Goal
A product team was planning an exciting new product offering targeted at millennials and other digitally-savvy people. The lab I worked at partnered with the team during the early exploration and product definition phase.
I did a wide variety of design strategy work. Below are a few highlights.
HIGHLIGHTS
Helping communicate the vision
The user value proposition was hard for people to relate to. I proposed and created a series of storyboards to communicate these ideas. These storyboards helped unlock support for the project.
I wrote about how I create storyboards on Medium.
Providing a framework to consider design decisions
Early in the project, the innovation team and the product team mapped a future journey for the purchase funnel. I was concerned that
I added two layers to this journey. The first was potential barriers to converting down the funnel. These were based on behavioural science insights. The second was how we might counter these barriers. My colleague and I used this to prioritize areas for ideation.
I wrote about how I review workflows for potential barriers on Medium.
Personality-based Targeting
I had the opportunity to talk with leading behavioural scientist & designer – Jason Hrera. He recommended focusing on the personality of target users, rather than other characteristics (which can be transient). This basis for this is self-congruity theory: People like products that they perceive to be like themselves.
Based on this advice, I proposed a target personality for this product. This personality was based on the OCEAN characteristics. I introduced an app persona guide as a tool for the team to have conversations about how the app should look, feel and sound. This guide helped the team develop a consistent voice.
I then proposed and prototyped a concept that specifically addressed the concerns of the target personality. This concept tested very well and was put on the roadmap.
Outcomes
The work that I did with the team helped the product team think about user-centred design in a new light. They embraced the tools that I introduced and started to bring me into early discussions for new projects.