Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s what I’ve been looking at recently:

#1: You are NOT your user

A friend had asked me to send her a few resources on design thinking, and I was looking over my archives for some of my cornerstone resources. (I have a massive library from my work over the years). This is an oldie but goodie from about 3 years ago. It’s a fun 7 minute video from David Travis, founder of UserFocus.

We hear time and again how important it is to talk to potential and current users, and how not to make assumptions about what will work and not work. Yet even experienced designers can brush off a new product based on their own experiences. You’ll hear David talk about a product he was *sure* wouldn’t succeed, but went on to gross 6 million pounds at a telecoms company in a few months.

In my own work, I have been absolutely sure one of our ecommerce products was better than another, and yet I find that a merchant has a more suitable product for their goals and needs now. Not something they might need in 2 years, or something that is super robust. It meets their needs now. It’s quite humbling for me. I have the battle scars to prove it :)

As designers, it is a good reminder that there are very few things more important than talking to your users and watching them use product. You can probably count them on one hand. Watch the 7 min video and have a good laugh.

#2: Using AI tools like ChatGPT in service design

I know, I know - we are all TIRED of hearing about ChatGPT by now. I feel like every other post on LinkedIn is talking about it. As with any product, there is the hype, there are the haters, and then the actual product lies somewhere in between.

I have tested it out myself for content, but I find that personally it leaves something to be desired. I can see how it can help with the base for an outline or an article, though. Useful stuff.

Can AI be useful for designers? Does it add to, or take away from, human-centered design - when parts of the process are outsourced to a machine?

That’s what was discussed at this recent webinar from the Service Design Network. They talked through:

using AI for research, generating ideas, drafting service blueprints, and creating personas and prototypes.

Honestly, I’m pretty skeptical about creating personas and prototypes using AI. I think there are some parts of the design process that are too precious to be fully handed over to software. Maybe they can be used as a starter, but even then, we lose the collective thought process that goes with those two areas.

Not to mention, AI isn’t necessarily trained on diverse voices and opinions. I’d rather not have it design personas from a random tech bro’s perspective.

(I’ve enjoyed writing this again. I can’t guarantee I’ll do it on a regular interval - but I will certainly be writing more this year.)

Liked it? Subscribe if you haven’t. Let me know what you’d like me to write about next. I’ve got some ideas for design tools and books soon!

It’s been a while - happy new year to you all! I’ve personally had a crazy two months, but I’ve been saving plenty to share.

1: Something that has been on my mind for a while - how do we design for failure? Most times, we design for the path that we want our users to take - read an article, sign up for an email list, receive a few emails from our funnel, pay for a product, etc. But what happens when customers reach a point of “failure”? How do we correct for this? Our users are busy and often distracted. Good design takes this into consideration. I enjoyed reading this post from the Nielson group about how to keep “bad” options away from “good” options when designing an interface: “Dangerous UX: Consequential Options Close to Benign Options”

2: UX and product people are always telling you to talk to your users. In the past, this meant going out and speaking to your users wherever they might be. In their office. In your office. In a coffee shop. In Yaba. In fancy coworking spaces in VI. At meetups. But then, the ‘rona happened. And nothing has been the same. However, it doesn’t excuse you from speaking to your users. So how do you do it? Here are 30 tips from David Travis (video) to help you make the best of it. (I still think there’s no substitute for being in the same room as your users at least some of the time, but health and safety must take priority right now).

3: I started a Product Management course at the Product School this week. I’m really enjoying it so far (hopefully this stays the same through all 8 weeks!). The best product managers have a healthy understanding of human-centered design principles and use it at work every day. A lot of the tools that designers use are also used by product managers. We talk a LOT about users at Product School. Like, every hour! If people aren’t using your product, do you really have a product? Here’s a link from Product School on how to create your user journey maps.

That’s it for this week - let me know if you want to see other types of design content!

Keep well,

Uyai

Let’s get to it:

1) It’s the most wonderful time of the year! There are Christmas parties, office parties, family get togethers and even more events. Some of these events are a production and planned to the last detail. Others are boring or even worse - full of stress. How do you design your events so that you optimize the experience for your expected audience? You already know it - you can use design principles to do this. See how one Christmas play used UX design principles to improve the end-to-end patron experience.

2) Marissa Mayer famously tested 41 different shades of blue to get the perfect shade of blue that Google uses on its homepage. I found this article from the design blog at Google (which is worth a subscription for anyone interested in how they use design principles). It shows how fantastic a product can be when design and engineering work together. Here, the Google Maps team were able to simply the product’s color scheme and make the product easier for a billion users worldwide.

3) Last but not least - have you ever asked yourself why Santa is red and white? What role did design play in his suit coloring? And why can’t he be green instead?

Stay well,

Uyai

Here are this week’s links:

1. Dogs have a legendary sense of smell - did you know that they have up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, compared to only 6 million for humans? Apparently, humans have another kind of “scent” that is also important to how we experience life online. If you are searching for information online, how do you know to choose one link over another? The Nielson Group calls this an “information scent”, and I found this article quite intriguing. Psychology plays a key role in design, and this is just one way it manifests.

2. I love reading about how insights from design research can change a business or a project. In this piece, we hear about how Bank of America got inspiration for their “Keep the Change” program. They spent time doing research, holding many design sessions and coming up with over 80 prototypes. Since launch, the program has attracted over 12 million customers.

Bonus Random Link

By now, most of you have heard that Tony Hseih has died. He had several startups, but he is best known for building an amazing customer-focused culture at Zappos. In fact, the company is fondly known as “a customer service company that happens to sell shoes”. He shares his guiding principles in this episode of the How I Built This podcast and in his book, Delivering Happiness. It’s worth going through these to see how a focus on customer experience can lead to great success.

Parting Words

I’m a scout at Microtraction. Know any good startups on the African continent with some traction that need funding? Let me know!

Keep well,

Uyai

Here are this week’s links

1. A question I get asked a lot is how often a startup should do design sprints. Monthly? Weekly? I think that can vary by company. The more important question is WHY you are doing a sprint. Design sprints are a great tool, but if you use them for the wrong reason, it will be a waste of time. This article from Google does a great job of helping you walk through when you should do a sprint, and how best to plan for the sprint.

2. I recently stumbled on this interesting museum case study by 31 Volts. Does anyone just ‘go to a museum’? How can a business see how its customer perceive it, end to end? See how the design team at 31 Volts used shadowing techniques to gain a new perspective on visitors and change the way museums do outreach.

3. How do you know how much design to ‘throw’ at a problem? For every project, whether personal or work, there is always a balancing act between cost, speed and quality. Read this article to see how you can determine what’s required to win.

Bonus Random Link

The mafia didn’t come to prominence in a vacuum. It all started with lemon vineyards in Italy. Apparently lemons were central to the start of the mafia, and they designed their “work” around this initially. Listen to this Planet Money podcast: When Life Gives You Lemons, Start The Mafia?

Parting Words

I’m a scout at Microtraction. Know any good startups on the African continent with some traction that need funding? Let me know!

Keep well,

Uyai

A little about me: I’m always designing a business somewhere. I'm a scout for @microtraction (drop me a line if you have traction and are looking for seed funding). I mentor African startups at Google Launchpad Accelerator. Some days I’m an aspiring pilot. You can read my full bio here.

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