WebVisions2016 Presumptive Design Workshop

Editor's Notes

• #2: 1 MINUTE LEO Welcome everyone! Let’s get started!
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• #4: 6 MINUTES - LEO We have a lot of people here – thank you! In addition, we have a lot of material to cover – which we expect to be immediately actionable and useful to you in your day jobs. Because of the number of people and the 3.5 hours, we will work hard to keep us on time and keep the agenda moving. You can help as well by keeping side conversations to a minimum, by listening attentively to others when they are presenting and by concentrating on the activities. And we will have a number of fun activities. At about 4:00 we’ll be joined by several volunteers who will be working with you as you validate strategy using artifacts. We will be photographing and recording parts of today’s session. If you would not like your image recorded, please take one of the sheets from the center of your table and place it in front of you. This course has a companion book, available to course attendees for purchase at the end of the course. We’ve made a limited number of signed copies available at almost 40% off retail. If you aren’t prepared to purchase the book today, you can get a copy through our website and still enjoy a substantial discount with free shipping. Flyers for this discount are available here at the front of the room. Okay – very briefly – a little about us, your instructors today, and a few questions about you. <Leo Introduction> <Charles Introduction> Please stand up if you consider yourself a designer. Please stand up if you are a researcher A student A strategist A leader or manager in your group or organization. Whoever is still seated, as you stand, please shout out your primary responsibility or job. Now – please sit down if you are part of a creative, consulting or other form of agency. Please sit down if you are part of a school. Is it safe to assume the folks who are standing are employed by a company, freelancing or looking for an opportunity? Excellent – thank you for helping us get a sense of who all is in the room.
• #5: 3 MINUTES - LEO This course is designed to get into the process as quickly as possible, offering you real-world business problems as the focus of your efforts today. You will be working in teams to help two local entrepreneurs evaluate their strategy. They have worked hard to prepare their materials for today’s session with the expectation that you’ll both validate and identify opportunities for improving their strategy. We expect the next few hours to be fun, to be playful, and to be a safe place to explore some shifts in our typical approaches to problem resolution. But let’s be clear: there are several things the workshop won’t be able to do: Given the limited time frame, we don’t expect to actually solve these companies’ problems or offer a reworked strategy. Instead, you will use their design briefs to apply the Presumptive Design process, specifically in the context of understanding the problem space behind their products and services. Again, given the timeframe, we don’t expect you to become proficient at PrD – the best way to do that is practice. With that said, of course, we hope the exercises and hands on experience will let you internalize many of the aspects of the process that differentiate it from other research methods. The book covers everything about the method in excruciating detail. Today, we’ll only focus on a couple of key elements: how artifacts differ from prototypes, and how the engagement session differs from typical user interviews. To get through the most important parts of the process, we’ve approached the workshop using the “Julia Child” method – we’ll have pre-baked a few things. Those will be noted in the slides.
• #6: 15 MINUTES TOTAL – LEO / CHARLES 5 minutes - LEO PrD sits within the broad academic discipline called “design inquiry” or Research through Design. In this discipline, the process of discovery depends on crafting an artifact. In some cases, RtD methods use the act of making of artifacts as the key act of discovery. Other forms of RtD care less about the making of artifacts and more about the introduction of artifacts into the environment to call attention to large scale problems such as income inequities, health care, infrastructure and the like. And in still other forms of RtD, design researchers introduce artifacts to gain inspiration from the target populations they are interested in serving. In all cases, RtD methods involve an artifact and a target group of people, who we call “external stakeholders” – meaning, individuals external to the design/research/strategy team. They could be constituents (in the context of “civics”), users, service recipients, visitors (to a museum, a city), or even others within your own organization but not part of your team. PrD shares many of the qualities of other RtD methods, distinguishing itself in the following ways: PrD’s primary goal is to validate a problem proposed by internal stakeholders, rather than exploring the world for interesting problems to solve PrD is applied research, meaning, it assists teams in focusing on the right problem to solve, rather than expanding our knowledge of the world in general Ultimately, PrD is designed to reduce the risk of inventing the future Operationally, PrD has two distinct parts: a Creation Session, in which you work with internal stakeholders to craft the artifact, and Engagement Sessions, in which you work with external stakeholders to test the assumptions behind that artifact. Because PrD is a research through design method, it is based on design thinking frameworks. In this section we rapidly cover the design thinking framework that forms the basis for PrD.
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• #8: 30 SECONDS CHARLES Charles Owen of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology suggests different forms of thinking can be distinguished by two axes: analytic to synthetic and real to symbolic. He suggests that any given discipline isn’t limited to a particular quadrant, just that its “center of gravity” is there.
• #9: 15 SECONDS Owen also distinguishes the left and right sides of the map based on how work is done – Finders and Makers
• #10: 15 SECONDS Owen’s model also can be divided top and bottom to distinguish between types of activities or engagements.
• #11: 30 SECONDS Vijay Kumar, of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology has taken the 2x2 and moved it a little. Still 2 axes, but they’ve changed – Synthetic becomes “Make”, Analytic becomes “Know” Kumar begins to trace a path through the quadrants, suggesting we start at the center with a hypothesis, do our research, analyze our results, come to some conceptual understanding (still abstract, but now being “made”), until we get to an artifact or result we actually implement
• #12: 1 MINUTE Steve Sato, educated at IIT and now Co-Chair of the Design Management Institute puts it in yet another slightly modified form: Abstract becomes “Reflect” and Real becomes “Act.” What each of these individuals agree on, irrespective of the specific labels on the axes, is that Design Thinking is a journey through the quadrants in an effort to find a “best fit” solution to the original hypothesis.
• #13: 2 MINUTES In the traditional user-centered design lifecycle, you start by researching your users and learning about who they are and what they need. But sometimes you don’t have time for upfront research. Typically you (or members of your team) already have a pretty good idea of what your users need. As Thomas Kuhn wrote in his 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, it is impossible to do science in the absence of a preexisting theory. Presumptive Design rotates traditional user-centered design and starts you in a different quadrant of the design thinking loop. Here, you start by mocking up your best-guess solution…literally your best guess. By starting here, you are liberated from any belief that you actually know what you’re talking about. That is, you need to also let go of any belief that your solution is “right.” How could it be right if you haven’t done the research? Then, assuming you’re wrong…knowing you’re wrong, you get it in front of external stakeholders as fast as possible. You hand them the artifact, give them some tasks to perform and, without leading, prompt them to explore. The goal is to find out how wrong you are as quickly as possible. By “designing like you believe it, and testing as if you’re wrong,” you uncover stakeholders’ needs, motivations and frustrations.
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• #15: 1 MINUTE We complete the theory stuff with a slightly different model of applied design thinking. What we find compelling about this diagram is its integration of Paul Lasseau’s Funnel – a fundamental notion of divergent/convergent thinking. And as Peter Merholz has suggested, everything before the decision point should be strategy, everything afterward, execution
• #16: 10 MINUTES total LEO PrD tests your internal teams’ assumptions. It does so through the use of a presumptive artifact that embodies those assumptions. In a moment you’ll have a chance to learn more about the artifacts you’ll be testing today. But first, because of the importance of assumptions to the PrD process, we’ll do a quick exercise about them.
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• #20: 20 MINUTES Leo The materials on the following slides are in the packet on your table. We’ll go over these very briefly to get everyone on the same page about each strategy and the objectives for the upcoming Engagement Sessions.
• #22: How often do we receive design briefs that include tacit assumptions: about the organization’s expectations for their market, their product or service, and their very existence?
• #23: During a usual PrD process, not within this workshop, you would work with your stakeholders to identify their assumptions. This is the first of the “Julia Child” pieces you’ll see throughout the rest of the workshop. We can’t over-emphasize the difficulty and challenges of teasing out assumptions from your internal stakeholders. We cover this in depth in the book; it is one of the key advantages of PrD over other methods such as GVDS or Lean UX
• #27: 10 minutes - CHARLES
• #28: Charles Jarod Spool has been talking about this problem we all have when it comes to prototypes. The word is being used all over the place. He’s pretty clear about it: if you haven’t made a decision about the project, you’re working pre-decision, it’s an artifact. After the decision point, no matter its resolution, it’s a prototype or a deliverable. Gavers, et. al. suggest ambiguity is a requirement for better understanding individuals’ perspective and understanding of the problem space. The question is: how much should the artifact reveal about the team’s assumptions and understanding of the problem space vs leaving room for users to fill in the blanks?
• #30: 6 minutes – Leo, 6 minutes Charles Here again, we are providing Julia Child information to get us through the material in the time we have. Note, however, that a substantial amount of time is spent during Creation Sessions to get agreement from your stakeholders on these elements.
• #31: 3 MIN – LEO PrD requires the user to perform a task with the artifact. In addition, it requires a context in which you expect the Persona to perform the task.
• #32: 3 minutes - LEO
• #33: 6 MINUTES FOR OBJECTIVES total - CHARLES Presumptive Design is otherwise known as a process of design provocations. You are crafting an artifact to provoke a conversation. To make sure you are provoking the right conversation, you need to establish your objectives. In brief your provocations are your objectives. Your objectives serve several purposes and become the crucial backbone of your efforts. They help you: figure out what should be in the prototype and what shouldn’t identify the questions you are likely to explore and those you won’t determine when participants offer information that is valuable and when they don’t Determine when you can stop the interview structure your report out
• #34: In a typical Presumptive Design process, you would work with your internal stakeholders to craft objectives meaningful to them. Because we are focusing on a small part of the PrD process – the Engagement Session with external users – we have offered these for your sessions today
• #35: 10 Minutes, Max, please
• #36: 10 minutes maximum – LEO AND CHARLES In a few minutes, several prospective users of your solution will be coming in. These engagements are the key differentiators of Presumptive Design from other user research methods. This is your chance to get a peek into your users’ mental models and there are a few key things to pay attention to. In the next few minutes we’ll give you insights into this process and then give you a chance to practice with each other. Each of you should take a turn at practicing facilitation, evaluation and being the “wizard” for practice. During the actual engagement session, you’ll have five opportunities to play these roles, so be prepared to select who will do what for each of the engagements
• #37: 1 MINUTE - CHARLES
• #38: 2 MINUTES - LEO
• #39: 3 MINUTES - CHARLES
• #40: 2 MINUTES - CHARLES Here are five levels .
• #41: 1 MINUTE - CHARLES Remember, the user should be doing at least 97% of the talking. You’re there to facilitate, to offer prompts. This means you’re there to keep the user talking. The types of prompts you use, what you actually say to the user, makes or breaks a user interview. User prompts can be thought of as consisting of five levels.
• #42: 5 MINUTES Max – LEO AND CHARLES Because PrD depends so heavily on the Engagement Session, and because it isn’t a typical sort of user research interview, we’ve been asked by prior workshop attendees to take a few minutes and demonstrate how the interview might go. So, here goes!
• #43: 3 MINUTES - LEO Okay! Your users are arriving in 30 minutes. You have the following tasks to do, to prepare: Identify who will be the facilitator – you will have multiple users, so please consider having at least four people to facilitate Facilitators – study the script, study the artifacts, consider the possible tasks your users will perform, and begin to prepare for their reactions. REMEMBER, this is improv, so you can’t prepare completely, but you can probably predict a little. Everyone: Study the artifacts and get familiar with how they work. Remember, your users will likely go in a completely different direction from the assumptions, tasks and so forth, so be prepared for that probability. You will be able to mark up and change the artifacts to suit your users. Facilitators, practice with team members who take left turns on you. During the session, your users may wih to change the artifact, if they don’t understand it, or want some other functionality. Let them do it! If, between users, you feel the need to change the artifact, feel free. You now have 25 minutes, so get going!
• #44: LEO You’ve got about an 30 minutes to complete your sessions – at each 5 minute interval, I’ll call “switch” so your participants can go to the next engagement and so that your team can switch up the roles
• #45: LEO You have 5 minutes to summarize your findings and then every team will have 1 minute to share what they learned with the rest of the group. For your 1 minute of fame, please present the following: The artifact The objectives you chose The results as they relate to your objectives An opinion on whether your company’s strategy has potential or needs work
• #46: 10 MINUTES, MAX
• #47: 1 MINUTE - CHARLES Design to Fail – You are about to start working on something about which you know very little. Because you are about to make wild assumptions about your target stakeholders, you must believe you are wrong. It is fundamental to the process that you continue to question your very assumptions, even as you sincerely craft an artifact expressing them. Create, discover, analyze – as you’ll see in a moment, Presumptive Design turns the typical Design Thinking cycle on its head Make assumptions explicit – the focus of your effort in the next hour is to get your assumptions about the users, their needs and the ways in which those needs are addressed out on the table Iterate, Iterate, Iterate – You won’t be happy with the first turn of the crank. You’ll want to do it several times – to the point I mentioned earlier – you’ll want to move through the design thinking cycle multiple times to get to the essence of what your stakeholders really care about And you’ll want to do it fast! – Iterations within the timeframe of the stakeholder engagement (a la Carolyn Smith’s paper prototyping or other rapid techniques) in service of your objectives (not to refine the design) gets you to the insights significantly faster.
• #48: 4 MINUTES - LEO To review, PrD fits firmly in the left hand diamond, focusing on the problem definition and assumptions. I’ve placed a few common design-based methods into position. Cultural probes are intended to identify interesting problems and to inspire a team to consider cultural contexts. This should happen before a project is even initiated, or as the purpose of the project. Design Sprints are all about the solution – here we’ve positioned the Design Sprint firmly in the right-hand diamond. Even if the results of the sprint may toss out the entire idea, and may reflect on the problem as a result, DS’s are really set up to rapidly move from an idea to a putative solution. So too, Lean UX. Lean UX is all about removing time and effort in creating UX “Deliverables,” substituting instead a vibrant act of exploration. But Lean UX’s focus is almost entirely dependent on a problem being defined by the business. Almost…and this is where PrD complements Lean UX. Most Rapid prototyping processes are also focused on solution resolution. The “problems” represented in these prototypes are only those associated with reaching a solution to the “requirement.” Finally, usability testing, by definition must come after a solution is crafted, even if that solution is a mock-up or prototype. The purpose of usability testing is to create a closed loop evaluation mechanism, specifically focused on the usability of a solution.
• #49: 1 MINUTE CuneVIN framework Snowden speaks about his framework as a way of considering decision making
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• #55: 3 MINUTES - CHARLES Operationally it requires two types of sessions: The Creation Session and the Engagement Session. You prepare internal stakeholders to participate in the Creation Session. These are members of the business, the development team, or whomever is going to create the next big thing. The Creation Session is very much a participatory design process and you can use any tools associated with participatory design. The outcome is an artifact that reflects the internal team’s assumptions about the solution, beliefs about the problem and other heartfelt points-of-view. You use the artifacts created in the Creation Session in subsequent Engagement Sessions with external stakeholders. The Engagement Sessions are treated as if they were usability studies or any other user interview from the perspective of recruitment, calendaring and the like. But, as you’ll soon see, they are not at all like usability studies or other forms of social science interviews.
• #56: 1 MINUTE - CHARLES
• #57: 1 MINUTE - CHARLES