Greg Bell, Head of Marketing and Community at Topcoder, shares process-driven tips for getting great results by experimenting with design in the ideation phase.
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Transform User Experience by Exploring More Ideas with Design
1. Transform User Experience by
Exploring More Ideas with Design
Greg Bell
VP Marketing and Community
November 15, 2017
2. “Most people make the mistake
of thinking design is what it
looks like. People think it’s this
veneer — that the designers are
handed this box and told, ‘Make
it look good!’ That’s not what we
think design is. It’s not just what
it looks like and feels like.
Design is how it works.”
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3. Key Takeaways
Don’t let ideas
die on the vine:
pursue more early
stage ideas with
design to drive
breakthroughs
Designers have
amazing ideas:
uncover new
approaches and
ideas through the
design process
Design is how
it works:
use design to
drive the solution
and its technical
requirements
4. Design Thinking
● A methodology used by designers to solve complex
problems and deliver desirable solutions.
● Solution-focused, rooted in logic and imagination.
● Explores possibilities to create a preferred future.
● Matches people’s needs with what’s technically feasible.
5. Exploratory Design
Generates new ideas
through reactions to the
design concepts.
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Executional Design
Generates outcomes that
become part of a digital
experience.
6. Example: Exploratory Web UX Design
Goal: visualize a web app that
lets users quickly generate
simulated data of vessels
traversing seas and oceans.
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7.
8.
9.
10. Exploratory Design Tips
Invite collaboration: make your SMEs
available to designers
Provide feedback: give detailed input on
preliminary and final designs
Socialize the results: use designs, not
requirements, to drive conversations
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11. CPG Company
Example: Exploratory Mobile UX Design
Goal: visualize a mobile app that
leverages employee brand
knowledge and allegiance to
capture data when the brand is
not represented correctly.
12.
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15. Example: Exploratory Mobile UX Design
Goal: create UX concepts for a
mobile retail application that
provides a seamless customer
and shopping experience online
and in-store.
Design thinking is a well-known and highly-effective method that encourages people to open their minds and take a different approach to complex problem solving. Not only does it bring together individuals that have different views on a problem, but it also allows for amazing collaboration and communication.
Obvious parallels to crowdsourcing here?
Design thinking is a five-phase process that puts people in focus. The first two phases are all about gaining a clear understanding of the problem and the target customer.
- Empathy
- Define
The other three phases are dedicated to working on solutions and perfect for crowdsourcing.- Ideate- Prototype
- Test
Leveraging different type of iconography to quickly understand what is happening. How do you show speed, direction, significance? How can a user quickly understand the current (and future) situation. Concepts here are showing projections of vessels in the future based on current known course and data.
https://www.topcoder.com/challenges/30059753/?type=design
ChipCo is looking to create a mobile application focused on leveraging employee brand knowledge and allegiance in capturing details and feedback when their brand is not being represented correctly (ie. My favorite box of cereal is dirty/damaged or missing (out of stock) at the grocery store so I take a photo and provide feedback).
ChipCo has amazing employees that have strong brand allegiance. This mobile application will allow them to quickly take a photo and share the details and comments of the brand or product not being displayed/presented correctly.
This initial interaction of this application is simple. We are also looking for your thoughts on new concepts beyond the core interaction - where can we go with this application?
- Gamification? Badges or rewards?
- Photo tagging (GEO tagging) to help capture location and store details of the issue
- Photo history or ticket process of knowing that something was resolved? (Does this matter?)
- Cognitive - does a bot make sense or other features where the application does specific things for you?
- User can submit photos, videos or voice
Internal crowdsourcing of brand usage!
243894 https://marvelapp.com/a40babj
What’s the user flow/experience. Brought in community feedback - middle section on dashboard. Start with the dashboard and what is important to this user? This employee? What helps them quickly capture evidence?
243897 https://marvelapp.com/6fhic4e
Bringing in the idea of a BOT that might welcome the user and coach them through the initial experience. Dashboard shows metrics around issues they have captured (and have the issues been solved?). Far right introduces gamification concepts.
243849 https://marvelapp.com/a3f7eae
Focused on the CHATBOT experience - the Bot is the app. App takes you through a journey, communicating with you, prompting you. This approach is more prescriptive the user doesn't need to hunt and explore - they are prompted for next steps or actions. If you’re near a store the app can notify you to check in or understand where your brand should be located.
https://www.topcoder.com/challenges/30059935/?type=design
This RUX is all about creating designs for a Mobile Retail Application that provides:
- A single platform for Retail Customers who want to use a mobile application to find products (laptops, peripherals, gaming devices) and access to software and software licenses.
- The ability to see marketing information, offers, what's new
- The application will have insight into the user's engagement with the company (and can provide the company a better understanding of devices/software that they need - creating a customer 365 view). This information can continue to help create a better customer experience with the company.
- This application is meant to provide a seamless shopping experience for both online and in-store.
244400https://marvelapp.com/536h2cb
This challenge was focused on the integration of the "Online Store Experience" with the "Brick & Mortar (physical) Store Experience". This design is showing concepts of products you are interested in and proximity in the store (plus a discount since you are in the store). The far right shows a conversation (in-store) prompted by you arriving.
244392
https://marvelapp.com/2bd8c07
This designer is capturing the "employee" experience of managing a customer as they arrive at the store (Blue screens) in the goal of a Single Platform to drive both the customer and employee experiences.
244393
https://marvelapp.com/53a4358
A few concepts here around a feed that discusses products and in-store Augmented Reality options for pointing out products and cost savings.