1. DESIGN AT YOUR
STARTUP
KIM DOWD & NINA MEHTA

2. KIM DOWD Product Designer
User Research
Interface Design
Visual Design
Product Strategy

3. Product Designer
NINA MEHTA
User Research
Interface Design
Visual Design
Product Strategy
Marketing & Media

4. Design is making things
who, why, how

5. Designers
Talk to users
Propose Layouts
Write Code
Sketch Features
Create Scenarios
Make Moodboards
Draw Icons
Write Copy
Pick Colors
Choose Fonts
Define
Dropshadows
Run A/B Tests
Know Entire
Product
Find User Goals
Summarize
Findings
Try Many Options
Define Your Brand
Make Prototypes

6. Startup Design Process
Empathiz
e
Defin
e
Ideat
e
Prototyp
e
Test
Stanford d School

7. Designers at startups
advocate for your users

8. Talk to users
in person

9. Leave the office
Go where your users are

10. Defining the next feature
This topic is huge.
But basically, its a mix of
- listening to users
- watching users
- strongly defining your value props
- knowledge of an effort/value ratio
- sense future landscape

11. How to create a feature
Scenario based design, testing, building

14. Choose a feature
You have expertise in your field. You’ve
used that to make a product. You want to
make a new feature, based upon user
requests, your knowledge in the field,
new research.
for example
“Make it easier for users to view many
photos”

15. Be specific: Who & What & Why
“Make it easier for a tween to view
images
similar to the one she is looking. If she
sees many images she likes, she will
come back.”

16. Be Measurable
“Make looking at a new photo easier than
clicking the back button or close button for a
tween to explore photos similar to her current
one.”
“Lower current bounce rate on main photo
page by 20%.”
“Raise click through to new photo by 20%.”

17. Who is this Matilda?
her needs
to feel inspired visually
to craft an identity based upon “hearting”
to connect with similar people
her media
current screen size: every smart phone,
tablet, laptop size in the world
her fav thing on the site
hearting something

18. Scenario
A story with people.
Like Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo escapes his house through a
window.
He prances towards Juliet’s house
He feels inspired by love and hormones.
He sees her silhouette through the
window.
He throws rocks to get her attention.

19. Scenario
A story with people, feelings and data.
Matilda, the tween, searches for photos of
flowers.
Thousands of images return.
She is drawn to a trendy one.
She looks at the close up of it, and noting that
many other people have “hearted” it, she
hearts it as well.

20. Time to sketch
pictures of sketches - must dig through
and find

22. Test against Scenario
Look at each flow
See if it works for the scenario stated.

23. Prototype
Paper
Screen based (Pop App, Invision App, PPT,
Keynote)
Fast, crappy code

25. Quantitative data
Google analytics
Mixpanel
Kissmetrics
Crazyegg

26. Quantitative Data

27. Qualitative Responses
“I hate this. The images don’t fit on my
screen.”
“Soooo much better.”

28. Summing it up:
Scenarios & measurable tests
1. Create a scenarios that tells a story or
usage.
2. Draw a lot crappy designs, to test against
the story.
3. Choose a few to prototype quickly.
(paper, etc)
4. Test qualitative data against metrics.
(20%)

29. Seventh Inning Stretch
Questions?

30. Making sense of a complex
feature
“But this feature a bajillion steps and can
takes 8 weeks to process!”
Card sorting!

35. Ship early, ship often

41. Daily
schedule
Standup
Work with dev
Sketch
1 feature at a time
Kill the meetings
Weekly schedule
Monday Fixing
Tuesday Create Big Ideas
Wednesday Create Small Details
Thursday Make prototype
Friday Test with Users
Saturday Oh Sh*t day
Sunday (recover)

42. Design at startups
Human Centered
Iterative
Structured

43. Go outside
Sleep at night
Eat your vegetables

44. Ask Questions
ninameh@gmail.com
kimsheblue@gmail.com