)
5. Strengthening the brand
Value for business : Increase the loyalty of the existing audience and attract a new one.
Evaluation Criteria :
- The product interface enhances brand loyalty.
- The cost of the company and the attractiveness of the product increases due to high-quality design.
Symptoms symptoms
Product :
- The product interface is loosely associated with the brand.
- Different products or even different screens of the same product look and work differently.
Organization :
- No responsible for the development of the brand.
- Different divisions and products of the company do not interact with each other.
Solution → pattern
Brand unity:
- T : Design system (part 3)
- C : Design principles from the brand (part 3)
Cross-functional commands:
- S : Design Leaders Club (part 4)
- C : General Design Literacy (Part 4)
6. Hiring and developing designers
Business Value : Attract and retain a sufficient number of design professionals with the right qualifications.
Evaluation Criteria :
- The necessary design specialist is already there or can connect to the team in a reasonable time.
- Design skills correspond to the company's objectives in the current and medium term.
- Design costs adequate money for the company.
Symptoms symptoms
Product :
- Weak or even harmful design solutions.
- Problems in the interface are not fixed.
Organization :
- There are not enough designers, so the developers or managers themselves make design decisions.
- The company can not hire strong professionals.
- High turnover and low motivation of designers.
Solution → pattern
Closing current and future company needs:
- A : Design leader (part 4)
- A : Map of skills and their development (part 4)
Attracting more powerful designers:
- C : HR Brand
Planning and Tracking Changes
A set of design management patterns will help describe the interface and organizational debt, as well as identify the vision of the future of design. The next task is to assess changes in business value and implementation complexity. And after that - plan the stages of change implementation.
0. Company portrait
In the first part of the series I described the “portrait” of the company , which is important for the design manager to understand. Resources, processes and priorities are the three key components that influence the current state of the organization and its future. This is the environment in which UX will evolve and its features are crucial to the success of the implementation of the UX strategy. In order to implement it, you need to deeply understand the company's business. Most organizations have their own characteristics, so although the goals of UX implementation are similar or identical for most, the implementation of the strategy is almost always unique in details.
Resources :
- Money : How budgeting works (how many designers can you hire, is there a budget for user research, is there a budget for outsourcing).
- People : The ratio of designers and developers (the optimal numbers to strive for).
- Time : At what point in the product development process are designers involved.
- Credibility : Who has already sold the idea of ​​a good design (top management, product managers, final specialists (developers / testers / marketers)).
Processes :
- Initiation of products and their new features : What are the levels of leadership, on the basis of what information (analytics / research), how the requirements go to the designers, how success is determined.
- Design and development : Team structure, process, management.
- Quality Assurance : Methods, what is an acceptable level.
- Product Distribution : Channels, their effectiveness and cost per user.
- User Support : Channels, Satisfaction and CES (Customer Effort Score).
Priorities :
- Product Type : Market (B2B, B2C or other), platform (website, application or other).
- Business Model : Key metrics and how to optimize them.
- Stage of the life cycle of the company and product :
- Search for a suitable market, product solution and business model for its monetization.
- User base growth and / or profits.
- User retention.
- Efficiency of doing business.
- Product withdrawal from crisis, when the user base falls, profits or market share - all at once or some of them.
1. The value of design for business
Understanding what tasks the company faces at the current stage of its development, it is necessary to rank the values ​​of design for business. We take them from the pattern catalog and rate them critically / tolerantly / unimportant. This should be done regularly - the company and its products are developing and their tasks change. As Michael Porter said, the essence of the strategy is to determine what not to do.
For example :
| Value | now | in a year |
|---|---|---|
| Product quality | tolerated | is critical |
| Market entry speed | is critical | tolerated |
| Reduced risk when entering the market | tolerated | tolerated |
| Increase audience and product profit | is critical | tolerated |
| Brand enhancement | no matter | tolerated |
| Hiring and developing designers | tolerated | tolerated |
| Awareness of the value of design | tolerated | tolerated |
2. Interface and organizational debt
Now you need to describe the interface and organizational debt.The first will show problems in the product, the second - in the organization that creates this product. For this, checklists and heuristics work well. To evaluate the interface debt, a chic template from the Kimberly Dunwoody and the Susan Teague Rector or ready-made checklists like 10 Jacob Nielsen heuristics will work . For organizational evaluation - the design management patterns described above. By the way, in my concept, interface debt is in itself an organizational pattern.
Organizational duty :
For example :
| Problem or idea |
|---|
| General Design Literacy: Training for Managers and Developers |
| Media kit for advertising formats |
| Describe the interface debt |
| Trend Knowledge Base |
| Designer's participation in product planning |
| Hackathon format |
| File naming |
| SVG Icon Generator |
| Benchmarks: Our products and competitors |
Interface debt :
| Problem or idea |
|---|
| Redo the warning about the region |
| Move sharing from left column |
| Replace the news belt with a more capacious and simple one. |
| Optimize the motion picture footage on the main |
| Remove news from browsing history |
| Improved interface texts |
| Exchange belt out of place |
| Pull the film block to the end |
| Remove ALL CAPS |
After passing the checklists, you will see problems that will need to be solved by the design team.
3. Vision of the future design
We have already figured out what tasks the company is facing now and in the near future, and white spots are clear from the checklist - what exactly needs to be tightened up. Now we need to visually show the vision of the future of design in the company - what products and organization can become in a few years when both debts will be significantly reduced. They work well here:
- Concepts for the future of product design.
- Updated brand and visual language.
- Design principles for a product, company or design team.
They will help to “sell” complex implementations to top management and product teams. In addition, there certainly will be something to supplement the interface and organizational debt.
4. Implementation Plan
The list of improvements in the interface and organization will certainly be impressive, especially at early levels of maturity. Here we need priorities - what to do in the first place, and what will give a return in the medium and long term. Once the company is not yet ready for the method or format of work, but once it grows over.
For organizational debt, you need to evaluate each improvement in business value (it was formed in the previous paragraph) and the complexity of implementation (is there enough design team effort or need outside help, are there external blocking factors). For interface debt, the impact on key product metrics, the number of affected users, and also the complexity of implementation.
Organizational duty :
| Problem or idea | Value | Level | Complexity |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Design Literacy: Training for Managers and Developers | quality risks brand | WITH | quarter |
| Media kit for advertising formats | quality speed growth | T | month |
| Describe the interface debt | quality risks growth | T | month |
| Trend Knowledge Base | risks growth | WITH | month |
| Designer's participation in product planning | speed risks growth | T | month |
| Hackathon format | speed growth brand | T | a week |
| File naming | quality speed | ABOUT | a week |
| SVG Icon Generator | quality speed | ABOUT | quarter |
| Benchmarks: Our products and competitors | quality growth | WITH | quarter |
Interface debt :
| Problem or idea | Metrics | Users affected, thous. | % | Complexity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Redo the warning about the region | an attitude | 4,000 | 20% | a week |
| Move sharing from left column | quality | 20,000 | 100% | month |
| Replace the news belt with a more capacious and simple one. | money quality | 4,000 | 20% | a week |
| Optimize the motion picture footage on the main | money quality | 2,000 | ten% | a week |
| Remove news from browsing history | money quality | 1,000 | five% | a week |
| Improved interface texts | quality | 20,000 | 100% | a week |
| Exchange belt out of place | money | 4,000 | 20% | day |
| Pull the film block to the end | quality | - | - | month |
| Remove ALL CAPS | quality | - | - | day |
The result is a roadmap design team. This is an implementation plan with priorities and reference to business value in the current and near term. For each pattern, recommendations are given on implementation - what it is for, why it works, where to start. Ideally, every change should have success criteria - how we will understand that the organization and the products have become better.
5. Implementation of the plan
The implementation of the change plan is not as straightforward as it seems from the resulting roadmap. Often this is non-food work, which distracts the designers from the main tasks, and not all product managers are ready for it. In addition, many organizational changes have a deferred effect, so the time you spent today and your management will see the exhaust much later. Two techniques will help:
- « » . , .
- . — , .
Many organizational changes are multifaceted and require the solution of several different tasks at once in order to give the desired effect. In order to decompose them and get a holistic, rather than a half-effect, they need to be solved together. The OKR (Objective Key Results) planning method can be useful in this . We select three major topics per quarter (read - complex changes), each of them is described in the form of a problem-solving goal, and metrics that show the success of the implementation. Then we make a plan out of concrete actions and follow it during the quarter. This is a good way to focus and mobilize the team, so that the interface and organizational changes give a noticeable exhaust, and not just trifles, improve your well-being.
Example OKR :
Predictably high quality design on live products.
Objective : Launch quality assurance mechanisms.
Metrics :
- All bugs and design ideas are fixed in Jira.
- Fixed at least 1 bug on each product.
Key results :
- At the level of layouts:
- Check lists for design verification
- “Fresh Look”: Checking the mock-ups of one designer by another
- Design Review by the whole team
- Before rolling out:
- Design Review in Jira: Mobile Applications
- Design Review in Jira: Marketing
- After vykatki:
- Designers are included in the list of all rollouts.
- Translate all bugs to Jira
- Repeated Design Review of products every quarter
- Tasks from Design Review fall into the product plan
- Instructions on how to describe problems during Design Review
- Design Review after rollouts
Well, at the end of each quarter, we return to the first point and update the understanding of the company and its design problems. After that, we define the next OKR and take up their implementation. Each accomplishment or success of a team and product is a holiday, at best a vacation. But not a "golden parachute" or retirement. As Andy Grove said, “only paranoids survive” - those who are constantly on the alert.
Medium and long term plans are useful for making public. This will help to make the understanding of the problems common, to devote the team and management to them in advance, and ideally to charge them with enthusiasm about what kind of design can be in the company. We use two tools:
- The wall of the future . It shows backlog of interface and organizational debt, as well as OKR in the form of kanban.
- Letters to the team . A story about current problems and plans to address them.
The wall of the future
Many companies in the early stages of maturity of obvious problems will be above the roof, so you can just take the first one and deal with them. But a more meaningful approach, when you have a complete picture, will allow you to move faster and better understand the long-term UX strategy. The plan is a good start for system work. Let even its volume be frustrating at first glance - as you move through it, the rate of change will increase and you will be surprised how much strength and motivation the team adds along the way.
How does the design change in well-known companies
In recent years, there has been a huge leap in the digital product market in terms of institutionalizing design. As Thomas Lockwood says , if before the competition was between products with good design and not so much, now we are getting closer to the fact that the basic level of design will be good for everyone. And those companies which have built in design at the level of the general culture of the company will break free.
Criteria for a modern design company
In recent years, several interesting studies have emerged that analyze successful companies in terms of design on the market. Although they often reflect the US market, digital products differ from country to country less than other industries.
Leah Buley Research
Leah Buley conducted a very interesting market survey for Forrester Research in 2015. She interviewed 23 companies to find out how their design teams are organized . As a result, she was able to highlight a set of characteristics of internal organization and involvement in grocery work, which are inherent in the most powerful companies in terms of design. She spoke in detail about the conclusions of Interaction15 , and in 2016 she conducted a second survey (after leaving Forrester). Here are some of the characteristics of mature companies:
- A unified approach to design throughout the interaction map, not just the digital part of the product (user support, offline stores and events, packaging, hardware).
- Corporate, brand and UX strategy related.
- .
- - .
- ( ) ( ).
- . , . 1:4, — 1:12.
- « » .
Nielsen/Norman Group
A similar survey among 360 companies was conducted by the Nielsen / Norman Group . His results show what problems the implementation of mature design practices at the company level face design teams. There are also many useful insights. For example, designers feel a return on their work in companies of small size and where they belong to a design team in one form or another.
John maeda
In 2015, while at KPCB, John Maeda released his first report on the state of design in the digital products market . In 2016, he left the consulting company and now publishes reports on his own behalf. They have a lot of interesting figures and facts about what investment in design and why does business, gradually changing the industry.
Other change models
Management theory has more than a hundred years of experience, and in relation to design agencies and industrial design, considerable expertise has been accumulated over the decades. But in the field of digital products, really bright stories of the introduction of design at all levels began only in the last decade. There are several patterns of change that will be useful to explore.
"Adaptive design"
Design thinking is considered a good methodology to come up with a future, but then everything is often sad - it still remains a beautiful visionary. But in conjunction with adaptive leadership, a modern approach to management, you can realize your plans. Maya Bernstein and Marty Linsky offer a methodology of “adaptive design” at the intersection of design thinking and adaptive leadership, which allows you to implement bold ideas and changes. The name, however, is not very good, because it is responsive and adaptive-technicians working with a string of devices and screens. Model adaptive design from Maya Bernstein and Marty Linsky
DesignX
Donald Norman in recent years has been actively promoting the DesignX methodology for solving complex social, economic and political problems. This theory helps to rebuild socio-technical systems step by step, with a series of small changes instead of a single large-scale redesign. Such initiatives require intervention in cultural characteristics, methods and practices, the reorganization of working groups of different specialties, so that they are expected to cause conflicts in which domestic policies emerge. As a result, so many compromises and unforeseen changes in course are required, that “with a hitch” you can only come to failure. Therefore, it is necessary to “eat the elephant in parts” and constantly adjust the vision of the future. This theory is perfectly described in his joint article with Pieter Jan Stappers .
Intuit
An interesting approach to linking business and UX strategies is using Intuit . It operates on three levels - the mission (design as an agent of social change), the company (design as a unit and professional skill) and the product (design of good experiences). A combination of business and UX strategies in Intuit The “missions” approach allows achieving long-term goals , each of which is described at several levels (values, goals, strategy, priorities, metrics) and ideally should define each product solution. The “missions” approach for achieving long-term goals in Intuit
Jeffrey onken
UX STRAT USA 2016 Jeffrey Onken UX customer journey map . , .
Justinmind
In his book How to Make an Enterprise UX Friendly: A Quick Guide , Justinmind offers a template for describing a UX strategy:
Justinmind template for describing corporate UX strategy
Kotter international
Theories and models of the process of change in the classical theory of management abound. For example, the 8-step approach of John Kotter .
Change Model Kotter International
Leah buley
Leah Buley sensibly describes the difference between a business strategy and a UX strategy, pointing to the weak points of the latter. She has two interpretations:
- simplified, when the label "strategy" hangs enough prosaic planning for a future product;
- full-fledged when it comes to bringing value to business through design in a wide range of applications and organizational change.
In the master class for UX STRAT USA 2016, she describes her approach to redesign in companies .
Leah Buley: The Difference Between Business and UX Strategy
OPPOSITE
Brian Solis uses the OPPOSITE methodology for step-by-step digital transformation of the company:
- Orientation — Define a vision of a future with meaningful changes.
- People (People) - Understanding value for users, their expectations and behavior.
- Processes — Evaluate operational infrastructure and update technologies, processes, and internal rules to support change.
- Objectives - Define the goals of digital transformation by uniting all decision makers around a new vision and its implementation plan.
- Structure (Structure) - To form a dedicated team with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, goals and ways of evaluation.
- Insights and intentions (Insights & Intent) - Collect data and use insights to refine your evolution strategy.
- Technology (Technology) - Rebuild front and back-end to provide a single integrated UX.
- Implementation (Execution) - Implement, receive feedback and adjust the direction of transformation.
Rosa Wu and Jess McMullin
In this publication, everything is interesting - and the fact that it focuses on understanding the business with the right words, and the fact that it was released already in 2006. Rosa Wu and Jess McMullin describe their approach to change, consisting of three stages :
- Find partners among top management , and then show them the value of design. They will become sponsors and design evangelists in the company.
- Launch a pilot project that will give quick wins and show the value of the design in practice with minimal risk.
- Broadly tell about success , so that all products and divisions of the company also see the value of design in practice.
Well, then the process goes in a circle - to evaluate the success of the pilot, launch a new one and tell you more about success. This will help find like-minded people and new projects for improvements.
Salesforce V2MOM
The head of Salesforce Marc Benioff created the company's V2MOM methodology for determining future plans. Each department and employee writes them, so that the result is a complete chain of management from the main business goals to specific actions, linking all the parts of the strategy together:
- Vision - What do you want to achieve?
- Values - What is important about this goal?
- Methods (Methods) - How to achieve it?
- Obstacles - What can prevent?
- Metrics (Measures) - How to determine that the goal is achieved?
The general idea is very similar to OKR in its entirety.
Toyota Kata and Kaizen
Japanese management practices have been in great demand in recent decades due to a mixture of simplicity and methodicalness. Toyota uses the 4-step Kata approach to move from the current situation to the future:
- Understanding the vision of the future or the general direction of change ...
- Rate the current situation.
- Determine the following target situation.
- Iteratively move in the direction of the new state, which allows you to gradually find and solve previously unknown obstacles.
Bosch's Darren Hood at the UX Strategies Summit 2015 talked about how to use Kaizen to change the company's design . This, again, is a set of continuous small improvements, each of which increases user value or reduces company costs. And on all fronts, not only within the framework of the product itself - training and motivation of employees, relationships with users, etc.
Cases
Although more and more companies are gaining momentum in terms of rethinking and systematizing the design, there are not many bright reference cases. I will give a number of characteristic examples.
Accenture and Fjord
In 2013, a large consulting company Accenture bought the well-known design agency Fjord. Celia Romaniuk, the head of the studio's London office, says that Accenture's CEO was the protagonist of the studio and the design in general, so he gave a place at the decision-making table and strongly supported, although he did not fully understand the designers themselves. At the same time, the head of Celia in Accenture told her that the company is full of good and bad people, so you have to stick to the first and not think about the second, then everything will turn out. As a result, Fjord became a catalyst for changes in the company, because it clearly showed what could be done, so other divisions gradually began to penetrate. At the same time, they selectively introduce things common for Accenture to preserve the original Fjord culture - they do not use the grade system, they have separate marketing and other activities, although they try to integrate to the maximum. It is important to pay attention to the design management and the value it brings. As a result, people become more educated in design and overall design helps a lot in organizational change.
Fjord design scaling rule
They now use this integration experience in client projects — for example, for their customer Commerzbank, the design agency bought was a similar catalyst for change , changing the bank from the inside.
Citrix
The company has created the role of vice president of product design and has begun a change from pilot projects . Instead of imposing the need to redesign all departments at once (not everyone understood the value of design), they worked in turn with everyone who was ready himself. The results of the first pilot were so successful that the rest of the products also wanted to work with sensible designers. They gained credibility through this example and have since worked closely with cross-functional teams to achieve critical business goals. As Julie Baher says, your task is to change the company's operating system .
Coca cola
Coca-Cola's David Butler studied the principles of other companies that learned how to use design to solve strategic problems. He began working in a team of branding and communications, then moved to packaging and equipment, then to retail sales, and at the end - business operations, including distribution and supply. Although he spends a lot of time on professional design development, he does not use words like “design thinking” when communicating with business, but tries to speak their language - all initiatives must increase sales.
Eventbrite
Brian Beaver from Eventbrite tells how the design team was able to convince management to allocate resources to create a design system . Together with marketers and financiers, they figured out how much it would cost the company to launch functions with the current set of technologies and how much more profitable and fast the new approach would become.
Ford
Explanatory story Parrish Hanna, head of ergonomics and user interaction Ford, about how the company is changing itself . One of the key points was the linking of the UX improvement to the company's mission - “making people’s lives better”.
The first attempt to put the product line in order in 2007 failed, but when the founder of Larry Page became the head of the company in 2011, he made a quality UX one of the key tasks . The leader of the changes from the design itself was Matias Duarte, head of Android design. He sensibly considered that the centralization of design in a company with so many products was impossible and brought together a small working group of UXA. After they found a strong visual-interface concept, this team worked with product-specific designers to implement it. Now the connection between the team of the visual language and the products works in both directions - the designers in the margins bring fresh patterns and solutions to the common pot. And Matias acts as an evangelist of combining the efforts of different teams under a unified design vision - this was largely helped by his close interaction with Larry Page and his ability to convey ideas to top management.
Ibm
The head of IBM Virginia Rometty saw that the corporate software market is changing - instead of complex implementations for the entire company, where the decision is often taken by the IT procurement department, more often specific functional departments pay for subscription to a suitable service, and they are more demanding on the quality of the product (including usability) . The head of a recently purchased startup Phil Gilbert, who was an evangelist of good design, was offered to scale his best practices to the entire company. He announced a rather ambitious goal - to hire and train 1000 designers - but did not expect it to be real. But he received not only good, but also an unexpected question: how quickly can this plan be implemented?
In total, the company has 400,000 employees and the centralization of expertise is impossible in practice. A bet was made on the laboratory incubator in Austin (Texas), which is engaged in the development of typical processes, visual language, training. As a result, the main goal is to increase the overall design culture in the company, to “sell” the value of design to management at various levels, to hold working sessions and master classes for the transfer of knowledge and experience. One of the tools for this is mentoring.
Intuit
Serious attention to users in the company began to be paid in 2004 with the introduction of NPS. But by 2007 the growth rate slowed down - the number of critics was reduced, but evangelicals did not appear. The founder of Intuit Scott Cook gave a 5-hour lecture on the benefits of design for company managers, but didn’t touch them much. But Alex Kazaks, who spoke after him, held a small master class on problem solving with the help of a design that “hooked” on almost everyone. This prompted Kaaren Hanson to be responsible for spreading best practices throughout the company and Intuit launched a “innovation catalysts” program that helped product teams improve UX and then do it themselves. The number of "catalysts" has since grown, largely due to the goal - to try to do at least 3-4 projects per year with a clear exhaust.
Pepsico
PepsiCo's Mauro Porcini considers the key components of design success in a company to be a strong design leader who is able to integrate different components into a coherent picture (brand, industrial design, interior, UX, innovations), as well as support from top management and confirmation of the design team’s success. and from the side. Quick wins will help start the journey through the five stages of design maturity.
The head of the company Indra Nooyi praises his approach . One of the first steps to change was the task for the company's management: to photograph the design examples that they consider good. Albums brought only a couple of people - the rest asked for their wives or did nothing at all. This showed that they do not understand what design is. Since then, much has changed and the company, for example, clearly sees the connection between design and innovation - the latter brought the company 9% of profit in 2014. In order to systematically engage in innovations, it was necessary, among other things, to rebuild the culture and to treat the failures and fast product creation cycles more easily. Indra is sure that if before companies needed to reinvent themselves every 10 years, now the speed has increased and this should happen every 2-3 years.
Samsung
In the second half of the 90s, Samsung’s vice president of design strategy, An Yong-Il, suggested that companies move away from the practice of making cheap copies of competing products with a new design philosophy. He did not meet with broad support, and after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the company cut back on investment in design. An wanted to leave, but his boss offered him serious training in management and organizational planning. In 2000, the Corporate Design Center was created, which is responsible for the vision of the future and its implementation in different departments. And although the company is still periodically criticized for copying, a significant amount of its products are more than worthy.
How Samsung determines the future of its product design
SAP
Although over the years the company has accumulated a very heavy legacy of complex and inconvenient corporate systems, SAP invests a lot of resources in restructuring the company. Chronology of key initiatives :
Chronology of SAP design change initiatives
Total
In this series of articles, I described how companies are becoming more mature in terms of design, revealed the main points of focus for a design manager (hiring the right designers, creating a design system, building a design culture, competently setting goals), and also suggested checking sheet that allows you to embed it all. I hope that thanks to this you can change your company.
For me, this series was not only a presentation and structuring of thoughts, but also an opportunity to think about the future of design in the Mail.Ru Group portal team. Each article described approximately the middle of the way - where we are now and where we are going. A kind of public commitment that additionally encourages movement forward.
One of the main thoughts that I want to additionally mention at the end is that the designers themselves must initiate changes in the company. No one will take you by the hand, put you at the decision-making table and say: “there’s a plan, it remains only to realize it”. You are hired so that you are more experienced and far-sighted than anyone else in your business, and they themselves show where the problems are and how to solve them. And after that - gritting his teeth went through all the difficulties and hardships. Change your attitude to change and just take action:
- Consider improvements in design in terms of business value.
- Describe the interface and organizational debt - this is the first step to recovery.
- Changes in the process are non-food tasks. They need to be able to push through the plan.
- Be the designers of not only products, but also organizations, as well as the role of design in it.
And most importantly - play "in the long." Design change in a company is a task for several years, not months. It affects not only the products and their visual component, but also the organization itself, its world view and culture. Think of your task as a restructuring of the socio-technical system , rather than just updating multiple screens. After all, the cause of bad products is a bad machine that produces them, so you first need to repair it.
PS Thanks to Kristine Sonne Berg, Sam de Jongh Hepworth and Katrine Hansted from the Systematic UX team who helped transform the raw checklist idea based on my idea of ​​maturity into a more or less holistic approach.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/329834/
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