User Experience 2008
Chicago
Nov 2-7		 Amsterdam
Nov 16-21

Thinking by Design: How to Work with User-Centered, Cross-Functional Teams for Maximum Product Innovation

  • Chicago: Friday, November 7
  • Amsterdam: Friday, November 21

Armando González
Megan van Kriekan
Dorelle Rabinowitz

Full-Day Tutorial

How do designers and writers drive the essence and voice of their companies directly into their Web designs? How might the site experience match the perceptions users have about the company’s brand?

This tutorial will focus on the direct application of corporate strategies through user-centered design. Examples will include how eBay’s product design teams translated a new company vision and brand positioning into product design strategies that directly affected the user experience.

What You’ll Learn

In this session, you’ll learn:

  • How to drive corporate positioning and brand strategy into product strategy
  • How user-centered design incorporates user research methodologies
  • Discipline-specific best practices for interaction, visual design, and content strategy

Course Outline

  • Review of customer experience across all company touchpoints
    • The role of user experience design within product development
    • The role of the designer (vs. the artist)
  • A product design methodology
    • Phases and activities
    • Working in a cross-functional team
      • How marketing, brand development, user experience, and user research work together
    • The role of user research vs. market research
    • Overview of user experience research methodologies
  • Establishing a vision/purpose statement
    • Examples: eBay, Apple, NetFlix
  • Brand attributes: Tools that help you express the brand across touchpoints
    • Using brand attributes as drivers for design and voice
    • Using a brand framework
  • Positioning: Placing yourself in your industry
    • Understanding industry trends through competitive audits
    • Methodologies: SWOT, competitive audits
    • Positioning your company in the industry and developing a POV
  • Translating brand strategy into product strategy
    • How design attributes inspire and guide
    • The cycle of experience
  • Engaging your users
    • Personas: What they are, how they’re used, how they’re helpful
    • Example: eBay personas
      • How segmentation and ethnography inform personas
    • Discussion: How have you applied personas to your work?
  • Discipline specific guidelines
    • Voice & content
    • Visual design
    • UI design
    • Tying it all together: User experience best practices
  • Multi-disciplinary design as a change agent
    • Bringing together different cultures and overcoming tribal language
    • How design thinking can drive innovation in cross-functional teams
    • Pros and cons of Agile development
  • The product-design approach revisited
    • Creative tension
    • Benefits
    • How to apply this upon return

Format

This full-day tutorial features lecture and exercises, including a lunchtime exercise in which teams will do observational fieldwork.

Handouts

Copies of presentation slides.

Who Should Attend?

UX designers, UX researchers, content strategists, engineers, business leaders, and marketers.

Instructors

photo of Armando González Armando González is the Visual Design Director with eBay’s User Experience Design team. Armando has led the strategic design of eBay Express, the redesign of eBay Motors, and he is currently leading the design and implementation for a new design system that will significantly simplify the eBay.com experience. Prior to joining eBay, Armando worked for Yahoo! as a Creative Director where he led the design of the Search and Marketplace suite of products. Before working in web design, he worked at the San Jose Mercury News as a Lead Designer where he spearheaded the design from the ground up of the Mercury News Spanish publication Nuevo Mundo. Armando earned a BFA in Multimedia Design from California State University Hayward.
photo of Megan van Krieken Megan van Krieken is the Director of Global Content Management at eBay. Her team of 40 Content Managers and Content Strategists is responsible for creating all of eBay’s product content for 17 sites, in 14 languages around the world. Prior to eBay, Megan built the taxonomy and classification professional services practice at Convera, consulting to customers such as Associated Press, National Geographic and BBC London, and ESPN. Megan spent 16 years at Intel where as part of the Intel Content Group she led teams to develop and implement entertainment focused web sites for V-Trainer and Capitol Records.
photo of Dorelle Rabinowitz Dorelle Rabinowitz leads the Pattern Engine team at eBay, creating and maintaining a design system (patterns, guidelines & processes) that ensures a holistic customer experience. Previously, she directed user experience design teams at Google and Yahoo!, was an experience lead at SBI.Razorfish and produced Oxygen.com’s "Our Stories" site. She is on the advisory board of the IAI, and is a former editor of Boxes and Arrows. A graduate of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Dorelle also holds a BFA in graphic design from the Rhode Island School of Design.