Some things I’ve learned along the way
I was recently asked what I learned from my almost 9-year tenure at Code and Theory as a Creative Strategy Director. It was a question I had been thinking about a lot, so I thought I’d share my response (and some additional ones I’ve sprinkled in since).
Because someone once told me that the best way to think on your feet is to create an arbitrary list (i.e. there are 5 things I learned) or group your response into categories (to allow you to think ahead while you create transitions), I broke my response into 3 themes where I felt I could add insight:
- Great products and the users who use them
- Corporate anywhere and why big companies struggle
- Management and how to lead
- And as a bonus (you can always throw in a bonus after the fact) My ever-evolving design philosophy.
Definitely Maybe—Product Prescience
Creating great products is surprisingly easy, both to accomplish and to screw up. The process in itself is really not that hard to follow, but there are a ton of simple mistakes that can very quickly get you off the right path. There are some common pitfalls I observed over the years working across many industries:
- Sometimes the problem isn’t where you are trying to solve it — working with Samsung for many years we tackled multiple challenges, but working on the most valuable sequence for the business (the purchase flow) really brought this point home for me. We were so convinced that the configurator step (where you make decisions like size and color) was the big thing to fix (it was admittedly very broken), so we really pushed hard for a radical new approach. We got additional research budget from Samsung and uncovered that the problem was actually higher up in the funnel — the user simply didn’t know how to differentiate the models and features, and as a consequence they were being pushed down to the configuration decisions too quickly. By introducing a very simple filterable merchandising carousel on the top of the product finder page that just spoke to the unique selling proposition of each series, we made a huge impact, one that didn’t require completely retooling the conditional logic of the configurator.
- Users have very basic needs, and designers in New York better have a great user research team (because the New York mindset ain’t it). Working on the 62nd floor of 1 World Trade in New York might be as close to ruling from an Ivory Tower that I’ll ever get. A tower in which you might relentlessly debate the composition, hierarchy and balance of the homepage for a discount hotel chain, when in fact the winning insight was that a large percentage of traffic came from “on the road” bookings (requests from within a 10-mile radius of the hotel). The “trucker fingers” design solution (bigger buttons and fewer taps to book) moved the needle more than anything else we did.
- Data viz is never as intuitive as you think it is. Working with the BBC, one of the most user-centric organizations I have had the pleasure of working for, we ran into this reality head on while trying to supercharge their data-driven storytelling for BBC Sport. We constantly validated our designs with real users, and I was always amazed with how easily a seemingly obvious design direction can take on a whole new meaning to someone coming in cold. It’s not possible to cater to every user however, in the end this point is about taking nothing for granted and being rigorous about designing with respect for the user through research and real conversations.
Are you seeing a theme here? I can’t stress enough how critical and essential strong user research and testing is to delivering product value.
Here are the sprinkles:
- Innovation is a process not an event
- You can hide complexity without trading off customization and users will love you for it (plus it’s a really rewarding design exercise)
- Anticipating needs is a joy creator…features that consistently tested and worked the best were ones where we had anticipated the user need
- Modules not templates (this seems like such table stakes at this point, but I’m always amazed how often the design and technical implications of this are missed)
- “You have one chance to make an impression on the user” is a distinctly New York publishing design refrain, is probably not true, but also a great standard to hold yourself to.
- Always be pathing! ☟
(What’s the Story) Morning Glory — Coordinating Corporations
Everyone wants to be user-centric, but most organizations don’t understand how to translate that into day to day actions or how to execute that ethos consistently across all parts of their business.
There are a number of reasons for this that I observed (below) but the single biggest one in my opinion is that most organizations don’t understand design thinking. I’ve seen this shift dramatically over the years, especially as digital first business models started disrupting traditional ones, and I’m sure this will continue to change at increasing speeds as everyone contends with how to engage customers in an increasingly noisy digital landscape. BUT, moving corporations can be like steering a tanker with a paddle (or broom), and these are transformational changes to how you approach your work. Some will adapt quicker than others, some won’t adapt fast enough.
It’s not all doom and gloom, I’ve worked with incredibly smart and energized client teams — many of which taught me my most important lessons along the way. Having said that, here are some of the harder truths about what gets in the way of customer centricity:
- There’s a shocking lack of understanding and use of data-driven decision-making within large organizations. A very common refrain I heard was, “we have a ton of data, but we don’t know what to do with it.” But when we looked closely, there was just a bunch of noise and no signals set up to generate recurring insight.
- For the most part data is an afterthought when building consumer experiences. I don’t mean the upfront data (although shockingly little will pass as “consumer insight” to guide major strategic decisions), I mean the data FROM what you create. The mentality should always be “what can we learn from this interaction” because that mindset considers that you might (and definitely will) get some things wrong, but it’s not a mistake if you learned something valuable about your consumer along the way.
- It’s all about the story and who you bring along to craft it. Shifting organizations to a long-term planning mindset is difficult (🚢 +🧹*) and a huge gap I’ve seen is in product storytelling. Everyone can generate great ideas built on top of strong insight — but not everyone can craft the story around why the feature or product strategy is important to the user (and ultimately the business). It’s a critical skill that’s highly undervalued because it often determines what gets made and what doesn’t. Crafting that story is not a one-person job — it’s one that can only achieve tension, surprise, and rhythm if you include the experts in the organization that are going to champion it.
*yes, that’s a broom emoji, it’s the closest thing I could find to resemble a paddle
Be Here Now — Mastering Management
Are you still reading? Oh boy, you’re committed! I’ll see you at the end, but just to lighten things up a bit, here are my management hot takes.
- There’s a big difference between management (bringing order and predictability to complex environments) and leadership (aligning and motivating around rapid change). I’ve found that agencies are excellent at the latter, it’s a core value proposition to clients in fact, but they tend to fall short on getting their own house in order.
- Clear expectations and a culture of knowledge sharing are the hallmarks of a healthy product organization — I know this from the strength of the Product Strategy department at Code And Theory (long live the Beast Babe) and from observing clients who did this really well.
- Attracting top creative talent is about the clarity of your vision. The clearer it is, the better prospects can picture their part in your journey, and at the end of the day people just want to have an impact.
- Retaining talent on the other hand is about empathy and long-term planning horizons. If you’re not making visible decisions as an organization that reflect a long-term vision for creating the best possible working environment, your people are going to see right through you.
- You’ll get better results if you manage to strengths over weaknesses — it’s also a lot more fun and rewarding.
Don’t Believe the Truth — Practical Philosophy
If you ask me what my design philosophy is, I’ll ask you, “for designing what?” Whether you're playing in aesthetics, building systems, finding technical solutions, or just trying to get shit done — almost everything is a design challenge.
My philosophy around this has been shaped by my experiences — which have been incredibly varied and challenging for different sets of conditions. I’ve led the design process for software, sales tools, publishing systems, e-commerce experience, learning environments, physical environments — all with variable teams, budgets, and timelines. A conclusion I’ve come to on that journey is that if you approach everything — even the most mundane of tasks — as a design exercise, you can really push yourself (and the people you work with), get to incredible outcomes, and still have fun.
Are you trying to define the future of your business? Are you launching a new service or experience? Do you have an onboarding problem? Is your team burned out on COVID? Do your staffing needs and budget not line up? Are you having trouble staying productive throughout the day? Do you have a mountain of TPS reports you need to get through? These are all problems you can solve with design thinking.
Empathize → Define → Ideate → Prototype → Test!
Big or small, it works for almost anything because it forces considered action and learning. Go make stuff and come back to it with a learning mindset. And don’t forget to have fun!
Now check this out (pathing!) → The Corporate Arts Manifesto (more on this topic to come)
