I am enjoying this thread a great deal. Thanks to Dan for starting it! I
look forward to seeing what you come up with on this topic in your new
edition.
Some background: I do strategic UX consulting for clients who create (often
complicated) applications for thinking work (e.g. a scientific data analysis
tool).
I would like to contribute four points:
1. Design strategy can be defined differently at different scopes
2. Design strategy can present frameworks for exploration and decision
making
3. Effective design strategy outcomes can arise from ecosystems of
conceptual design
4. Design strategies can be simultaneously communicated at multiple levels
of detail
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1. Design strategy can be defined differently at different scopes
I agree with the previous comments on scope being important. When
envisioning new or iteratively improved offerings, IxDers moving into more
strategic roles find themselves in one of two generalized project
situations:
Case A. Top level traditional / business strategy is in place for their
product or service, in which case design strategy can become next level
extensions and conceptual visualizations of differentiated user experiences
(and insightful, high value design strategy work may then lead to iteration
back to reexamine initiating charters)
Case B. Top level traditional / business strategy is not in place (or is
in place, but is not very fleshed out), in which case design strategy
efforts can encompass a much broader range of more traditional strategic
activities, merging them with the conceptual design activities of Case A.
This situation is a focus in the innovation literature.
I often work in Case A situations, and with that in mind, here is a fairly
rough definition from my recently posted e-book Working through Screens:
Design strategy: The singular, relatively unchanging proposals that
summarize the essence of an envisioned application's scope, core value,
points of emotional connection, and approaches to mediating knowledge work.
Design strategies are situated within a larger context of targeted user
needs, technological possibilities, market forces, trends, and predictions.
Product teams can use these strategies to drive clarity in their offerings
and focus their members around a shared vision and goal set. Since they are
derived from key business, marketing, and product development
considerations, design strategies can be thought of as a lower level
expression of a computing tool's initiating, high level charter.
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2. Design strategy can present frameworks for exploration and decision
making
I believe that IxDers can learn a great deal from the critical brief writing
found at many architecture, industrial design, and graphic design practices.
Important, strategic insights do not just arise through ethnographic
observation - they can also arise from designer-ly exploration and
understanding of established and potential constraints.
By creating frameworks that map things like trends, meaningful sources of
differentiation, and potential experience attributes, IxDers can add
considerable strategic value - especially when these boundary objects
contain and reframe the findings and perspectives of other contributing
groups within the organization.
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3. Effective design strategy outcomes can arise from ecosystems of
conceptual design
Mature design disciplines often emphasize a conceptual design phase to
explore multiple options within a framed problem space. Design action
becomes a way of understanding, which can then iterated back into strategic
arguments.
The *process* of holistic, meaningfully branched conceptual design is much
more difficult for software application than it is for a new mouse, but I
believe that it is a major, largely untapped strategic contribution for
IxDers.
I see that IxDers turning onto Bill Buxton's sketching emphasis are heading
in the direction of conceptual design as part of strategic thinking. What
seems to be missing from his readers' posted outputs (the one's that I have
seen in my surfing), is the holistic exploration of multiple genuinely
different positionings as a means of understanding the what-it's-like-ness
of potential experiences and discovering the fittest solution to a defined
problem (from all of the valued perspectives within an organization).
---
4. Design strategies can be simultaneously communicated at multiple levels
of detail
Andrew asked a whole string of great questions, including:
What does a strategy look like? Is it a diagram? A narrative document?
A phrase that the CEO repeats at every chance?
I have communicated design strategy outputs slightly differently on each
project, depending on clients' broader organizational shapes, competencies,
and goals.
I have found that effective design strategies exist at multiple levels of
detail, to be used in different circumstances. They can have catchy short
names, short but informative stories that plant narrative seeds, summarizing
visual
