UXLx 2017 — Day 2 — UX Strategy Blueprint & Storytelling in design

The second workshop day is gone and I have to say that there is a lot of inspiring people on this conference. Let’s dive into my notes from two workshops which I attended. I don’t want to experiment, so I keep a form from a first day article. Every workshop will have quick summary and then a list of points which I want to remember.

UX Strategy Blueprint — Jim Kalbach

Building strategy is a creative exercise to design a way of overcoming your key challenges to reach a desired outcome with an interlocking set of choices for consistency in action. — Jim Kalbach

Summary

For me, this was one of the most anticipated workshops here. I really enjoyed the discussion about what is the strategy, there was a lot of good definitions. Also, it was a great way how to start a workshop. This workshop was a lot about goals and principles. It was guidance how to create a strategy on a team level.

What do I want to remember

• Planning is very important, but planning isn’t a strategy.
• The corporate strategy needs to be generic, but UX strategy should be as specific as possible.

• Designers need to be good facilitators, not only creators.
• Don't present, co-create.
• When trying to achieve big change in your company, be patient.
• 7 ingredients of UX strategy

• UX strategy should focus on similar things as the product strategy. It can inspire product managers to focus more on customers.
• When creating a UX Strategy Blueprint, focus on the customer. What are desired outcomes for customers? What do we want a customer to become?

• After you finish UX strategy blueprint, take a break. Then come back to it and try to rephrase it more in words of your customers.
• Aspirations can influent product strategy.
• When creating guiding principles, be specific to your target group and avoid generic reasons. The rule “Be simple” is a necessity, not guiding principle.

• It’s good to have a list of all methods team can do. It’s easier to select the best methods for the problem. You can use MethodKit.
• If you have more different target groups (eg. student vs. teacher), use post-its of different colors.
• AARRR metric is great for making more people talk about metrics. When defining metrics, try to thing about outcomes for the customer.
• Sailboat challenge is good for realizing what is holding us back, how we can move faster and what might get in our way.

• Scrum Sprint is about delivery, not about exploration. Separate delivery and exploration phases.
• Create one slide with your the most important points you want to communicate to stakeholders. Include it in your every presentation, or print it and put it on a wall.
• UX Playbook can be useful for sharing knowledge in your team.

Presentation (similar to one Jim was showing to us) about UX Strategy Blueprint is available on SlideShare.

Storytelling in design — Anna Dahlström

We’re not just making pretty interfaces, we’re actually in the process of building an environment where we’ll spend most of our time for the rest of our lives. We’re the designers. We’re the builders. — Wilson Miner

Summary

First part was about storytelling, it was good. Anna mentioned the structure of every story and then we tried to create our own story. As a method, we used some form of journey mapping with story layer. Storytelling is great, but in the future, I probably won’t add this abstract story level to a journey map. It feels more confusing then helpful.

What do I want to remember about storytelling

• As a species, we are addicted to stories. Stories capture our imagination.
• There are 7 principles of good storytelling.

• In a good story, everything happens for a reason.
• If you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it.
• There is no story without characters.

Other nice points from that workshop

• It’s important to understand a context in what user lives in.
• We are no longer in control. Google and social are the new homepage.
• Let users find their way around your content.
• Data tells us everything and nothing.
• Journey mapping is great for breaking down silos in the company. It also gets people to work together.
• When designing, ask these questions: What do we want our users to see? What is the story we want to tell them? How do we want to feel them?

Full presentation for more details about storytelling is available on SlideShare.