Why you should buy more post-it notes
By the end of this I hope to do three things:
1. Get you to host a design thinking workshop
2. Buy more post-it notes
3. Be more empathetic (a bit of a stretch)
I hope this isn’t blatantly obvious but I’m a marketer. I’ve been in this field for less than a year and I’ve come to understand some interesting patterns. Here’s one of the biggest questions that I get all the time.
Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
To answer this, I want to pose 3 personal theories:
1. Marketing will intersect with UX/UI design
2. Marketing = Distribution
3. Good marketers can make $4+ on a $1 investment
I don’t want to waste your time — so I’m going to focus your attention to my first point. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the chance to interview a principal designer at Airbnb, the two founders/designers of Turtle Design, the product designer at Axiom Zen, and my girlfriend (design student at SIAT).
I interviewed these people simply because I’ve been fascinated by this framework and the impact it has on everything:
What is design thinking? And why should everyone learn how to use it?
Hold that thought — before we go too deep down the rabbit-hole, I want to break down the design thinking framework by the numbers:
$10.62 CAD for 1,200 post-it notes
Basic math of how you can use your post-it notes (individual use):
[Post-it notes per brainstorming session] 40–110
[Average post-it notes per session] ~75
[Total sessions based off of 1,200 post-it notes] 16
= 1,200 post it notes
How you can use post-it notes with a team (collective use):
[Average team size] 3–5 people
[Number of teams] 4
[Average post-it notes per session] ~75
[Number of total sessions] 4
= 1,200 post-it notes
How to convert post-it notes into great ideas (using the design thinking framework):
[Everything you know from the team section]
+
[Total number of ideas generated per team over all sessions] = 300
[Top 3 ideas per team over all sessions] = 12
[Total top 3 ideas from all teams and all sessions] = 48
[Total idea groups created based on top 3 ideas from all teams and all sessions] = 6
[Top 3 idea groups based on 1 vote per team member] = 3 great ideas worth exploring
Damn… did I lose you?
Here’s the simple explanation of design thinking
The design thinking framework is really one huge brainstorming session. The purpose of these sessions is to generate an idea or to solve a problem as a team. Each post-it note represents an idea or a solution. Let’s say you have 40 friends and you want to build a new product for babies (how did I manage to think of this…not entirely sure). The first thing you should do is split into 4 teams of 10 people.
Each team is then tasked with brainstorming different ideas about this new product, sometimes it can be done in 1 session sometimes it takes 3–4 sessions. At the end of each session, each team member needs to vote for their top 3 ideas. So if you had 4 sessions, that would mean your team would have 12 really good ideas.
Now add those 12 ideas with the other teams, that should give you a total of 48 good ideas. That’s not the end… once you have 48 ideas, I bet there’s some overlap! So your next goal is to group the ideas into categories. In this example, those 48 ideas conveniently fit into 6 categories.
All 40 of your friends have one last round of voting so everyone gets the chance to pick their favorite category. At the end, the winners are announced (there should be 3 categories/ideas left on the board).
Those are the fruits of your labor. Now that you understand how it works.
Let’s talk about why it works.
Without getting too ‘psychology’ on you, I want to explain my thinking.
1. Hive mind
2. Gestalt’s theory of Reification
How do insects specifically bees work so well together? What are some of the takeaways from looking at nature? Can we become better decision makers based off of their behaviors? How and why does working in diverse teams create better products/solutions?
‘Hive mind’ basically explains the basis of why design thinking works! Your 40 friends actually represent 80 minds or 120 minds, because the sum of its parts are greater than the whole. Here’s a sample.
Next!
This visual illusion called ‘Reification’. Do you see the white triangle in the middle? Even though there are no physical lines connecting the sides, your brain still registers the missing shape in the middle. Funny, how that is right?
Metaphorically speaking, this idea of seeing things that are not there can be applied to the design thinking framework (and much more). Imagine that each team represents the black shapes in this photo. What happens when all the black shapes (your team) come together with all 48 ideas? Well… it’s safe to say that the 3 great ideas that are generated during all the sessions are represented by the white triangle. The intersections between your team’s ‘hive mind’ and the visual illusion of ‘reification’ produces…
BOOM! Innovation? Million dollar ideas? The baby product of the century?
Well not quite… but it’s something to think about. There’s going to be a whole post dedicated to the intersection of marketing and psychology. For now, I want to highlight some of the interesting points from my interviews:
Shawn Sprockett (Airbnb)
Design thinking is definitely an interesting framework but at the core of the idea is the scientific method. The framework has its strengths and weaknesses; I typically use it for large projects that need to flesh out a lot of ideas during the ideation phase.
I wouldn’t say I’m a religious user of the framework. The strength really comes from unifying teams around good processes and focusing the business goals with user goals. Personally, as I become more experienced in this field it becomes innate. There are design problems that I can solve much faster because of all the mistakes I’ve learned from my early career.
Therefore, I can accelerate my findings and adjust accordingly depending on the project size. One of my biggest tips is to start at the end goal and then work backward. This way you will be able to counter the natural behavior to waterfall projects.
The design thinking framework can help guide new designers if they are inexperienced or stuck. But it’s missing a lot of elements such as team structure, communication standards, stakeholder reporting, and much more…
Amy Ngai (Axiom Zen)
Design thinking is the perspective of approaching all problems with the user in mind. There are a ton of exercises that they do around design thinking but the most important thing is to focus on the problem through the lens of the user. I remember when I was just starting out as a UX designer I was stuck on this particular problem. My mentor at the time helped guide me through the user flow by drawing a picture of the user and started asking me open-ended questions. This changed my perspective on how I thought about problems even to today.
One recommendation I have for new product designers is to build an understanding of the business goal. I spent a lot of time reading the business model canvas book, that helped extend my focus beyond just the user goals. Build personas, user flows, future scenarios but be sure to keep your metrics in check and have the ability to adopt rather than being married to one framework.
Josh Zak and Justin Tan (Turtle Design)
We think the design thinking process is great — but it ultimately comes down to the mindset of the designer and how they perceive the end-goal. One common trait that makes designers unique amongst other disciplines is the level of experimentation and curiosity.
Another trait is empathy, the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Good designers will be able to design something for a demographic entirely different from themselves because of these two traits.
With a framework such as design thinking, there are a lot of benefits that other disciplines can learn from, but there are two other areas that we think is extremely valuable. Many possible solutions’ is one of those areas and the other is the ‘human-centric’ approach. Both of which stem from the basic framework of design thinking but serve a different purpose.
Nikita Tauro (SIAT Student)
I’m actually a Registered Nurse by trade but I’m going back to school to learn more about UX/UI design. Back during my first bachelor degree, we learned about the nursing process: assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. As a nurse, it really opened my eyes when there were so many crossovers between these two disciplines.
I first learned about the design thinking process when I took an online course from IDEO. That was how I was initially introduced to the idea of prototyping and iteration. In my opinion, I believe that the design thinking process should be applied to other disciplines. It has a huge focus on empathy, something I’m quite familiar with working with patients within the hospital.
Marketing will intersect with UX/UI design
In the future, marketing will be more closely related to UX/UI design. You can already see the similarities when it comes to content marketing (especially Hubspot’s inbound methodology). There’s a huge emphasis on persona development and the reward of having a deeper understanding of the end-users. The goal in marketing is to attract more suitable users to the products/services you offer. The goal of a UX/UI design is to improve the overall experience of the end users. A marketing professional should spend more time in the UX space to really see the problem from the user’s point of view (empathy).
That’s important because marketing is no longer about big brands with big banners on big highways. It’s about focus and intention… Good marketing produces the optimal user experience from all stages of the funnel (acquisition all the way to referral).
By merging these two disciplines together it creates a fulfilling painting that answers these three questions:
1. How can I attract more users?
2. How can I solve their problems?
3. How can I make their lives better?
Using the design thinking framework to help jump start the ideation phase of any project is super-useful. It’s something that I am starting to use more often for work and for my side projects. It’s placing a structure around brainstorming and making it 10x more effective within team collaboration. Therefore, as I explore my personal theory of marketing + UX/UI, I will continue to utilize frameworks from both disciplines to ultimately improve my understanding of the end user.
What are some strategies you use beyond the design thinking framework? And how has it helped you and your team succeed?
Extra stuff you should probably know:
Shawn’s non-obvious reading list for designers
Josh and Justin’s go to book about design
Amy’s book recommendation on the business model canvas
Nikita’s favorite book on UX design
IDEO’s book on design thinking
