No matter where you are located in the world, renewing your driver’s license or updating your ID card address can be difficult.
Californians can find it hard to use a website that isn’t user-friendly. This was why the DMV Strike Team hired 10up to redesign the entire California DMV website.
This case study will look at a design exercise that we call Design shopping. It allows us to communicate with clients better and moves our collaboration in the right direction.
DESIGN SHOPPING
Understanding our client is the first step to achieving the final product (the DMV website). We must begin from the beginning. It was crucial to gain client alignment during the discovery phase.
Clients and employees don’t have to be designers. Many people find design confusing or intimidating.
They went shopping. Design Shop.
Why choose “DESIGN SHOPPING?”
Client service is all about first impressions.
Let’s make it sound good! We need to make our clients feel good from their first interaction to our last.
The team at DMV was aware of the first moments and attempted to find ways to make it easier for everyone to share their ideas and opinions without fear.
The concept of shopping is one everyone can grasp and immediately puts them at ease.
Shopping removes the pressure of being right or wrong — a layman immediately understands “picking and choosing” the right “fit.” Dopamine is released when you shop, which stimulates your brain’s reward- and pleasure centers. It also encourages clients to take action.
It’s done! Now let’s get to the heart and soul of the design process.
To show stakeholders that we were engaged and ready to translate their goals into tangible design results,
What You Need
Ground your design thinking before you begin visual exploration or workshop planning. If your team is capable of controlling it, however, you should possess the following:
- Identified project goals
- Problem statements;
- Competitive analysis
- Mental model comparisons;
- Historical context
- Project Brief
- Preliminary UX Discovery
- Maps for content.
Get Deep
Let your mind wander and enjoy the process of design shopping. These examples will illustrate what you’ve learned from your research.
Use artifacts as conversation starters and guides. Look for opportunities to point to:
- Preferences, aesthetics;
- User experience design;
- Goals for business
- Specific actions
- How design can support all of, beyond just looking.
Clients feel more involved with the design vision if it is based upon tangible benefits for their company and user experience.
TACTICAL INSPIRATION
Inspiration for design doesn’t need to be limited by what you know. These are some places where our team searches for inspiration.
- Pure creativity and the newest trends:
- Vertical review, competitive analysis, and identity-specific exploration
FOCUS NOW ON YOUR ARTIFACTS
Limiting the design shopping artifacts per team to 5-7 has been proven to help the team stay focused and avoid getting distracted. Choose
- One is a vertical that shows familiarity with the basics.
- One Other Vertical that challenges or displays brand attributes.
- One that allows for difficult design choices.
- They will love it.
- The client has already told you that they have found something in their research.
- A reflection of the mental model that they have about their audience. What do you think will appeal most to their understanding? ).
Get your wheels moving
CHOOSE YOUR CHAMPIONS
It’s hard not to laugh. A notetaker is needed for facilitators and clients to focus on the participants.
A large stakeholder group was at the DMV, so we needed two facilitators To achieve the same experience in virtual settings, multiple breakout rooms can be used by multiple facilitators
WORKSHOP MATERIALS
Gather all your materials
- Dot stickers can be used to identify the color codes red and green.
- Emoji stickers – These are an addition to the traditional red and green votes.
- Post-it notes can be used to make comments
- Screenshots of Websites
Stop talking and let’s listen
No matter whether the workshop is held online or in person, you must set ground rules. Do not let the loudest participant control the discussion.
Technology paralysis is a problem when running a virtual workshop. It may take 5-10 minutes to demonstrate the tools you will use during the workshop.
If you are short on time, send the virtual board with instructions to your workshop participants.
Set clear expectations and reiterate the purpose of your workshop.
PARAMETERS FOR VOTING
Limit the votes each participant can get. This applies regardless of whether the votes are virtual stickers or real stickers. You will receive a total of 10 votes.
Limiting votes encourages people to shop more carefully. Participants love it a lot!
READY, SET, SHOP!
Once your client has all the necessary tools, it’s time to let them shop shop shop. The timer should be set to 15 minutes. While they wait, participants can mix and mingle to vote on their favorite and least favorite aspects of the designs.
Standing during the exercise can shift your perspective and place participants on an even playing field. Pre-filling voting panels with avatars of participants creates an element of humanity to the experience. It shifts your lens in much the same way as standing together.
GUIDING THE CONVERSATION
Discuss the team’s success shopping after the timer runs out. Look at each artifact and discuss the patterns.
Shoppers are encouraged to volunteer their expertise.
This allows for discussion and evaluation rather than focusing solely on a handful of participants. It is a team effort and each step should feel collaborative.
This is done to eliminate the need for a “correct” answer. “
Listen to the client’s design vocabulary and build from it. This will allow you to make connections with the client and guide them toward the fundamental design principles they will use throughout the design phase.
COMMUNICATE THE RESULTS
Share the results with your team after everyone has finished shopping.
Take note of the key points that indicate agreement and disagreements.
Feel the love, once more
While we have only described the main methods of organizing a design shopping workshop ( ), it is a continuous process. We frequently do one final round of Shopping at a later time.
Here you can take the created in the first workshop and create.
Once you have completed your prototypes, mood boards, and style tiles, you can use Design Shopping to validate your ideas. Design Spectrum
After you have built a relationship with your client, and become familiar with the workshop, it becomes easier to create a design vocabulary and then evaluate the design.
Conclusion
It is easy to move quickly towards a common design vocabulary using the Design shopping workflow. You should consider your destination and decide how you want to experience them before you set out.
As an industry, we talk a lot about education. However, we rarely design education to be fun. This can lead to bad client relations and poor design which can then lead to poor outcomes.
Have fun! This workshop will help you gain collective agreement to prevent future conflict.
Design Shopping doesn’t mean buying fancy fonts or colors. It’s about showing the ROI through thoughtful design.
If done right, this exercise can help clients see the real potential of their design ideas. Your clients will be impressed by the concrete examples of design they have seen.
