Skill Building For Design Innovators

Skill Building For Design Innovators
@steveportigal

Portigal Consulting is a bite-sized California firm that helps companies discover and act on new insights about their customers and themselves

The Promise of Mastery

Methods vs. Muscles

Today’s Session
I’ll review some of the muscles I think are important
Noticing
Listening
Understanding cultural context
Synthesizing
Wordsmithing
Drawing
Embracing pop culture
These muscles drive how we understand users, collaborate with each other, and create design solutions
For each, at varying levels of detail
What are we talking about
Why does it matter
How to build these muscles
I’ll talk steadily for the first 40 min. or so, then we’ll have Q & A at the end

1. Noticing
Noticing the noticing sensation
Things that make you go “Hmm”
Your attention is grabbed
You stop what you are doing
Laugh/point/cringe
Furrow brow in confusion
Whuttha…?

Noticing Our Users
Gaps between self-reported and actual behavior
Workarounds, hacks and kludges
Process breakdowns
Artifacts or details to ask about
Not only what people say, but how they say it

Noticing helps you to notice later

Building Noticing Muscles
Carry a camera/notepad and use it
Thinkaloud protocol – say what you’re seeing
To a friend
To your device
Get out of your regular/comfort zone

Building Noticing Muscles

2. Listening
Interpersonally, we’re trained to hear the breath signals that it’s our turn to talk. This is not really listening.
FI
NISHED

Listening Body Language
Yes!
Not so much.

You can demonstrate that you are listening by asking questions!
Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up
“Earlier, you told us that…”
“I want to go back to something else you said…”
Signal your transitions: “Great, now I’d like to move onto a totally different topic”
This level of listening is not how we normally talk to each other
Remember that you are interviewing, not having a friendly chat
This is really hard
Expert Listening in User Research

Building Listening Muscles
Use serendipitous encounters with loquacious taxi drivers, airplane neighbors, or social-cue-missing party chatters
Even if we can’t repair society’s listening inequity, we can use it to provide endless practice space
Are you talking to me?

3. Understanding Cultural Context

What is Culture?

Culture Defined
How a group of people make sense of the world
Common
Experiences
Beliefs
Knowledge
Values
Attitudes
Behaviors
Meanings
Patterns
Symbols

But First: Cultural Norms
Articulates what is normal
Seen in artifacts
Media
Products
Advertisements
Street culture
Trends and fads
Normal isn’t “right or wrong” – it’s the set of background rules that define much of what people choose or ignore

What is Normal?

Cultural Context Experiences
With these examples, think about your own experiences with culture
Is this outside your norm?
Is this something you have an analog for in your own culture?
Is it your own culture?
Have you observed this? Or something similar?

Cultural Context Muscles: Collect Your Stories

Cultural Context Muscles: Observe Observers

4. Synthesizing
Synthesis is essential if we want to use customer information to do more than solve “point needs”, i.e., to innovate

Idealized Synthesis Process
4
5
2
3
1
6
Objectives
Findings
User Experience Brief
IdeationQuestions
Possible Strategies
Possible Solutions
DetailedSolutions
7

Building Synthesis Muscles

Expert Synthesis Process
4
5
2
3
1
6
Objectives
Findings
User Experience Brief
IdeationQuestions
Possible Strategies
Possible Solutions
DetailedSolutions
7

5. Wordsmithing
Different than writing prose
We draw on this when
Writing PowerPoint
Creating effective hyperlink labels
Naming UI or product functionality
Articulate findings about customer mental models (i.e., difference between automatic and smart)

Building Wordsmithing Muscles

6. Drawing

Drawing

Why Drawing?
The more ways you have to work out ideas (alone or with others), the more impactful you will be
Moving a pen on paper will to engage your brain (and your audience’s brain) in a different way than moving a mouse or typing on a keyboard

Sketching and Beyond

1,000,000 Giraffes

Building Drawing Muscles
Draw
It doesn’t matter that you “can’t draw”
Kate Rutter calls it putting marks on paper to take the fear out of it
Get other people to draw

7. Pop Culture
“Pop culture is a rich source of information that can often be crucial for our work. When the public begins to compare and contrast the voting for American Idol with voting for the American president, that’s something we want to pay attention to. Dismissing this cultural data by sniffing ‘I don’t watch American Idol’isn’t a relevant response.”
Steve Portigal
Living In the Overlap
interactions, Sep+Oct 2008

Pop Quiz

To Know (About) Him Is Not To Love Him

Building Pop Culture Muscles
Read/watch broadly yet shallowly
Go outside your interests
Not about being complete, but about expanding your base
Skim, surf, flip – TV, RSS, headlines, publications, etc.

Building Pop Culture Muscles
Consume the meatConsume the meta

Muscles and Where We’ll Use ‘Em

Another muscle to consider might be…
Yeah, I’ve got a question for ya…
One new thing I learned today is…

Thank You!
@steveportigal
steve@portigal.com
415-894-2001
Portigal Consulting
www.portigal.com

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Skill Building For Design Innovators

by Steve Portigal

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