You can’t write user stories or make any design decisions whatsoever unless you first understand the needs of the people you’re designing for. You can’t make good design decisions until you understand your customers This is the best fuel for design work, and it’s from here that we can envisage high-quality experiences, make good decisions on features and UI components and begin sketching and prototyping what this will look like. If you’re building a website, the map describes what is going on in the minds of the people who come to your site and what they are trying to achieve by being there. You can read stories from left to right and follow a user’s journey, making it easy to understand what people are thinking and doing at every step. On a digital project, each user story might eventually equate to a page on your website or feature in your product, but by determining and writing our scope as a collection of user stories rather than features, we keep our focus squarely on real people and are free to make well-informed decisions on solutions later.Ī user story map is what we get when we arrange a collection of user stories in a big grid and arrange them in a logical manner. User stories are short, easily understood descriptions of things users want or need to do, written on post-it notes or index cards. It’s a favorite mapping technique of mine that I learned working with Agile development teams in a previous role, and it originates with Agile expert Jeff Patton. User story mapping is our preferred way to define the scope, details and priorities of a new digital product or service. User stories help teams stay focused on people’s real needs, rather than features We guided the project team through a structured, creative process, using design-thinking techniques to generate new ideas and decide which to pursue. Deciding what to transform into became far easier with something clear to reference. Once we’d gathered all our info, we created service blueprints that gave senior stakeholders the overview they needed. Done poorly, it’s all too easy for tech to make things less personal, so this was an important insight. For example, we learned that Jelf is particularly good at building personal relationships and trust with their clients and made it a project goal to ensure the new digital services would enhance that. Staff members were able to help us map customer journeys, build personas, note pain points and share their own ideas for where innovation should happen. Pancentric hit the road and ran a series of events at Jelf offices all around the country, talking to customers and running workshops with staff, too. We needed to learn what was going on before we could decide what to do next. For our project team trying to determine a roadmap of new developments, there was no easy overview of how each office operated or what the entire customer experience looked like as people interacted with different departments. Jelf has dozens of offices around the UK, all with specialties in insuring different kinds of commercial businesses. One such case is Jelf, whom we helped kick-off a several-year digital transformation journey by getting to know not just their customers better, but their own staff, too. In other cases, they already have that knowledge in their firm it just isn’t being utilized well enough. We sometimes find our clients require qualitative research from us in order to really understand the “whys” of customer behavior. Before a company can make any meaningful decisions on what future services will be like, they first need to understand what people need and how well they’re being served today. These can be huge undertakings for large organizations, and it’s exciting for us to be able to help them shake things up!įirst and foremost, we help clients get to know their own customers better and learn what matters to them. The insurance industry is starting to pick up design methods, and companies are seeking to undergo digital transformation projects or learn how to nurture an internal culture that allows for innovation and change. We’re asked to help organizations make better digital experiences, experiment with new service models and establish more regular, meaningful contact with customers that they can learn from. Change is coming, however, driven by challenger startups and rising customer expectations. It’s common for us to see different customer service departments working in silos and legacy systems severely hampering what can be offered by way of insurance products. The insurance firms we work with have often been operating in the same way for years, and they know there’s ahuge opportunity for them in innovation. Matt Corrall, Design Director at Pancentric Digital, explains how new approaches can transform a conservative industry.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |