Product Design Activities

Product Canvas

We use the product canvas in the discovery phase of a project. Working together with our product partners, we help them to focus on what the project is all about and what the business goals are for it. By the end of the session, we're left with a clear sense of the problems we're solving, the goals we're hoping to achieve, and the desired value we want the product to deliver.

​

The above example was done in Mural for an accounts receivable tool that was net new and had very ill-defined requirements. By the end of the session, we had a clear sense of what we were working towards as well as the gaps we needed to fill for requirements to be properly created.

​

Steps of Product Canvas Exercise:

​

1. Define problem statement 

2. Fill in the who, what, why, and when

3. List key business outcomes

4. Capture dependencies and limitations

5. Mini-assumption slam to capture everyone's starting assumptions

6. Compile a list of questions and unknowns

Outcome-Driven UX Metrics Exercise

We use outcome-driven UX metrics during the discovery phase of design. In this exercise, we shift the focus of what success might look like from business OKRs to the needs of our clients - the people using the product.

We ask: "If we do a great job on this new product or feature, whose lives will get better, and how will they improve?" We identify specific people who are representative of each user group (like personas) and take time to understand how our product could help solve their problems.

​

The above example was done in Mural before we launched the central, design system team. Our intended users were design team members as well as our partners (product, tech, journey owners, business owners). We listed each target team member and then filled in how their lives would get better by the introduction of this new product.

​

Steps we used in the Outcome-Driven UX Metrics Exercise:

​

1. Ask the question: if we do a great job on this new product or feature, whose lives will get better, and how will they improve?

2. List out all the users of the product and get clear on who they are. Assign specific people (or personas) to represent each target demographic member.

3. Thinking about each user's needs, list out all the things your product or feature can do to help solve the problem you're setting out to solve.

4. Use this to inform the solution you design.

Stakeholder Interviews

Sometimes need to get input from a variety of stakeholders during the discovery phase of a project.  

Stakeholders may be subject-matter experts (SMEs) who can provide necessary information to inform design direction. We sometimes interview them 1:1, asking a series of questions to help define the problems to solve as well as the stakeholder needs for the solution. Sometimes, we run workshops with a larger group of stakeholders all together.

​

The above example is a snippet from a much larger Mural board where I took a group of Product Owners through an exercise designed to identify their biggest priorities for the RBC Mobile app content strategy in the coming year. We categorized their answers into themes and then used these to prioritize the work.

​

Competitive Analysis

This is an example of a quick market scan I performed to understand how banks across Canada and the United States name various sections of their sites. We were considering renaming one of the buckets in our navigation, and this exercise was intended to help us understand how our competitors are handling similar content.  I grabbed screenshots and grouped them thematically. Based on the findings, I made a recommendation for nomenclature on our site (not pictured in this image). 

User Testing Synthesis

While conducting user tests, we take notes using stickies in Mural. We colour code the notes as we go, using green for things that were well received, red for things that aren't working, blue for opportunities to improve the product or the specific flow we're working on and yellow for ideas.

Once all the testing is complete, we lay out a mural with each section of the test and compile all the feedback we got from each of our testers into one space. We then group the stickie notes into themes, which begins to paint a clear indication of strength of the signal for feedback we received. If there are a lot of notes on the same topic, trends emerge. From the grouped themes, we can make decisions about aspects of the design that require modification. We can then prioritize which updates we implement now vs. leaving for future releases.

​

Our teams have begun using AI to help with extracting themes from test findings. We drop transcripts from recordings and our notes into the AI engine and prompt it to summarize the findings. This speeds up the process tremendously. However, we still need to carefully review the findings to ensure there are no mistakes and that the prompt has given us outputs at the correct level of depth.

Mentorship Activity

I meet with my direct reports for bi-weekly 1:1 sessions. The purpose of these sessions isn't to discuss the specifics of the work they're doing. It's to check in on how they're feeling as well as any issues they're facing. I use this mentorship Mural to guide the discussion and document things to refer back to in the future. 

​

I always start with highlights and lowlights - to share something they feel good about that happened since we last met, and then any challenges they've faced. We then discuss how they're feeling from an interpersonal dynamics perspective. 

​

The mentorship meetings are an opportunity to discuss their goals for personal and professional growth. We discuss where they'd like to head in their career and how I can help to support them in these endeavours. The Mural helps to collect all of the notes and takeaways so that we can look back later on and see how they're tracking towards their goals.