DESIGN LEADERSHIP
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
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Led projects aimed to make an impact on different areas (UX Advocacy, Design Processes, Design Systems)
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Held workshops and presentations to different audiences and stakeholders
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Interim UX Lead in Avinode for a time where I ran 1:1s with the design team, involved in strategic discussions with other teams, and represented UX design in leadership meetings
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Certified in Leading for Creativity by IDEO
CASE STUDY: IMPROVING FEEDBACK
We had an established feedback process but there were definitely a lot of opportunities to make it even better
Background
Feedback is a vital part for any product team in order to know if we are moving in the right direction. After all, it's only by hearing from users who actually used the product can we know for sure if we are making an impact
We integrate different sources of feedback with EnjoyHQ, our research platform, and have feedback land automatically
There was potential to involve feedback even more
The company had a set process to look at feedback coming in where we could see what items needed to be addressed immediately. This was great for high priority feedback items but majority of the feedback coming in weren't urgent BUT still needed attention. Those kinds of feedback items were easy to be overlooked
How can we make sense of all this feedback?
We had a lot of feedback coming but wasn't a very effective way we could make sense of the different insights we were getting. One way that helped with this was by tagging each feedback item with key information such as which product the feedback was talking about, what jobs-to-be-done, which persona, etc. Although this was quite helpful, there were a lot of inconsistencies and challenges with this system
Challenge
How might we engage the department and the company with the feedback we've been getting in order to foster a stronger culture of human-centered design?
Discovery
I led discussions with the UX team on evaluating what were the key pain points in this area. After several internal meetings with different stakeholders, here were the key pain points we wanted to tackle:
We didn't have an avenue in the department to talk about feedback
A big issue we saw was that it was mostly the UX team who had most knowledge on the different trends and patterns related to the feedback we were getting and not so much the rest of the department. Our department has the mandate of defining the Product Roadmap for the company so it makes sense that our Product Managers should be more engaged with the feedback
The UX team struggled to tag feedback
One of the key things we do regarding feedback is that we tag feedback items with different attributes. This is done by the UX team. It has been a long time since anyone has revisited how our tagging system works and that made our team work with a system that was not necessarily relevant anymore to our current context
The company needed a better way to digest feedback
Another artefact that the UX team produces is our quarterly reports. This was a report that summarises the different trends we see with the feedback on a quarterly basis. The problem is that this has been difficult to read by most in the company due to how heavy the reading is and not every has the time to read the whole thing. This showed we were doing a lot of work for little impact
Big Idea
Looking at our challenge, I had implemented different initiatives to tackle each pain point that we have identified from the discovery
We didn't have an avenue in the department to talk about feedback
Solution: Monthly feedback meetings
I started a monthly cadence where we would go through some of the key analyses, trends, and highlights of the month in terms of feedback. This was also a good time to have some discussions and see if there were any immediate actions that needed to be done. This was done during our regular meetings so it was not adding on top of other meetings for the rest of the department.
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Format:
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Key features: This shows a chart of which features or products most feedback were about
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Key topics: This shows a chart of which key topics most feedback were about
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Adoption blockers: This shows a chart of feedback items that are deemed critical by our sales team
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Key highlights: Going through the feedback items, which items were important to bring up?
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Quotes: If needed, we would include actual quote to further elaborate on the feedback
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Potential action points: This was a section where we could place any immediate actions we could take
Solution: Quarterly Discussions: Deepdive workshop
Similar to the monthly feedback discussions, this happened on a quarterly basis where we would take a deeper dive into the different trends and analyses of the feedback.
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Main output
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Analyse the feedback
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Discuss if there were any releases to address the feedback or any plans to address the feedback
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Serve as a basis for roadmap discussions
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I would be the lead facilitator while the rest of the UX team support me in certain parts of the workshop. This invovled the entire department so we would often be around 12 people
The UX team struggled to tag feedback
Solution: Feedback tag audit
When feedback lands, we manually assign tags with different attributes to further enhance the data
By going through the different tags we use today, we were able to uncover some inconsistencies and overlaps which made it difficult for us to effectively and efficiently tag feedback.
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I took away tags that were duplicates, tags that we don't think makes sense, and tags that don't belong to that attribute. I also added tags that weren't relevant before such as new personas.
The company needed a better way to digest feedback
Solution: Improved quarterly reporting
Using the quarterly reports that we publish for the company, we are able to share the knowledge and awareness of feedback to provide transparency and encourage collaboration. The key issues we had was that the report didn't seem to provide much substance which led to less engagement.
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Old report:
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Only shows how common certain feedback items are based on different categories (e.g 40% talked about Product X)
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It used the different attributes to show the same output (e.g Persona, Feature, Feedback type, etc.)
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Would integrate some quotes from the user here and there
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In order to improve this, I took an iterative approach where we would consistently try different improvements and see if they were making a positive impact. I also held some workshops and feedback sessions with different stakeholders to better understand what is important for them
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Current updated report (after 4 iterations via feedback):
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We have an executive summary to show key highlights for those who don't have time to read
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Created a new format that highlights the topic, why it's important, and our analyses
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Added quick links for readers to see all the actual feedback items related to the subject
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Grouped feedback themes into the different product teams to have more focus
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Created a section dedicated to highlighting what we have done to address certain feedback items. This is a collaboration work with the Product Managers
What impact did this make?
With all these pieces contributing to the same big goal, we were definitely able to improve both how we process customer feedback and how the company sees feedback. Some of the key highlights include:
User feedback being a more central part during roadmap planning
We have seen a stronger involvement of user feedback during our key departmental meetings where we keep a better monitoring of the feedback that come in. These ultimately impacts how we see roadmap planning where whenever it's time to update the roadmap, we use the different outputs related to user feedback as a basis for what should be in the roadmap
More streamlined tagging process
I have improved and removed a big chunk of the clutter in our tagging process where it is a lot clearer now what tags are used for the feedback. This has enabled designers to be more efficient with their tagging process. During this process, we also have discovered other improvement points that we plan to address later on. So the work here definitely continues
More engagement from company
We see more discussions and engagement from the rest of the company. This is seen not just in the discussions and comments our colleagues would write about but also seen in key meetings where the report would be a key part to the discussion
CASE STUDY: OUR DESIGN PROCESS
With our team growing, it is important to align on how we do design in order to produce consistent work throughout the organisation
Background
In terms of the organisation structure, the UX design team sits under Product under the leadership of a Head of UX. Each product team has a designer where they collaborate with PMs and developers.
While designers generally have the same way of working at a general level, a need grew to clarify what exactly the design process. This was to ensure both consistency in the design work and also have a single source of truth when it comes to what the rest of the company can expect from the design process.
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I worked closely with the Head of UX in order to come up with a proposal.
Challenge
How might we establish a design process that can better encapsulate the work we do in order to properly align on what is expected as well as what role does each person has in the different stages of design?
Discovery
Given that there hasn't been a properly documented process as well as different people having strong opinions on this topic, we decided to start with having a discussion first amongst the designers. Since this was the design process, it made sense to make sure we were happy first in the design team with the next steps being to slowly expand the discussions with other teams.
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My role
I led these key discussions and it gave me enough input to start a first draft with the Head of UX and Chief Product Officer as the main stakeholders.
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Iterative process
Eventually I arrived at a good enough draft where I ran a series of workshops to communicate and get input from the Product Managers. I kept doing iterations on this until we have arrived at the latest version.
Key insights discovered
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Closing research rounds: We did not have a consistent way of concluding a research round. It seemed like there was a point where we just move on to the solutioning phase but it was not necessarily made clear to the team that we are moving now to that part in a formal way
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What can the rest of the company expect: An important insight was that people outside of design don't really have a good idea of what they could expect from the different steps and phases. It was also unclear when we move to different phases of the journey and what designers are expected to do next.
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E.g People being confused why we are still doing "discovery" when we are already doing design​
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Who is really in charge of a certain step: It gets tricky to know at each step what different people's roles are as well as who is expected to contribute at a certain stage. This also points out the level of involvement different roles should have in different parts of the process
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Some people would use different words to say the same thing: There were some cases where people would misunderstand one another because of key terminology. E.g Discovery would loosely by interchanged with Research. Discovery then becomes limited to just "doing interviews" when the scope covers so much more
Big Idea
After a series of meetings, workshops, and iterations, I finally landed on a version that we were fairly happy with. The next steps were to continue improving on the process with other relevant stakeholders and to use it as a tool when communicating the work.
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The main output was a Miro board visualising the design process. This is meant to show the general flow while still leaving room for case by case scenarios.
The output involved a flow chart that takes a step by step view on how design moves through the different product stages
Key aspects of the map
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A brief description of the map, what it is used for, and what it is not used for
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Each step consists of the following elements:
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Title: Briefly highlights the step​
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Description: A short description to describe the step. Links to a more complete documentation can be added
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Tool used: Using the tool icon (e.g Figma) to show where this step usually happens / the expected output
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RACI: Leveraging the RACI framework to know who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed
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Key questions are asked in certain steps (diamond shaped steps) as it presents a choice with different paths
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We use the same key terminologies in other key documents to provide consistency
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Highlights at certain key points in the flow, key documentation that is necessary to move on to the next step
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E.g Make sure to provide a Discovery Goals document before jumping into the Discovery Phase​
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What impact did this make?
Even though this artefact is a living document, we are already seeing positive change in the organisation.
Clearer key deliverables at certain stages
Designers as well as the rest of the organisation are more aware of what to expect from what another in certain stages. This means that people can count on the designers that they will produce certain deliverables at certain stages of the process
Clearer accountability
When it comes to key stages of the design process, there is clearer understanding of what the role of each person is. However, this is a continuous discussion amongst teams since some teams prefer to handle things differently than others (this goes back to the process being more of a general guideline with some accommodation to contextual cases)
More engagement from the rest of the company
This means there is more communication going on between different parties which makes the design more inclusive. Stakeholders are more aware of their role at different stages of the journey and what they can expect from the designers
Although there has been significant improvements through this project, the work still continues when it comes to communicating and ensuring that this process is adopted by the rest of the company. This also means that it is perfectly fine to revisit the steps and make improvements as we go along.