#researchartifacts

Module 1 – Example of Design Leadership

My next example of Design Leadership is the Product User Personas Repository that I am currently working with my team and business partners to create. Not to say that a user personas repository is particularly notable or unique in the UX design industry at-large, but it does present new, user-centric, Empathetic Design method in which our “Connected Aviation” business operates.

The Problem:

Being a UX Designer, I observed many instances of disconnect and lack of a shared domain understanding that results in missed opportunities. For instance…

Misinformed understanding of job roles and inconsistent nomenclature between products, even when they were serving the same user personas, leading to solving the wrong problems

Lack of awareness of product functions and use cases resulting in duplicity in development efforts, which slows development progress

Fragmented business strategy despite clear opportunities for collaboration to unlock more advanced and useful solutions.

The Solution:

With some time, I came to realize the need for a focus on research operations in pursuit of a more holistic design approach for our business, beginning with a shared understanding of our product users through User Persona research artifacts. I took advantaged the recent mandate for all products to work within one single product Management System (Aha!) and began building a User Personas Repository through the provided Aha! documentation template. Along with my manager and several business stakeholders, I altered the template to include key user persona details as well as user needs as they pertain to our business’s product and feature specific data. With this user personas repository, we can…

Gain a shared understanding of industry nomenclature and our users’ pain points, needs, goals, and product use cases

See how user personas link to product features so that we can recognize opportunities for shared development