Venture Design Module 4: Designing the Right Product

Alex Cowan
VENTURE
DESIGN V
DESIGNING THE RIGHT PRODUCT

copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing
AGENDA
Period
Deliverables
SESSION I: Achieving
Customer Relevance
Personas
Problem Scenarios-Alternatives-Value Propositions
Start Business Model Canvas
Storyboards
Customer Discovery
Venture Design II: Iterating
to Success
Venture Planning- focal hypotheses, experiments, and minimum viable
‘product’
Venture Design III:
Focusing & Validating
Venture Progress
Review of ﬁeld work, reﬁnements of approach, planning next steps.
Venture Design IV:
Engineering Your Business
Model
Detailing your business model and remaining focal assumptions.
Venture Design V:
Designing the Right
Product
Pairing your learnings on personas & hypotheses with high quality,
actionable inputs (stories & wireframes) for product development and
product validation.

DEVELOPMENT
Agile
Now
Waterfall
Then

AGILE FOUNDATIONS
Individuals
Interactions
> Processes
Tools
Working
software
Comprehensive
Documentation
>
Customer
collaboration
Contract
negotiation
>
Responding
to change
Following
a plan
>

AGILE FOUNDATIONS
USER STORIES
DISCUSSION
DEVELOPMENT
VALIDATION
PERSONAS
PROBLEM SCENARIOS,
ALTERNATIVES
PROPOSITIONS

AGILE & LEAN
validate feature
relevance with
customers
Past
collaborate
with
development
Present
observe and
envision what’s
next
Future

AGILE USER STORES- WHATIS
Drafting
Stories
PERSONAS
STORIES
Epic Stories
Stories
Test Cases
“As a [persona],
I want to [do something]
so that I can [derive a beneﬁt]”

EXAMPLE: AGILE USER STORIES
CHILD STORIES
A) “As an HR manager, I want to get a list of topics relevant to an open position from the
functional manager so I can set up a relevant and complete quiz for screening.”
B) “As an HR manager, I want to browse the quiz banks [of available questions] so I can make
sure I’m subscribed to all the necessary topics for my quiz.”
C) “As an HR manager, I want to purchase additional quiz banks so I can add additional
technical topics to my quizzes.”
D) “As an HR manager, I want to create a custom quiz banks so I can add custom questions
the functional manager wants to add to the quiz.”
E) “As a manager, I want to set the quiz up for a possible recruit to use.”
F) “As an HR manager, I want to make the candidates’ scores available to the functional
manager, along with the rest of my notes.
EPIC STORY
‘As the HR manager, I want to create a screening quiz so that I can understand whether I
want to send possible recruits to the functional manager.’

EPIC STORY

STORYBOARDING AN EPIC
‘As the HR
manager, I want
to create a
screening quiz
so that I can
understand
whether I want to
send possible
recruits to the
functional
manager.’

EXERCISE- DRAFT AN AGILE EPIC (4 MIN)
Draft an epic story (4 min)
“As a [persona],
I want to [do something]
so that I can [derive a beneﬁt]”
‘As the HR manager, I want to create a
screening quiz so that I can understand
whether I want to send possible recruits
to the functional manager.’

EXERCISE- DRAFT A STORYBOARD FOR YOUR AGILE EPIC (10 MIN)
‘As the HR
manager, I want
to create a
screening quiz
so that I can
understand
whether I want
to send recruits
to the
functional
manager.’
guideline:
3-6 panels

CHILD STORIES
A) “As an HR manager, I want to browse the banks of available quiz questions, matching them
with the skill sets described in an open job recruitment so that I can draft a screening quiz
with relevant questions.”
B) “As an HR manager, I want to check the quiz topics I’ve selected with Frank the Functional
Manager so that I can make sure I have the right topics.”
C) “As a functional manager, I want to review, revise and conﬁrm the set of question topics
the HR manager has selected so the quiz will be ready to use for ﬁrst round candidates.”
D) “As a manager, I want to increase the limit on how many quiz question ‘banks’ I can use so
that I can move ahead with the quiz I’ve formulated.”
E) “As a manager, I want to create custom quiz questions so I can add them to my quiz.”
F) “As a manager, I want to administer the quiz to a recruit so I can understand where they
are on key skill sets needed for the position.”
EPIC STORY

STORYBOARDING AN EPIC
‘As the HR
manager, I want
to create a
screening quiz
so that I can
understand
whether I want to
send possible
recruits to the
functional
manager.’
STORIES: A, B STORIES: C STORIES: D
STORIES: F STORIES: G, HSTORIES: E

EXERCISE: WRITE INDIVIDUAL STORIES FOR YOUR EPIC & ITS STORYBOARD (10 MIN)
CHILD STORIES
A) “As an HR manager, I want to browse the banks of available quiz questions, matching them
with the skill sets described in an open job recruitment so that I can draft a screening quiz
with relevant questions.”
B) “As an HR manager, I want to check the quiz topics I’ve selected with Frank the Functional
Manager so that I can make sure I have the right topics.”
C) “As a functional manager, I want to review, revise and conﬁrm the set of question topics
the HR manager has selected so the quiz will be ready to use for ﬁrst round candidates.”
D) “As a manager, I want to increase the limit on how many quiz question ‘banks’ I can use so
that I can move ahead with the quiz I’ve formulated.”
E) “As a manager, I want to create custom quiz questions so I can add them to my quiz.”
F) “As a manager, I want to administer the quiz to a recruit so I can understand where they
are on key skill sets needed for the position.”
EPIC STORY

ABOUT PROTOTYPING
Stay focused to the persona and the problem.
All solutions are temporary, especially at this stage.

PLAY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE AT THE EARLY PHASES AND DRAFT + EXPERIMENT A LOT
EXPENSE
FLEXIBILITY
idea
wireframe
working design
prototype
working product
working product
with a few users
working product
with lots of users

PLAY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE AT THE EARLY PHASES AND DRAFT + EXPERIMENT A LOT
EXPENSE
FLEXIBILITY
idea
wireframe
working design
prototype
working product
working product
with a few users
working product
with lots of users
play to your
strengths as as
startup/new
product in this
zone

#1 COMMON PROBLEM WITH PROTOTYPING: NOT BEING READY
!
THINK SEE
FEEL DO
PERSONAS
Who?
X
PROBLEM
SCENARIOS &
ALTERNATIVES
What?
VALUE
PROPOSITIONS
& ASSUMPTIONS
What if?
!
CUSTOMER
DISCOVERY
&
EXPERIMENTS
Tell me…?
USER STORIES
&
PROTOTYPES
How?
Having focal
propositions
supported
by customer
discovery is
the ﬁrst
prereq. to
good
prototyping

STEP 1: IDENTIFY WHAT YOU NEED & FIND COMP’S
Don’t reinvent the wheel.
(startup’s have enough risk)
Identify the interface
elements you need, then ﬁnd
comparables and existing
patterns.
(ref: bit.ly/protonow)

EXAMPLE CASE: BRAND LATTICE
Brand identity application
for designers and their
clients

STEP 1: NEEDS & COMP’S
NEEDED: sequential process with ability
to skip ahead and go back; strong
anchor in where you are in the process
COMP’S: wizard-type interfaces for
shopping and item conﬁguration

EXERCISE: IDENTIFY COMP’S
NEEDED: What are the key functional
elements you need?
COMP’S: What existing applications
have these? Which ones are best
practice? What do you like/not like
about them for your purpose?
(5 min)

EXERCISE: PEER PRESENTATIONS
As
Presenter
As
Audience
1) What are the key functional blocks?
2) What are some best practice
examples?
3) What do they tell you? What parts do
you, don’t you consider applicable?
- Focus on the process; avoid editorial
- Ask a lot of questions
- Think about it like an investor
(2 min./ each
x 3 students)

STEP 2: WIREFRAMING
Wireframes are for discussion.
Good wireframing tools:
- help you color in the lines using existing UI
metaphors (scroll bars, drop-down’s, etc.)
- are easy to use and uncomplicated
- facilitate annotation and discussion

WIREFRAMING AT BRAND LATTICE
Concept items I did in Balsamiq (wireframing tool)

WIREFRAMING AT BRAND LATTICE
More detail from design lead (created in Adobe
Illustrator)

PROTOTYPING AT BRANDOMATIC
1) Photoshop
designs from
design lead
2) Created
concept
prototype in
Keynote*
3) Finished
early user
testing
* PowerPoint has similar
functionality

PROTOTYPING AT LARGE
Let your key assumptions
drive experiments to
determine the type of
prototype you need
Keynote and PowerPoint let you link shapes to slides
for basic (fake) interaction
There are many prototyping tools that provide for
interactive prototypes
If you know what you want, just doing static
interactions in HTML/CSS/JS isn’t bad (if you have
access to that skill set)

DOCUMENT YOUR KEY UI/UX ASSUMPTIONS AS YOU GO ALONG
Let’s assume.
Then test.
Let’s not
argue

EXAMPLE ASSUMPTIONS AND EXPERIMENTS AT BRAND LATTICE
Drag and drop isn’t yet in common use.
Would users get it?
Noted as key assumption and became
early focal item in user test

ITERATING BASED ON EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AT BRAND LATTICE
70% of users
didn’t get the
drag and drop
in this version
This change in
the annotation
was enough so
they got it

THE “MTP”
P
inimum
estable
roduct
T
M

PARING AWAY ASSUMPTIONS VIA MTP
Tactical
assumptions
about
usability
Pivotal
assumptions
about
relevance
ExperimentLearn
Hypothesize
Lean Startup-
Style Assumptions

EXERCISE (OPTIONAL): BALSAMIQ ON G.APP’S
1: Visit Google App’s for Drive
- Go to Google Doc’s (via Gmail, etc.
account)
- Click on ‘Create’ then see menu at
bottom
2: Get the Balsamiq (trial)
3: On the ‘Create’ menu, you’ll now see
an optional for Balsamiq Mockup’s

EXERCISE: CREATE MOCKUP’S
Create a set of wireframes for your epic story, drawing on the
comp’s your created as you see ﬁt. (15 min.)

EXERCISE: PEER PRESENTATIONS
As
Presenter
As
Audience
1) Review the epic.
2) How might the user navigate the
system through these steps?
3) What do you think will be the most
challenging parts of creating a good
UI?
- Focus on the process; avoid editorial
- Ask a lot of questions
- Think about it like an investor
(5 min./ each)

BEING RELEVANT, LOOKING GOOD
Four phases to branding:
Strategy Creation Expression Stewardship
What is the company (or product) about?
- Starting point: your positioning statement from
session 1
- Bear in mind your customer storytelling: personas,
problem scenarios, propositions
- You can create a brand strategy moodboard on
brandlattice.com in about 10 minutes

What is does this company (or product) look like?
- CONSISTENCY IS THE #1 MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR
VISUAL COMMUNICATION
- Take 20 minutes and create a style guide: bit.ly/3tostyleguide

How do we apply our brand strategy to (front
end, business cards, website, etc.)?
- Now this is (relatively) easy! Just use your style
guide and any prior applications you have

How do we keep this program strong?
- Maintenance, etc. (not important for us here)

WHERE ARE YOU NOW?
MVP
Nascent
Product-Market
Fit(?) Scale
PIVOTAL
ASSUMPTIONS
PRODUCT
ORG.
PARTNERS,
CHANNELS
Founders
N/A
Probably too
soon
Test, revise,
test...
MVP
Customer dev.
team
Probably too
soon
Validated- now
tactical
Focus: efficiency,
extension
Full functional
organization
Yeah, maybe?
Validated- now
tactical
What would a
startup do??
Scalable
organization
Yeah, deﬁnitely!

FULL CIRCLE
!
THINK SEE
FEEL DO
PERSONAS
Who?
X
PROBLEM
SCENARIOS &
ALTERNATIVES
What?
VALUE
PROPOSITIONS
& ASSUMPTIONS
What if?
!
USER
STORIES &
PROTOTYPES
How?
Scale?
PRODUCT &
PROMOTION
/
CUSTOMER
DISCOVERY
&
EXPERIMENTS
Tell me…?
Pivot?

FULL CIRCLE
!
PRODUCT &
PROMOTION
USER
STORIES &
PROTOTYPES
Did the
implementation
deliver on the story?
/
CUSTOMER
DISCOVERY
&
EXPERIMENTS
How did the
customer/user
react?
VALUE
PROPOSITIONS
& ASSUMPTIONS
!
Was the
implemented
story relevant
to the
proposition?
X
PROBLEM
SCENARIOS &
ALTERNATIVES
Is problem
relevant? Is the
proposition
better vs.
alternatives?
THINK SEE
FEEL DO
PERSONAS
Do we
understand this
person? What
makes them
tick?

FINI
www.alexandercowan.com/venture-design
bit.ly/venturedesign
http://bit.ly/alexGAJune
acowan@alexandercowan.com
@cowanSF
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