This presentation was given at Web Directions South 'What do you Know' evening in Melbourne on April 4 2013, it talks about how design is about compromise, collaboration, and translation as well as innovation - and how to create shift in organisations.
How to design without p***ing people off - with thanks to Rudyard Kipling
1. Designing without p***ing people off
Harriet Wakelam
….with
Apologies to Rudyard Kipling
Thanks to the principle of knowing the rules well so that you can break them
2. If you can keep your head when all about you
…Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
3. If you can dream – and not make dreams your master
…If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
…If you can meet with triumph and disaster
4. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
….If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
….Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch
5. ..and yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise…
6. ..hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”
8. And then……
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it
And – you’ll design great change without p***ing people off
Editor's Notes
At NAB the customer experience team sits with a foot in both customer and business camps. We deliver both expert human centred design and build capability for the business. As a design team we are the ‘creatives’, so how do we get taken seriously? How do recommendations we make as designers get accepted by expert product teams? The metrics we work with are complex and emerging - we can’t accurately predict how many extra conversations between our customers and bankers will result from a change in process or interface, or how many extra sales will be made from a more ‘human’ sign up process, so how do our design recommendations get taken seriously without aggravating people or building a divide between the CX team and business units which are so heavily focussed on the tangible aspects of sales uplift.All about you is fiery, losing it and demanding conversion metrics when all you can provide is improved experience… Alistaircunningham.com http://alistaircunningham.com/wp-content/uploads/20090920152521.jpg
Experience design can appear arrogant - nobody wants to hear that their ideas are bad, or the innovation won’t work with customers. They want things fixed, and they want to own the solution. By using drop in centres, Yammer and other tools we work closely with our stakeholders, provide constant updates and define expectations early to avoid catching people off guard. Although people don’t always like us, it’s as much our job to help them like us, to believe in what we are offering and to use our recommendations as it is to produce polished design solutions.
Culture of collaboration design is delivered through participation and integration. This has gained us long term friends, helped us to deliver radical concepts which would otherwise have been rejected, and help see these through to delivery. It has helped us repurpose successful ideas when their time has come, share knowledge openly, let go of great ideas and let them belong to others. In short we help other people look good while delivering new ways of thinking about customer.
A powerpoint to a full blown prototype, ATM – a few tweaks to assisting in the redsign of the screen experience, money tracker, UI testing, to understanding the customer experience, retail store design, moving into designing the end to end experience.
the design we deliver as experts, and the way we enable the business to become customer centric. Stefan Berg stated that “good brands are like good friends”: so are good customer experience teams. We have found that the most effective way to deliver human centred design in a large organisation is to create trust, be supportive, be there for the long term and to listen - a lot.