Random thought:

Had an idea that when you do the event content, it could be cool if possible to draw up a map / visual of where people attended from (get data from the event comments and/or analytics from Eventbrite?). Sort of picturing a map of the world with little pins in to show the breadth of the community but could be something else?

Countries:

United Kingdom Netherlands United States Saudi Arabia India South Africa Canada Sweden Nigeria Pakistan Mexico Austria Germany Portugal Poland Norway Spain Philippines Peru Finland

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Notes / highlights:

On Human Experience Design:

Human Experience Design is looking beyond just designing for our users and customers but looking more widely at the experience we are crafting for stakeholders and the environment around us. We need to be asking ourselves how we can apply design and the amazing skills that designers have to improve their lives and how we can utilise technology to get there. Human experience design is something that we need more an more of across all companies, particularly at bp. It stems back to the fact that design in bp is so vast; there are areas of bp that look at b2b, b2c, b2e and even b2g so when you take that all into account what you are really looking at is simply just b2h (business to human).

Why we need to give such great experiences to stakeholders:

“Even though we go to such great lengths to craft these amazing experiences for our customers and spend hours working out how to delight them, rightfully so, at the end of the day, why don’t we do that for our stakeholders who are often the gatekeeper or approver for our designs”

“If we can have stakeholders as part of our journey and process, it can totally change the game”. As designers, if we can improve the experience for our stakeholders (our internal customers), we can positively influence the experience of our users (our external customers)

We have gotten better at selling in design and design capabilities and being able to quantity the value of design. But what needs to be considered is what happens after “the sale”, what happens after the value case when you actually have to execute and bring everyone together and bring them along in the journey in order to do so.

“A single experience is made up of many smaller experiences”. So for stakeholders it is not just about the end result of getting what they need but also how they got there and how they were made to feel during that experience.

If we think about the micro moments, they come and go so quickly that the majority go past without much consideration. The ones that do stand out are the moments of change and / or the big things and the ones that stand out are the ones that are remembered for good or bad and these are often emotionally driven.

For stakeholders to believe in what we are doing and to sign off the activity, the peak end rule is key. This rule states essentially that people remember and judge an experience based on how they felt at the peak and at the end rather than the total sum. So we need to think about how we map out and pay attention and craft experiences for stakeholders around those peak moments in the same way as we would for our users. How do we take stakeholders through our work, whether it is a wireframe, research or a presentation. Also how can we get people to walk away from workshops or design interactions and say that was the best meeting I had this week, I want to do it again and learn more…etc. We can do that / provide that experience by first understanding their needs, motivations and their current understanding of design / the process in the same way that we would for users.

Key pieces of advice for people dealing with tricky stakeholders:

Understand the context (workshop vs 1-1 meeting) as the treatment fo each will be nuanced

Empathise and internalise (?) —> understands what their needs and drivers are as well as there knowledge of design

Excite and delight --> From the first touch post with them to the very end, how do we create an experience for them? How do we remain positive? How do we put as much effort and detail into presentation as we do into our designs to ensure that we look polished and have greater credibility

Standardise and measure —> Need to show that we have done our homework, we have our data / research and have a standardised consistent approach so that we can ultimately show the value of our work and show how we can measure the success

Communicate and strategise —> Listen before, after and during. Simple communication is key and we shouldn’t rely on design jargon

Be their partner and be prepared for collaboration and co-creation

How to work with a stakeholder that is driven by metrics:

Value is bigger than just dollars but things sometimes have to come down to a bottom line so how do we speak their language. There are multiple ways that you can measure for cost so need to figure out what is most suitable for your situation and what will show the greatest impact.

You can look at saving or making money through the following:

Time saved internally which can be equated to dollars with an hourly rate
Providing a better user experience which in turn generates more income
Looking for inefficiencies and / or integrations in a system
Reducing costs internally

Dealing with stakeholders that want you to just copy other people’s designs:

There is a good side and downside. Good side being that the stakeholder at least knows good design is out there. The second point is that by telling you what to copy, they are providing a window into what they are actually looking for and want and they may not know how to vocalise it in another way - rather than just saying “make it pop / pretty / cool”. So as designers we need to be empathetic and understand their perspective.

Bad thing is that copying means that it might not be appropriate for your needs (for the business and the user) so as a design you need to be able to prove and get the research / data to find out if it is the right direction.

Ultimately it comes down to trust, empathy and the data to back it up

How designers can help and influence within an org that is not traditionally design lead:

Comes down to five areas: Organising, operationalising, optimising, mobilising and socialising. Socialising is really the key to getting the message out and educating and helping people understand the value of design. But if design within the org is not organised, operationalised and optimised, then you can’t mobilise and socialising won’t take off. So you need the full recipe and if you can show the solidity of that recipe (this is how we want to work and why and this will be the result) along with your success stories you can start to more successfully mobile and socialise

One caveat is that if design is not recognised from the top it will be a harder path - needs to happen from the trenches and from the top if possible. Top needs to understand the value and you need empathy down at the bottom

How small companies / people within a small company without all the resources and money can still look to innovate:

Comes down to having that idea but knowing that you will need to hustle harder to get someone to believe in your idea. It really comes down to finding the time and a way to prototype it and show it off to get people onboard with your idea — need to find the people to back you and help drive it forward

Avoiding overshadowing genuine feedback with emotions:

If you think about behaviour in general away from just design. It’s good to think about how you would react if the same message was coming from someone else. It comes down to the fact that we tend to respond based on how threatened we feel and whether our guard is up with that person. We need to think about how to respect and honour the person but to still get our point across and the best way to do this is to prepare for and anticipate the feedback that you might get. That will allow you to stay calm and propose a solution that works for all sides — what is the hybrid approach.

“It takes a long time to get right but the difference between an immature designer and a mature designer is not how well they design but how well they respond to the feedback they get”

Random quotes (I had in my notes but can’t remember what they related to sorry)

“At the end of the day [taking care of stakeholders], it’s the difference between what makes okay design vs great design”

“Our design community has realised that the UX of design is broken”

“Might not know why the baby is crying but you have to figure that out”

“We need to get across that we know design because we know people”

Resources / references:

Liraz Margalit’s article in which she described experience as the interaction between and interaction and a stimulus. The point to be made here is that experience doesn’t happen purely within a website but instead ultimately it is happening in people’s minds. It’s more about how you are made to feel and that is why two people could have two different experiences interacting with the same website. (not sure if it is the article but it was one that I found on Goggle after and it mentions the point Roger made: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/behind-online-behavior/201708/the-psychology-experience-in-the-digital-world)

Google Heart Framework: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/google-s-heart-framework-for-measuring-ux

Susan Weinschenk book: 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Roger didn’t say which book, just her name, but assuming it is this one…)

bp is hiring:

Looking for various levels for designers—> service design leads, senior product designers, user researchers etc in the UK, US and India
Leadership roles available also:

Head of Design Studio
Head of Product Design
Head of User Research (UK)
Head of Service Design
Director of Education and Transformation (lead of design thinking, ethics, accessibility, sustainability, accountability, learning and training)

Applying UX principles to excite your stakeholders