This is why you should use the Fast Prototyping method for your project in the Industry field
In my last article I addressed the Methods and how you could sink a project if you focus too much on it. Today I am back with an article about how to engage with your users using the most relevant method considering the stakeholders, the type of solution expected, and the end-users. And yes, you’ve guessed right, we will be talking about the fast prototyping.
I recently led the design of digital interfaces on a great IoT (Internet of Things) industrial project. This project aimed at operational improvement in the manufacturing processes of different products.
It was really interesting to notice that the client had very precise ideas, really clear requirements, but was still very open to be challenged. Everyone around the table was very pragmatic, solution oriented, and wanted tangible achievements. And moreover when you know the industrial field, you know that you will interact with people that understand when they see, and will give you feedbacks on the fields, not in a projection idea into a workshop.
This is why, we decided to go with the Fast Prototyping method!
And you know what? It worked very well! Here is how we implemented this method to get shit done properly…
The starting block is the crucial step
When you embark on a new project with a new client, you need to explain everything, transparently. And this is what I displayed to the core team:
In my deck presentation, one of the top slide showcased this famous image that every designer knows. I wanted to draw the client’s attention to the fact that the design process would be like this line: Messy at the beginning… And it is perfectly normal.
You’d think saying that to your client upfront could be awkward, but, believe me, it isn’t. Being transparent and honest is key in every design project in general, but especially in a rapid prototyping approach.
So they were aware of everything before we started the project.
Even if every stakeholder around the table was skeptical, everyone was keen to trust the Idean team.
The discovery phase: be prepared, because you will need to catch every detail
For this first phase, we were well prepared. We had a list of specific questions, some assumptions we wanted to test… For example, we wanted to know the type of clothing employees need to wear when they enter into an environmentally controlled area. And also, we wanted to know how many times they had to change. This helped us realise how much time employees “waisted” moving from one area to another. And got us to understand the importance of mobile device for example. But how can we bring mobile device like a tablet in an environmentally controlled area? And more, do people wear glove, can they interact with a touch screen? Some additional questions we had in our list.
Remind this: everything you can ask, visit and document (as much as you are allowed to)… will helpful for sure!
Interview as many people as you can, this is a key success factor
We ran 20 face to face interviews to collect the maximum amount of material from the fields. So we scoped the profiles with the core team and then met them. This happened one week before the COVID-19 crisis in France, so we were lucky it was possible.
During those interviews, we went from the general to the specific to narrow down and make sure we would have enough assets to start designing.
However, if you are not quite accustomed to interviews or discovery, here is a tip: accept to collect more than you can digest and use. Because the more material you have, the quicker you will be able to become proficient on the subject. And for a project related to the industrial field, you need to become an expert to understand and then solve problems.
One little step and we’re good to move onto the design phase!
The COVID 19 crisis erupted at this moment! We had planned workshops but the lockdown knocked at the door. Therefore, we had to cancel the most of them. We wanted to focus on the pragmatical part of the projects, problems, constraints, and how to build a tangible solution. We ran 4 workshops on the Mural platform using Zoom for audio:
- 2 Journey workshops:
To understanding of the existing journeys, the potential future journey with the solution, and every the problem the project should solve. Usually it helps the core team prioritising the problems and understanding that the project won’t solve everyone of them. Here you will have all the information needed by end users. - Functionality workshop:
To transform the problems in functionality requirements and prioritise them. We used the Kano Model to do so and it was really efficient. If you don’t know this model, I strongly recommend you to visit the link above. - Feasibility & viability workshop:
To sort the functionalities through the business perspective: the viability (e.g.: does this function will help the production to save time?). And pass those valuable functions through the feasibility filter. Is it technically feasible, in the project scope, to do this?
At the end of this type of workshop, you will have a list of the most valuable features for both business and users. - Crazy 8… my favorite one:
To help designer understand the client and end users’ vision. It’s not about getting the design done! It’s more about getting ideas from the field. And this is clearly different.
So, what did we have at the end of the discovery phase?
We had a lot of materials, a lot of verbatim that illustrated insights. We also had tons of documentations given to us by the core team. In addition of that, we had functionalities prioritised and the end users vision. That’s quite a lot right?
So now we are talking!
Just before going through all the details of the design phase, I have to share something important. The whole Idean team was convinced that the core team and top management will validate some design already tested and approved by the end users. This is why each demo was conducted in 30 minutes, with no debate but with a precise list of expected feedbacks. The rest of comments will be collected on InVision within a week. And this was really clear and straightforward but it worked rather well.
We came in with a draft hand sketches, with different approaches.
We did a first user testing session of 5 end-users. That was a really short session (30min) just to collect feedbacks about missing information, misunderstanding,… etc
We ran another session with more structured wireframes with 5 other end-users and we iterated.
Then we moved on to a low fidelity prototype. Here we started to better structure our test protocole with some scenarios and several type of tests.
Each one of our user testing sessions was conducted remotely with Zoom and started with the introduction.
It was followed by a non moderated test in order the user to understand the interface and let us know what he didn’t understand, and what was missing. After this step, we went through a 3 to 5 questions per pages if we hadn’t collected those answers in the non moderate phase.
After those sessions, we spent 2 days to improve the prototype in order to present it to the core team on the Friday.
As I said before, the rules were clear: We do not debate during those meetings, we did a top down presentation with all the key learnings and then we walked through the prototype.
And then we gave the core team members 3 days to think about the prototype, review it with a fresh mind and then comment on the Invision we shared with them.
We started the UI process when we were sure that the structure and the information architecture were strong enough to save time and rationalise the staffing. Plus, when you present the mock ups too soon, end users will no longer focus their attention on the architecture and this, to me, represents a tremendous design issue.
And when the visual design came into the game, our user testing sessions were absolutely intense! Users were literally amazed because they were used to seeing black and white interfaces. But they were also demanding more colours, more information. And they wanted to use it in their daily life to make more contextual feedbacks.
This is why you need to be really precise about the feedback you are expecting and you have to help the user to focus on the valuable part: the clarity of the interface, the consistency of the journey, the missing of information, interactions and good guidance, aesthetic and engagement.
Remember that your interface must be beautiful and aesthetic enough to engage, but it must also be usable. This is especially true for industrial project where people need to quickly take actions, react wisely. Your interface needs to guide him to take the best action. And here is the strong superpower of the test and learn method:
Help users lead your design team to build a solution that guides them to better achieve their tasks and to perform operationally.
Last but not least! if you choose this method… be aware that you have to get results
In 3 months, step by step, we delivered a valuable solutions with around 30 screens in a high fidelity prototype embedded micro interactions, that covered the user requirements, that have taken in account the business needs.
In the end we were able to engage end-users, the core team, and the management, in a process where we retained our expertise as designers and had the freedom to produce and make mistakes, while integrating business expertise on the client side.
This is one of my best project! I have never seen a client as happy as this! They were skeptical at the first glance, but at soon as we delivered the first wireframes, they were more keen to trust us. And at the last demo, they were full of praises.
OK, really that much of a dream?
Yes it is! I’ve been designing for long time now, and this is a great project.
However, I have to admit that the planets were aligned for multiple reasons.
Firstly because I led a wonderful experienced team, my hands were free in the methodology to pursue, and the client was able to hear what we had to say.
But it must be said that we were able to deliver valuable craft, because we had time, and we had removed a lot of deliverables that were not used to produce tangible things. We barely produced keynote presentations. No research summaries, very little user test summaries,… Only interfaces that needed to be broken to improve them iteratively.
And all of this remotely because of the Corona Virus… But it could have worked even more better with face to face test sessions in situ.
Let’s make magic happen:
Personally, I find this method to be very pragmatic and it brings concrete results that help both users and customers to project themselves without pressure.
Nevertheless, for it to work, I would say that you have to master your craft, and above all be transparent.
Here are 4 key points that I can share with you following this success case:
1. Have an experienced design team.
OK, it should seem a bit obvious, but believe me, when you work in an agency that need to staff people, getting the right team at the right moment could be a hard work.
You will need trust and long discussions! You need to know each other pretty well, to understand the language of the other designers. And to quickly deliver something and improve it each week. Breaking what you’ve done and try it again from scratch, could really seem like a failure. It could also lead to frustration. So, you need to be close to your team, understand that design is not about process and deliver, but it’s about human and creativity. So you have to deal with timelines as well as creative wandering.
2. Be clear with your client on the feedback that you expect!
One of the most difficult points but also one of the most important.
Your client is not a designer, he doesn’t know anything about architecture, page structure, user journey, or micro interactions. You have to help him to understand this pragmatically. With a prototype, you lead him to understand the concept, and how can this solution be good, or not, for the end-user… But you have to express clearly the elements that he can challenge and those that he can’t! And this needs to be clear from the first meeting!
You could say for example:
For your project, we are working for your end-users to improve the operational performance. And this is why we firstly test our interfaces before letting you see them. Because we want their feedback on the interface before you can challenge them! And you will be able to challenge few things. That’s to be expected. When you go to the dentist, you don’t tell him how to do it, right?
Explain to them what feedback you need, and also what feedback you don’t want. This is important for them, for end users, and also for your team.
3. Do your research! Get it done properly, but keep it short…
Have a walk with your end users, eat with them at the cafeteria they are used to eat, immerge yourself into their mindset. Listen carefully what they say. Ask your client to visit this area, ask them to see the maximum of documentation. Don’t be shy, even if it seems hard or impossible, ask, you never know! You need to be an expert in no time!
But, if you take your time, if you spend time on this field, your client might wonder why it is taken so long to get insights. Again, we are talking about industrial project! We did this in 3 weeks with different activities. So depending on the subject, I guess between 2 and 5 weeks it is still acceptable.
Even you research is not yet done, start to craft to learn better on tangible prototype.
4. Do what you say, and do it straight forwardly!
When you go with this type of craft method, you accept the responsibility of the transparency! You have to plan a realistic roadmap. Don’t overestimate your team competencies! Deliver some valuable and tangible results on time. If you miss a milestone, the trust will be buried for a long time.
This is why you need to focus on where are the valuable pieces here. On this project, I told my client that we would not produce insight booklets, personas or anything like this to focus on the more valuable part: the prototype. And at the end, everyone was happy with this. So don’t sell a dream… Tell the truth, and everybody will be alright.
Last, we went through a great project with some great results and this is mainly because of the team and the client perspective. So, when I go on a project, I choose wisely the method that fits the project, the team, and the client configuration…
The method is not the graal, but it helps you to deliver valuable great designs!
