When companies start to invest in Growth as an organization, team velocity is top of mind. As design leaders, how do we optimize for learning and moving quickly while maintaining a high bar for the user experience? How do we ensure design has a seat at the table? In this talk, we’ll go through some ingredients and methodologies that help establish design as a key partner in growth teams.

1. Design
for Growth
LX2017 Angel Steger

2. Angel Steger
Design Lead @
Pinterest
New User Experience
User State Machine
Notifications

3. Agenda
Growth
Role of Design
Velocity
Keys to success
1
2
3
4

4. Growth is all about
connecting users to
value—creating a path
to value inside the
product.

5. What is Growth?
Core Product Developing our core features and value proposition
Growth
Optimize UX to onboard and train users to understand,
get value from, and repeatedly use our product.
Brand/Marketing Show and tell our product story

6. What is Growth?
It’s more than momentary wins

7. What is Growth?
If you want to be a sustainable

8. What is Growth?
Momentary wins Thriving

9. What is Growth?
Focus Growing the number of engaged users
Responsibility To develop and optimize the user journey such that
non-users grow into longterm, engaged users
Mindset Learn as quickly and efficiently as possible

10. Responsibility To develop and optimize the user journey such that
non-users grow into longterm, engaged users
Why design matters

11. User satisfaction drives
longterm engagement:
1. Repeat behaviors
2. Word of mouth
Role of Design

12. Role of Design
Product
Design
Eng
What will be most
impactful for our
business?
What will be most
impactful for our users?
What is the most efficient
way to get to the most
impact?

13. Design is best
positioned to
understand / what
users want / when they
Role of Design

14. Team & experimentation
Growth is
also about
velocity

15. Hypothetical Engineer
or Product Manager
“Does this really need
design? Design is
just going to slow us
down.”

16. “I’m the guy who does his jo
You must be the other guy.”

17. What impacts velocity?
Lack of data
Conducting experiments that could have been answered
via data had there been proper logging (Eng)
Poorly-defined problems
If product does a poor job of defining the problem,
design
ends up being tasked with defining the problem and the
solution simultaneously (PM)
Mistaking haste for velocity
“This will be so easy, no design work needed” (XFT)
—> experience breaks on edge cases, polluting data
“We don’t need those details” (PM, Eng)
—> experience breaks, leading to insignificant results
Muddled experiment
Too many things being tested at once to understand
what is
going on (XFT)

18. Example muddled experiment (thx @ Scott Tong)

19. Example muddled experiment (thx @ Scott Tong)

20. How to address those issues
Ensure proper logging
Design and PM set up plan for learning so that Eng can
build in proper logging
Define problems clearly
Due diligence for a true hypothesis and metrics for
success helps Design focus on what matters
Be deliberate to be fast
Think through edge cases; 1/2 day work can save weeks
Understand experiment significance: as little as a 1%
more effective execution can lead to learning weeks
faster; negotiate tradeoffs as a team around
effectiveness
Test one thing at a time and
improve iteratively
Design experiments to incrementally lead to your
ultimate vision so every learning is clear

21. XFT Process
Each discipline is
accountable for things.
Everyone is
responsible for
everything.

22. XFT Process
Define the
problem
Explore
solutions
(Design)
Set up
experiments
Build & test
(Eng)Analyze
results

23. Project Doc: single source of truth
Problem (PM)
Solutions explored
(Design)
Experiment setup (XFT)

24. Design iterations
Good
Better
Best
Enough to learn
Quality, consistency,
Polished, performant UX

25. How do we ensure
design is successful?
Keys to Success

26. Value
“This is enjoyable
and useful”
Diversity
“I can see myself using
this in many situations”
User Intent: “This is relevant to what I want to be doing right now”
1. Focus on user intent & motivation
Comprehension
“I get what this is”

27. 2. Develop the user journey
What are the different states of
comprehension and
engagement?
How might we ensure better
delivery of product value to
users?
When is the right time to scaffold

28. 3. Staff teams with lightbulbs and lasers
Generating ideas Decision tree for learning

29. 3. Train designers with research and
metrics (and their limitations)
Who? Market Research, Market Sizing
What? Quantitative Research, Data Analytics
Why? Qualitative Research

30. 4. Show over tell concepts to XFT
Show how delight
maintains motivation
Make them witness
user pain realtime

31. 5. Establish rails to enable
experimentation while protecting UX
Manage shipping
% for learning only
Be gentle with
vulnerable user
types
Review with other
teams to ensure
UX continuity

32. Growth is all about
connecting users to value.
Design can leverage user intent to suss out who/
when/how to deliver value.
With proper XFT support, design drives velocity
and learning towards sustainable ecosystems of
engaged users.

33. Thanks!
@angelsteger
https://www.pinterest.com/angelsteger