Seasoning with Stakeholders - Charles Warren, IDEO

Could also be titled “Delight” or “Wit” in design.

IDEO (idee-oh) is a design/innovation consultancy.

Charles says we should make big systems "witty". How do we do that? Through inclusion
and tyranny. He wonders: "we’re meant to inspire, but are we selling Chinese food?" That is, are we constantly trying to be innovative just for innovation’s sake? Do we worry about building something that’s cool and new just to build something that’s cool and new?

Warren says we’re "curating an experience" through design; each design is "telling a story" to the end user. If the end user doesn’t buy the story, they won’t buy the product.

Companies nowadays have "business model ADD": they’re trying to do everything instead of
just focusing on being good at any one thing, really selling and improving the experience around that product or service.

Charles once worked on a project with 700 stakeholders. How do you catalogue that many possible ideas and opinions? IDEO built a virtual space to "suck up" all that information.

Warren believes that there’s nothing better you can give someone than visualizing their idea: instead of listening and walking away, designers should throw down that stakedholder’s idea, even if it’s just in a rough sketch or comic.

Charles has three principles for winning over stakeholders:

• "Stakeholderstorming" - Brainstorming with all the stakeholders and remembering to get all their names so you can send them feedback and get their additional
  buy-in.
• Workshops - which all you to gather input efficiently
• Rough concepts - creating a wide range of choices for stakeholders to react to

Warren’s ideal production cycle (or production day), looks something like this: a few people converge; the designer gets permission on a design concept from the big group; the designer stands for the user in any and all discussions; working itensely and alone, the designer builds a product for an end-of-day critique; the end-of-day critique is the place for convergence and judgment.

Warren says we should aim to create a "Delightful Experience" How do we do that? By brainstorming with 5-10 people (or more with rigorous facilitation). In these brainstorms, we aim for divergent thinking instead of convergent thinking. Divergent thinking lets everyone put out their own ideas (everyone writes their idea on a Post-it and sticks it on the board), while convergent thinking features one recorder who can and their own view or terminology to an idea.

Q&A

• What’s the best way to train someone in facilitation?
  Designers are good at being facilitated. You have to practice and coach.
• Case Western promotes “appreciative inquiry,” which Charles recommends. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciative_inquiry”>Appreciative inquiry involves asking these three questions:
  1. What did we do that helped the process?
  2. What do we wish we could do next time?
  3. What do we want to try next time?

  Appreciative inquiry helps us to learn faster because we learn faster by repeating things we did right.

• How long do you wait to hand back a design concept?
  As close to real-time as possible. Put materials on a wiki to facilitate debate and review. Vote on concepts.
• Warren believes in openness to stakeholders
• Always brand it, put ideas in physical space
• Getting wit wrong: the Microsoft paperclip. It’s when you miss the basics first (you need to put get the basics of the experience down before you pepper it with wit).
• The core group is the client. Read Growth as a Business Practice, by GE’s Jeff Immelt.
• Can wit be boxing yourself in with an attitude?
  Maybe wit isn’t the right word?
  [Audience member]: Wit is the interface standing in for the human.

I think that my adapted version of that audience member’s session-closing comment is profound. It’s much easier to interact with an interface if the interface is interacting with you. We’d all rather be speaking to a human being, so humanize a design with "wit" or "delight." Think of an error message: the user is already ticked off because something broke. Tell them you get it by giving them the response you would want to receive if you were in their situation. Make the user feel like you’re sitting down with them, you’re sitting down with them, and you’re already trying to find a way to help.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 2:59 pm and is filed under learn, ux week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.