Process: Journey Mapping

When your organization’s goal is to differentiate on the experience, you must start every product-development project by defining the experience that you want people to have with your product or service. Companies that differentiate on the experience do not begin by defining feature sets. They first define a vision for the experience outcome that they intend to deliver to their users and customers. Only once your team fully understands the experience outcomes that you want users to have can you make good decisions about what features and technologies would optimally support that vision.

This is the fourth column in our series about what companies must do if they want to stop producing average user experiences and instead design great experiences. As we have already stated in our previous columns, great UX teams focus on differentiating their companies through design. If that’s your goal, you need to work for a company that shares your aspirations. Read More

Author: Jeff Patton, with Peter Economy

Publisher: O’Reilly Media

Publication date: September 2014

Formats: Paperback, ebook, and Safari Books Online. 324 pages in print.

Print ISBN: 978-1-4919-0490-9 and 10:1-4919-0490-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4919-0485-5 and 10:1-4919-0485-2

List Price: Paperback, $34.99; ebook, $29.99

Overview

If you are or soon will be working in an agile development environment, User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product, by Jeff Patton is a must read for you. This book details story-mapping techniques and explains why they are important for teams that create products to meet user needs. According to Patton, user story mapping is not about creating set of written requirements, but a way of thinking. Telling stories through words and pictures builds understanding and helps solve problems for organizations, customers, and users.

The most important job we have is to focus on the outcome and the impact of the products we are creating. Taking a slightly philosophical view of the importance of project outcomes, Patton writes, “The truth is, your job is to change the world.” Read More

When you’re participating in large stakeholder meetings, using analog UX strategy tools can often be a helpful and fun means of clarifying and working through a product, problem, user goals, or business goals. In this article, I’ll explain some benefits of using analog tools during large meetings and workshops, as well as how to encourage people’s participation and develop a shared understanding among everyone who is involved.

Discovering Analog Tools

From concept to execution, using hands-on tools throughout the UX design process can improve collaboration, communication, and the organization of your ideas in ways that digital tools cannot. For example, when kicking off a project, using simple sticky notes to post your ideas on a wall can offer huge benefits. In his book Change by Design, Tim Brown, CEO of the design and innovation company IDEO, recommends using sticky notes because they allow a group of people to agree on solutions when many possibilities exist. People bring their unique knowledge and expertise to the table, and using sticky notes lets you organize large amounts of information concisely, while keeping a meeting fun and interesting. Read More