North Star Visioning {memo}
Good Morning 6/21 | This week in UX
TL;DR
Do you feel comfortable giving an elevator pitch as to they why, why, and how for our North Star Design Strategy?
Imagine…
Imagine you’re a trained sailor and you’re navigating on a newly christened ship, {portfolio name}. There’s no GPS. You’re over 50 nautical miles away from any land, and you’ve just finished passing through one of many storms — how do you find your way?
Experienced sailors would navigate these waters while always having a clear understanding of at least two things:
What direction do I need to turn toward?
Where is true North?
At a minimum, as long as they knew where true north was, they could deduce what general direction they should point the ship. And this was done by following Polaris — aka the North Star.
Right now, this is what we’re attempting to define. We’re attempting to make sense of all the bright shiny things in the sky.
Little by little, you all are crafting constellations (journey maps, personas, qtba, etc) & eventually, with enough wayfinding, together, we will have refined and identified our North Star!
Our guiding star will help inform us where we are, and where we should go.
We’re not here to map the entire sky, instead. Our goal is to agree on what is our constant. And then we can help build each other up, learn from one another, and build the confidence to cross the ocean together— and course correct whenever needed.
Where are we & where are we going?
With this in mind — where are we in our journey so far? Well, the good news is, we’re on track!
It’s currently week 16, and everyone has been making good progress with connecting with partners, and understanding {portfolio-specific functional areas}!
There are _3 key goals_ everyone should feel comfortable with:
The ability to articulate what we are doing, re: North Star. Why we’re doing it, and how we’ll determine it’s a success. Essentially we all should be practicing an elevator pitch for our North Star Design Strategy.
Fundamental understanding of {portfolio-specific functional areas}; the users in each {area}; and a general idea of these users jobs in each {area}
Conceptualizing & Sketching different concept designs based on users attempting to complete a task on either a desktop/laptop
If you don’t feel confident, or comfortable in any of these goals please set up some time me, or any other leaders on the team, so we can be a sounding board and/or someone to help provide focus toward any fuzzy area.
All in all, please do remember, our goal is not to go too in-depth in any functional area per platform. It is not to design a complete experience for every user, for every building type. It is not to create designs that could then be transcribed into a requirements-gathered document.
We’re starting first with only attempting to build a framework.
Our goal is to do just enough research, and just enough design for us & partners to feel confident that our concepts can carry forward.
The Gangs All Here
And finally! It’s officially-official. As of today, we have good coverage on our balance teams, in addition to having our own research & design ops team members as well!
Here’s the updated functional area focus for everyone —
Design Ops
{uxer j}
{uxer n}
{uxer w}
{functional area i}
{uxer a}
{uxer j}
{uxer r}
{functional area ii}
{uxer d}
{functional area o}
{uxer g}
{uxer j}
{uxer r}
North Star Targeted Concepts
We’re currently launching a campaign to better understand what the future of {portfolio area} software could be. We’re specifically looking at two core concepts:
New IA / Task-Based Navigation
How can we help users reduce the need to navigate around inquiry screens to do routine tasks?
New Guided Experiences
How can we help guide/shepherd new & experienced users through core functionality without breaking a sweat?
UX Metrics
All of our current output is geared toward helping with the three outlined outcomes
(this helps to ensure each area is adding value to the overall long-term strategic plan)
Efficiency
Increased speed for task completion
No software training required
On-boarding training hours significantly reduced without impacting performance
Any {user} can assist in {any area} and complete any appropriate task
Less Errors
Reduction of errors for new & veteran users
Significant reduction in time to recover from errors
Have feedback? Feel free to use this anonymous feedback forum: (redacted link)
