Russell Webb Design

Author: RussellW3bbDesign

  • Using proto-personas to Know your user – Pt I

    Using proto-personas to Know your user – Pt I

    Execute a Content Audit using proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. Consolidate personas, communicate findings, to achieve a deeper understanding of all users.
    Empower UX to move forward with experience maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.

    Contents

    Please note; for client confidentiality sensitive parts of all imagery has been pixelated. All work is copyright ©RussellWebbDesign 2024

    Hard Skills:

    Design Process

    Service Blueprint

    Proto-Personas

    Soft Skills:

    Service Design

    Journey Mapping

    Customer Experience Design

    Full List →

    Despite resource limitations, this Content Audit project successfully utilised proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. By consolidating and refining persona data into meaningful ‘chunks’, and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, all lead to a deeper comprehension of users for all involved. This empowered us to move forward with the next stage – using experience maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.

    Limited Data, Maximum Impact

    Delivering with resource constraints and tight timeline, this Content Audit / Inventory Battle Plan leverages the power of proto-personas as the primary intel.

    Gather the troops

    Assemble all content audit data

    Regulated design environments are often constrained – it is important to offer agility and be resourceful. This level of Service Design would benefit from ;

    • Customer surveys
    • Stakeholder interviews
    • Analytics (rationalised down into meaningful chunks)

    …and additional data. For this UX project the starting point was an extended collection of unverified proto-personas. These were then rationalised in to bucketed or grouped personas.

    Navigating the complexity of proto-personas

    Despite resource limitations, this Content Audit project successfully utilised proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. By consolidating and refining persona data into meaningful ‘chunks’, and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, all lead to a deeper comprehension of users for all involved. This empowered us to move forward with the next stage – using experience maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.
    Proto-personas: Adaptability in the face of organisational inertia and provide clarity to maintain stakeholder engagement.

    Adapt UX to audience and personas

    Larger organisations, often new agile methodologies, may still be in the early stages of embracing lean UX, so adapt your approach to your audience is a key skill.

    When personas are agreed and validated as the only ‘source of truth’ – there also must be alignment that these refine and adapt personas over time, ensuring that they remain relevant.

    Despite resource limitations, this Content Audit project successfully utilised proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. By consolidating and refining persona data into meaningful ‘chunks’, and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, all lead to a deeper comprehension of users for all involved. This empowered us to move forward with the next stage – using experience maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.
    Overly detailed personas can dilute effectiveness, especially for large organisations. This task focused on consolidating personas for greater clarity.

    Focussed personas work well. Larger organisations multiply these audience types and their impact is reduced. This task looked at grouping and sorting by commonalities

    Conduct extensive desk research to develop a deep understanding

    Despite resource limitations, this Content Audit project successfully utilised proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. By consolidating and refining persona data into meaningful ‘chunks’, and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, all lead to a deeper comprehension of users for all involved. This empowered us to move forward with the next stage – using experience maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.
    Embark on a deep dive of user research to become the brand’s go-to expert on your target audience.

    Absorb insights

    Take the time to listen and absorb – Become the brand’s knowledge hub.

    Absorbing insights and data is vital. Time spent at this stage of your research is key for informing a future IA.

    Dig deeper to understand your users problems, needs and goals

    Despite resource limitations, this Content Audit project successfully utilised proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. By consolidating and refining persona data into meaningful ‘chunks’, and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, all lead to a deeper comprehension of users for all involved. This empowered us to move forward with the next stage – using experience maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.
    Experience maps are your tools to excavate the nuances of user behaviour, emotions, and motivations. Use this to win over their hearts and minds.

    Empathy-driven UX; Personas and experience maps

    By delving into the emotional landscape of proto-personas, designers can gain a deeper user understanding. This insight fuelled the development of a clear and empathetic experience map.

    Understand your audience types ; Their needs, aspirations, and behaviours. Commonalities and patterns will surface.

    Common Thread and Outcomes

    Despite resource limitations, this Content Audit project successfully utilised proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. By consolidating and refining persona data into meaningful ‘chunks’, and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, all lead to a deeper comprehension of users for all involved. This empowered us to move forward with the next stage – using experience maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.
    By selecting the most crucial key phrases from the workshop discussions, I was able to distil the essence of each audience type and crafted them into a call-to-arms that galvanised the mapping stage

    Expertise within the team distilled the most essential insights (i.e. OUTCOMES), transforming them into powerful ‘calls to arms’ that served as the foundation for the mapping stage.

    Next steps

    By consolidating vast amounts of data into prototype persona groups, this Service Design approach conveys insights for stakeholders to digest, leading to deeper user understanding for all involved. This then informs the next stage, ‘Using Experience Maps to uncover user behaviour and emotions.’

    Please note; for client confidentiality sensitive parts of all imagery has been pixelated. All work is copyright ©RussellWebbDesign 2024

    RussellWebbDesign: Get your fill of UX trends, case studies and best practice

    Pique’d your interest?

    This is but part of a selec­tion of design information rus­sell­webb­de­sign gen­er­ated for the creative community out there. Please con­tact me fur­ther to dis­cuss how your brand can ben­e­fit from the new channel: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

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    Building a Wealth Management Super App

    CASE STUDIES

    Design with the dark mode trend front-of-mind

    Delight, speed and satisfaction are rewriting our UX playbooks in finance

    Find out more
  • Discovery Workshop to Roadmap in 3 days

    Discovery Workshop to Roadmap in 3 days

    TLDR; Navigating Ambiguity
    Using workshop techniques I validated personas to surface a UI that promoted next steps for a Candidate Portal.
    —
    Solving 3 big problems in 3 days; Aligning the target audiences through journey mapping, defining a Value Proposition and building a draft Product Roadmap.

    Contents

    Hard Skills:

    Journey Mapping

    Research

    Visual Design

    Goal-oriented Roadmap

    Soft Skills:

    Empathy

    Collaboration

    Critical Thinking

    Full List →

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas)
    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation and knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas)

    Help clients solve big problems, fast

    This user-centred and business workshop focussed on;

    • Business Problem Statement – The What
    • Value Proposition Statement – How to excite users / customers
    • Product Roadmap – Action/Next Steps

    What we set out to achieve

    Recently I was leading the Discovery phase for a multinational publishing, education & recruitment company. My prime objective was to facilitate the generation of a Value Proposition within a collaborative workshop environment based around three hypotheses;

    • Understand – ‘Getting the right idea’ and ‘getting the idea right’
    • Ideate – Align the team | Get creative
    • Roadmap – Present, prioritise and theme

    Defining Vision, setting scope

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.
    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas)

    Persona Playback, Value Propositions and Knowledge Sharing

    Validating Personas proved crucial. Early ‘Understand’ sessions proved invaluable in terms of getting to know the client’s ecosystem and getting closer to the overall workshop goals. Goals included personas improvements using a Value Proposition Canvas to expose misunderstandings, define Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) and Pains and Gains – more importantly it identifying key themes and services that would appeal to these personas. This ensured any misalignment did not cascade down to the Journey Maps on Day 2

    What we were trying to achieve using ‘Ask the experts’. Early touch points included attracting educational establishments and employers using baked-in services, plus having the ability to grow the market was paramount for particular personas. The client had the raw building blocks and the workflow for their ‘niche product for a niche market’, communicating that vision was the challenge.

    Customer Journey Mapping – Make the best hiring decision

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.
    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas)

    Gaining alignment across stakeholders on what making the ‘Best hiring decision’ journey looked like. Creating a visual representation of every experience a key persona(s) had with the client helped to tell a story, more importantly this led to a prioritised ideation list (visual solutions).

    Making the Best Hiring Decision

    • Initial stages – Planning and approval
    • Intermittent stage – Profile building, search and selection tools
    • Final stage – Interview, agreement and follow-on activities

    The exercise also highlighted a level of anxiousness, through to excitement and eventual relief. A truly valuable activity that presented opportunities that were eventually clustered and presented to the group as an adaptive Crazy 8 activity.

    Ideation and Roadmap

    Finally, this led on the most challenging section of the workshop, the Ideation Sessions. This resulted in 4 concept areas to prioritise on the road map and populate a timeline.

    Sketching can be scary!

    Demonstrate the steps to avoid a cold start.

    Push back on judgement calls and champion quantity over quality. All participants should take advantage of the knowledge in the room, bounce ideas off each other and improve through collaboration. A process of silent note taking, constrained to a page/large Post-It note, resulted in 4 principal concepts.

    4 Principle Concepts

    1. Data Driven Profile & Test Builder

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.

    Value: shorter tests, improve the UX

    • Add key indicators to job profile definition
    • Guided self-service model for selection, surfacing details for expert personas
    • Fit candidate suggestion tool from an employee pool
    • Connect to other API portals for greater value

    2. Right Insights for the Right User

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.

    Value: Personalisation. Summary driven.. 

    • AI best fit suggestions based on profile.
    • Rate candidates with a media rich likelihood indicator.
    • Deliver <MORE> understandable expert insight

    3. Candidate Experience & Value

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.

    Value: candidate self-improvement.

    • Shorter assessments, setting target thresholds
    • Candidate Reward with feedback, tips to improve or learn, job suggestions
    • Be fair & honest to the candidate on possible mismatch on values and culture 
    • Store profiles, experiences, and test results 

    4. From Hiring to Performance, and Back

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.

     Value: better decision = better employees.

    • 360˚ view – track new hires, top performers inform future hiring. 
    • Performance data and employee self-ratings to inform future profile building and hiring decisions and guide personal development
    • Compare performance & career progress to your peers

    Boosting Engagement

    Shortcuts to Success

    Shortcuts to Success

    • * Faster, more reliable tests: Reduce testing time and increase reliability
    • Personalised engagement: Tailor tests to individual needs, leading to higher engagement and lower churn.
    • Business-focused UX: Align testing with business goals by leveraging KPIs; Targeted feature development.
    Supercharge Testing

    Impactful Tests

    • Reduced client churn: Shorter, feedback-driven tests foster client satisfaction and retention.
    • Diversity in hiring: Objective, efficient testing helps attract diverse talent and improve hiring decisions.
    • * Shared Data; All backed up by a global database
    Boost diversity & retention

    Innovation for Early Adopters

    • * Modernise testing: Introduce innovative concepts too early adopters only.
    • Candidate quality and validity: Prioritise attracting the best candidates. Ensure test results are accurate and reliable.
    • Goal-oriented roadmap: Leverage learnings to craft a clear roadmap for continuous improvement.
    Better candidates | More valid results

    Goal-oriented roadmap

    How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.

    Setting standards with a development Roadmap

    Solving big problems and setting milestones through a draft roadmap contributed to accelerating development across the current period and the next. Raise their internal products up to today’s standards was a priority. This roadmap was a significant step closer to this.

    3 big problems in 3 days

    Align the target audiences 

    We did this across the group early on through a deep-dive personas playback session. This proved essential both to enable the journey map but also assigning value in the KPI session.

    Define the Pains and Gains

    This was accomplished with a Value Proposition Canvas. A useful business tool to surface Pains and Gains and Jobs-To-Be-Done

    Build a draft Product Roadmap 

    This acted as a our North Star and as a high-level visual summary of the workshop outcomes; Two development streams; Two principal personas.

    As a value-add, a UX / UI Report consolidating all data was generated, highlighting the groups new findings and areas for improvements to inform future Timelines and Roadmaps.

    IN BRIEF; Problem Statement > Knowledge sharing and defining scope > Ideation (4 principal concepts) > Future Roadmap > In 3 days

    RussellWebbDesign: Get your fill of UX trends, case studies and best practice

    Pique’d your interest?

    This is but part of a selec­tion of design information rus­sell­webb­de­sign gen­er­ated for the creative community out there. Please con­tact me fur­ther to dis­cuss how your brand can ben­e­fit from the new channel: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

    If something has peaked your interest. Please leave a comment below.

    Discover high-impact UX case studies

    Portfolio case studies describing design, my UX process, and business impact.

    From boosting user adoption in fintech, to improving trust with responsible gambling through to retaining Millennials in the world of ‘digital lotteries UX’ to leveraging key USPs for mobile healthcare.

    My Case Studies
    Quick-Look PDF
  • What is the role of open banking in the super app evolution?

    What is the role of open banking in the super app evolution?

    TL;DR Open Banking unlocks a future where financial apps become indispensable partners. A power-shift to more convenience, better financial education and meaningful relationships. Read on to see What’s next in this new ecosystem?

    Contents

    Time: 5 mins

    Hard Skills:

    Journey Mapping

    Research

    Visual Design

    Soft Skills:

    Empathy

    Collaboration

    Critical Thinking

    Full List →

    What is Open Banking

    The role of open banking in the super app evolution is enormous, it is essential for creating a smoother user experience. Open banking is the core technology that allows these apps to draw financial data from multiple sources (APIs) and design products and services that speak to the needs and wants of the end-user.

    Open Banking helps super-apps with:

    • Personalisation: Gathering data to enhance recommendations, habits and trends based on the user’s behaviour.
    • Centralisation: One app to rule-them-all, one roof and one umbrella. No need to switch apps to switch functionality (i.e.make payments, check portfolio performance, monitor transactions, etc).
    • Open finance: Super apps and open banking are foundational pieces in the financial ecosystem jigsaw – mortgages, savings, pensions, insurance and credit, can all talk to each other.
    One app, multiple functionality – Users can monitor their portfolio performance, check allocations and assets values and confirm transactions all within one super app.

    Super app benefits for wealth management

    The end-user now enjoys luxuries that a few decades ago would seem unimaginable. Wealth Management (WM) was dated and rigid, Financial Institute in pole position, controlling the action. The birth of the super app has tipped the balance of power to the investor, putting them in charge of their finances.

    Investment performance is the return on an investment portfolio, with single or multiple assets, measured over a specific period of time and currency. This standard of UX did not exist previously.

    Convenience

    The super app has evolved to give the consumer (and investment professionals) a one-stop shop for all their finances. Investors used to jump from website to website and from platform to app to check transactions, transfer money, pay bills, etc. Now within is single-pane-of-glass, user control their financial world.

    Convenience – UX can elevate the transaction process to effectively display this ‘agreement’ between a buyer and seller to exchange goods, services, or assets for payment using Open Banking on any platform.

    Smarter decisions

    Phone a banker, broker or accountant to see how their money is affected by fragmented financial knowledge; Financial decisions needed the experts.

    • Did the expert always have your best interest at heart?
    • How close and personal was that relationship with these experts to trust their recommendations
    • How transparent were they?
    Make smarter decisions – Market volatility is the frequency and magnitude of price movements, up or down. The bigger and more frequent the price swings, the more volatile the market is said to be, benefiting you and your clients even more.

    The super app brought an dispassionate, clean, and precise approach to financial decision-making. It has trimmed-the-fat off the process, presenting users with the best viable option.

    Enter the financial super app

    A super app alleviates financial institutions from transaction processing, compiling data, building risk profiles and other traditional banking functions. It allows banking institutions to focus on building meaningful relationships with investors.

    It centralises their attention and indirectly allows Portfolio Managers to tailor their campaigns for new products and services. Relationship Managers now know where their audience is; all they have to do is put the right thing in front of them.

    From viewing fund performances to the allocation of assets, to understanding these assets positions, to what transactions have been actioned and reviewing portfolio valuation

    From viewing fund performances to the allocation of assets, to understanding these assets positions, to what transactions have been actioned and reviewing portfolio valuation.

    The future for financial super apps?

    Data management

    Third parties, organisations and fintech companies need to understand

    • Where the data is coming from
    • How they store it
    • How they use it

    This is the way to build bulletproof information flows.

    AI-driven Financial Coaching

    Artificial intelligence in money management apps process data quickly and efficiently. By monitoring financial behaviour, AI can assist users in maintaining smart savings, refinancing, achieving financial goals, and even more*.

    *With approval, of course

    Get in touch

    Want more?

    Discover how FI’s can can offer all clients personalised advice, how UX can help investment firms stay relevant in our neobank world and how to build a *Financial Super App – One click at a time.

    *NDA Case Study Walk-Thru

    RussellWebbDesign: Get your fill of UX trends, case studies and best practice

    info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

    It truly is, a Brave New World!

    RussellWebbDesign: Get your fill of UX trends, case studies and best practice

    Pique’d your interest?

    This is but part of a selec­tion of design information rus­sell­webb­de­sign gen­er­ated for the creative community out there. Please con­tact me fur­ther to dis­cuss how your brand can ben­e­fit from the new channel: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

    If something has peaked your interest. Please leave a comment below.

  • What I learned from facilitating a UX remote workshop – COVID-19 SPECIAL

    What I learned from facilitating a UX remote workshop – COVID-19 SPECIAL

    TLDR; Modern ux-ers need to skill-up, keep pushing best practice and do their homework when preparing for remote workshops. Adapt with more structured activities, beef-up the tech and deliver digitally with feedback and collaborative tools.

    From the T-shaped designer to a online creative technologist

    business

    Technoligy

    MArketing

    Developemnt

    As worldwide events are changing everyday life, so are the expectations of today’s experience designer. This designer is becoming more of a conduit between business and tech, between marketing and development. Linking these disciplines together is the UX expert, whether that be instituting Design Thinking or facilitating workshops, the bar is getting set higher and higher and today modern UX’er needs to be ready, and needs to be T-shaped.

    For the past few years User-Centered Design (UCD) and Lean UX has been top of my agenda and prioritising the very best elements of those ideologies is a skill I’m fine-tuning everyday. UX Workshops, in their many different guises are designed to empathise, to understand and then lead on towards a POC or some flavour of a prototype. This has many benefits from collaborative thinking through to group alignment and collective contribution. Like ideation and journey mapping all in a face-to-face collaborative style.

    Empathise to get a better understanding of the problem to be conquered. Use activities like ‘Ask the experts’ to gain insight into user needs – set aside personal assumptions and focus on defined problems. Ideate and generate logical ideas that lead to creating an inexpensive test product (prototyping). Fail early, iterate and make your product inherently better.

    In these more challenging times, how do we design professionals help to facilitate that collaborative nature from behind a computer screen and without having that face-to-face connection? Build relationships with teams distributed across the country or globe and communicate the value of journey mapping while engaging people in the process is even more challenging, especially when those people can’t witness the actual activity. Ideation and mapping exercises over-the-wire is a challenge so here is my perspective following a recent remote workshop I chaired with a real estate client.

    Pre workshop – Be like a boy scout

    PREPARE

    Agenda

    Links

    I’ve said in previous articles, you roughly need twice the presentation time for preparation and this is equally true when you’re delivering the remote flavour of a UX workshop. Leading from the front as a facilitator and as a creative technologist ultimately the success of a remote workshop does revolve around the technology you have to hand. Make no assumptions, if your connection is not strong enough or your cameras are not clear enough the success of your remote workshop is that risk. 

    Ensure you have a quiet, comfortable and illuminated room

    Think about a headset with the microphone and also about the best video conferencing solution.

    Ensure your default check boxes are all ticked here.

    Setting the Stage

    Include an agenda to manage expectations

    Following intros, the ‘Product / Feature Vision’ is first up. ‘The Challenge’ preceeds a best practice master-class on the product or feature area. Another short intro into my UCD process I then asked ‘My five big questions’ followed by a personas session. Features leading to a genuine ‘Nice to have’ discussion also helps manage expectations. This leads perfectly into a Mapping and Ideation. Keep to your agenda, its important.

    Unfortunately, you won’t have those two minutes pre-KO to ask about the weather and to build bridges, so make sure introductions are timetabled.

    Keep the conversations flowing by including the Product Vision and The Challenge Definition as early pieces on your agenda. The remote nature of these first interactions are crucial, it’s important to allow all to contribute and keep the conversation flowing by re-iterating;

    • What has been done
    • What we are doing
    • What we will do.

    Elevate the Baseline

    Asking the right questions early helps set the stage. What problem are we trying to solve and can I have the big picture? Who are the User types and the Persona and what are their pains and gains. What are the project aims and how do we measure success? A good question to ask is why use this feature and not an alternative? 

    It’s important to gauge the creative intelligence on the people in the virtual room. This should come both from your research of the attendees pre workshop, and by calling out by name to promote engagement, asking people for their introduction at the top of the hour. My experience says go with the lowest denominator and bring everyone up to speed on process, on base level concepts behind Design Thinking and on how collaborative session usually work and ask the big questions.

    • What problem are we trying to solve and can I have the big picture?
    • Who are the User types and the Persona and what are their pains and gains.
    • What are the project aims and how do we measure success?
    • Why use this feature and not an alternative? 
    • What is you question to the group?

    Don’t forget to share pre-prepared documentation or links to aid further reading across your comms channel of preference.

    Keep your process, but adapt

    Personas

    Journey Mapping

    FEature list

    Charting the steps through this journey begins with search and select, then the user can choose the time, with options for the users showing available spots in the next week. Booking information should all the information that the contractor needs and finally the journey ends with the confirmation email and/or a text message.

    Activities like early hypotheses session, through to personas building, demo’s and deep dives into feature lists discussion all still have their place in the remote workshop scenario – they just tweaking to ease them through. Everyone must understand the purpose and the outcomes of your activities. For instance customer journey mapping; recognised as one of the more challenging workshop activities especially amongst debutante participants I recognised I had to most of the heavy-lifting myself.

    My goal for this instance was to quickly understand the current journey within a limited time, involve as many internal stakeholders from bus dev, legal, CS to engineering.

    Have at hand your collaboration doc, detailing activities with timings and outlining techniques. This acts a guide through all your calls and should be shared on screen and as a single point of truth when concluding the workshop. My take out here is keep it simple, use bullet points and subtle branding.  

    Google Docs is your friend here. It’s also a good idea to later move your visual findings to Mural and Miro (formerly RealTimeBoard)

    Ideation, in a low fidelity way

    SHARE BOARDS

    CHAT & messenger apps

    Initial first stage ideas from modal windows to small reveal to large reveal concepts. All helped lay the foundations in a low fidelity, if less collaborative, way.

    When mostly everyone is remote, take advantage of Real-time board or Muraly or Sketchboard. Even splitting participants into columns on Google Sheets and allowing real-time contribution is a workable solution.

    For instance, a spontaneously pencil sketch can be captured on your mobile and shared relativity instantly across Slack, great for what I call remote ideations. These can then be cataloged in your collaboration doc and / or uploaded to your Miro board.

    Digital Prototyping from the Digital Experts

    Taking the very best of concept #2 enabling the user to both see availability but also to drill-down and add must-have functionality. Also cherry picking elements from #4 and solving the visibility of contractor availability.
    Taking the very best of concept #2 enabling the user to both see availability but also to drill-down and add must-have functionality. Also cherry picking elements from #4 and solving the visibility of contractor availability.

    There is a benefit to being digital designers thinkers in a digital world. So take advantage of this when building and eventually sharing what is in most cases, a digital prototype. Use industry standard tools your clients should be familiar with that can aid both sharing and collaborating within a remote environment.

    You should still be starting with low fidelity sketches from you Ideation Sessions (see earlier) but eventually this will lead to the big reveal. InVision is my weapon of choice here, it’s quick, it’s collaborative and it’s becoming the industry standard.

    Post workshop wrap-up 

    Personal details

    Pre-registration

    Feedback and comments will help shape and strengthen future workshops.

    In true 360 fashion and in the spirit of UCD from my remote perspective it is good practice to reach out to evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop. Ask for assistance in completing an evaluation and eave the door open to respond say within a limited time period to keep the data fresh.

    There will always be pitfalls to this type of distance collaboration, my key take-outs are;

    • Reduce friction by introducing activities more appropriate
    • Tell your team what you are about to do
    • Tell them what has been done
    • Follow your script, set out in your collaborative doc

    Finally, inform the team that there is a central repository (Dropbox or Miro or other cloud share is ideal for this) and ensure all have access; this becomes a great place to dump visuals, photos, text files or movies. This is also a great place for the collaboration doc which eventually evolves into your UX report.

    So, have fun by keeping the dynamics high, reducing distractions don’t forget to learn yourself and document religiously. Ramp up your note-taking skills, you’re going to need them!

    Appendix

    Your remote toolbox*

    • Google Docs, Sheets and Slides – the go-to applications for collaboration.
    • Real Time Board — A remote whiteboard tool for stickies and comment
    • Go To Meeting / Zoom — Video conferencing that allows you to show slides and record screens.
    • Slack – Document your chats, and share group or personal videos.
    • uxpressia.com – Online journey maps and personas

    * Please note this toolbox is by no exhaustive. This industry is was booming and pivoting every day.

  • Why do tech guys love drop downs?

    Why do tech guys love drop downs?

    TLDR: Traditional drop downs stifle UX in regulated financial software. They overload users with hidden options, hinder transparency, and increase cognitive load. But there are alternatives, prioritise immediacy, transparency, and champion user-centric solutions.

    Contents

    Recently I’ve been involved with implementing Design Thinking and best practice UX for a heavy technical suit of applications. Although I’m pushing collaboration and inclusivity, especially with the developers, I can recognise that look in their eye when I’m evangelising best practice and stressing user’s needs and wants.

    It’s not their fault.

    To give you a snapshot of this established and mature Agile team, we need to step back. Within a heavily regulated financial development environment, tech guys concentrate primarily on tech functionality. Task orientated user flow (UX) followed by aesthetics and that ‘delight’ moment (UI) very much take very a back seat.

    When select menu has less than 7 options it suffers from a lack of up-front information.

    So cycling back round to the title of this post, I get constantly asked “Please can we use a drop down here’. I’m not Mr Anti-Dropdown but I always ask why?

    Let’s NOT use a drop-down

    Drop-downs seems to be a one-stop shop killer solution for every developer’s requirement. We have a registration form to design, and there is a question about gender. M or F, ‘Lets use a drop-down’. A news article page within a CMS where an editor can choose a collection of background brand colours; ‘Lets use a drop-down’. A mobile home page with three sections, ‘Lets use a drop-down’. Although not so much with iOS developers, it seems this breed have a tighter aesthetic.

    For a better UX experience, be transparent with your users. Show them their choices rather than hide them behind a drop-down.

    The ‘why not’ revolves around these three simple points;

    1. Hiding selection choices behind a drop-down isn’t best practice. Especially when there is the on-screen real estate available.
    2. Displaying the user choices adds immediate vision and scope, reduces the cognitive load and allows the user to see their destination.
    3. For consistency across platforms, would that mean a drop-down on iOS devices – now you Apple fan base out there love your Apple T-Shirts and the WWDC Conference, but it doesn’t dictate best practice UX? This would not be my recommendation – especially the ‘nasty’ native iOS touch drop down.

    I can fully appreciate when you have a selection of more than say 6 – 8 items (this number varies) then you should default to drop downs. But the bigger question is; If you could provide an option for the user to click straight through, where they can see all their choices at a single glance, and you have the on-screen real estate the you should absolutely push for a more transparent solution.

    The 100 option drop-down

    Allow your users to starting typing to narrow their choices and then offer them a limited and tailored number of selections.

    A classic example is the auspicious country-selector with it’s 100 options. There is no no quick and easy overview option. And those of you from an ‘United” country, well it is potluck whether you’ve been bumped to the top or your country is listed by one of its other names. My preferred choice is to use auto complete menu instead – need visual

    When select menu has less than 7 options it suffers from a lack of up-front information. The user has to click in order to see the available options.

    So what’s the definitive best practice answer then?

    When to use on desktop

    Use radio buttons for choices under 7

    For web you should use radio buttons when choices under 7. Your users will be able immediately scan how many options they have and what each of those options are, without clicking (or typing) anything to reveal this information.

    This is particularly true for the ‘Please select your gender question’. At the start for the 21st century there are definitely under 7 choices here, so please use radio buttons.

    Use Mobile convenient add-ons to boost your productivity

    Type “Af” and Afghanistan, Central African Republic and South Africa drop-down

    User are discouraged by the perception of many taps. There is always the ‘fat finger’ issues, but more importantly today mobile savvy Gen X, Y or Z, who interact everyday with data driven (server side) continual validation apps. Always-on spell check, auto fill name and address field and real time dynamic delivery options for example. This is especially true on the smaller screen – speed, convenience and time are crucial factors when completing tasks.

    Conclusion

    Avoiding dropdown menus is a crucial design pattern on mobile platforms. Is there a faster alternative, better UX choice to reduce usage errors.

    Experienced developers are a great resource. As a future thinking UX-er you should always challenge, ask the right questions and be the user; Does this control choice make my life easier?

  • UX Case Studies prepared for Avaloq

    UX Case Studies prepared for Avaloq

    Successful UX Design Projects

    My Top 3 UX Design Case Studies prepared for Avaloq

    Improve efficiency by running your banking operations on our core platform, and embrace digital assets.
    Get in touch

    I have prepared a selection of UX design projects focused on challenges, solutions, and lessons learnt within the financial landscape.

    2024 is my action year – Can I apply these lessons to any of your teams or projects?

    Case Studies

    • Real-World Messiness of Product Design

      Real-World Messiness of Product Design

      “T-shaped” expertise in Fintech, complex UX problem-solving, and commercially-minded design.

    • Raising the bar for customer-facing support UX

      Raising the bar for customer-facing support UX

      AI-Powered Customer Service Revolution – AI is transforming customer service by offering personalised solutions, and UX plays a crucial role in creating intuitive and engaging customer experiences. By leveraging AI and focusing on UX, businesses can create a more personalised, efficient, and satisfying customer experience.

    • A Frictionless Wireframe Onboarding Journey

      A Frictionless Wireframe Onboarding Journey

      Ditch the wireframes rock stories. Customers faced a confusing onboarding maze. Detailed UX wireframes transformed it into a frictionless journey, building trust and getting users invested. Clarity led to confidence and the winning play, a clear, secure, and personalised onboarding process building loyalty from the first click.

    • Using proto-personas to Know your user – Pt I

      Using proto-personas to Know your user – Pt I

      Despite resource limitations, this Content Audit project successfully utilised proto-personas to gain a deeper understanding of user needs. By consolidating and refining persona data into meaningful ‘chunks’, and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, all lead to a deeper comprehension of users for all involved. This empowered us to move forward with the next stage –…

    • Discovery Workshop to Roadmap in 3 days

      Discovery Workshop to Roadmap in 3 days

      How to facilitate an ideation workshop around solving problems, understanding through ideation, knowledge sharing (based on agreed on personas) and then attributing those personas, via SMEs validation, to surfacing UI to promote next steps plotted on a goal-oriented roadmap.

    • Power up your designs with dark mode trend front-of-mind

      Power up your designs with dark mode trend front-of-mind

      How to design with the 2023 dark mode trend front-of-mind. Delight, speed and satisfaction are rewriting our UX playbooks in finance. A modern-day UX-er has rapidly emerged, changing the rules of the game. Part of that skill-set is the new must-have which is dark mode.

    • Pt I – Money Management App UX Challenges Explained

      Pt I – Money Management App UX Challenges Explained

      A two-part deep-dive focussing on mobile UX design targeting seasoned designer-types, mastering Design Theory, and navigating lean Agile challenges.

    • What is the role of open banking in the super app evolution?

      What is the role of open banking in the super app evolution?

      TL;DR Open Banking unlocks a future where financial apps become indispensable partners, not just tools. A shift in the balance of power, more convenience, better financial education and more meaningful relationships with users. What’s next in this ecosystem; financial freedom, bulletproof investment flows, AI…

    • Using Experience Maps to uncover user behaviour Pt II

      Using Experience Maps to uncover user behaviour Pt II

      Crafting an unforgettable investment experience within the intricate world of investor behaviour unveiled a tapestry of needs and motivations that shape financial decisions. Using Experience Mapping these insights into the customer lifecycle were uncovered and common threads exposed.

    I am available now!

    Please continue to browse to see more challenges, solutions, and lessons learnt within the fintech landscape (and others)

    Browse other UX work

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    15 Years Experience | Workshop Wizard | Design System Ninja
    Finance | Gambling | Healthcare | Recruitment

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    info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

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    CV
    Russell Webb is a User experience Designer who digs deeper when implementing Design Systems, who facilitates workshops with local building societies up to asset managers behemoth and who builds design teams by sharing best practice and mentoring through the stack.

    Workshops to stakeholder mngt and much more

    Russell Webb CV

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