CREATIVE PROCESS

Let's design something.

Potential Enhancement Opportunity

Problem Identification

Conduct research and analysis on topic to understand user problem
Determine if users are asking about problem area (sometimes business partners ask for a specific solution, but users rarely ask about it)
Analyze customer sentiment associated to problem and use to direct ideation
Gather any data possible to quantify size of the problem, number of inquiries on the topic, and current experience to have as a baseline
Identify if the topic in question is driving calls, chats, complaints, or impacting satisfaction scores (additional baseline data)

Ideation (part 1)

Gather known data and insights on problem area and use to guide ideation sessions
Seek feedback from the team regarding the user mental model and various ways each person may be needing assistance
Conduct divergent exploration session with variety of stakeholders to understand the various ways the problem can be addressed (ideally collaborative whiteboarding sessions)
Explore different approaches and the potential benefits of each
Sketch ideas or craft high level journeys during sessions to demonstrate the flow and what information would be desired

Ideation (part 2)

Discuss technical feasibility of initial ideas
Utilize convergent thinking to collaboratively narrow options to optimal designs
High level estimate of size of work and timeline for implementation

Design & Review

Co-create and obtain approval from key stakeholders such as:
- Product
- Digital and/or marketing partners
- Other designers
- Technical & development partners
- Product engineers or developers
- Legal
- Compliance
- Quality assurance
Document detailed requirements in partnership with product
For AI implementations, collaborate with data scientists or speech analysts to craft concept mapping which will allow users to skip whole portions of the dialog tree if they provide specific information in their initial query
Conduct review sessions with owners of the experience or anyone who may benefit from being aware of the new capabilities and gain additional feedback prior to design finalization

Build & Test

Build out design
For Virtual Agents, creation of the dialogs in the Virtual Agent’s Graphical User Interface (party implementing dialog into the vendor’s tool depends on team layout, capacity, role, size, and complexity of design)
Collaborate with vendor developers, service designers, web, iOS, and Android development teams to ensure experiences dependent on user data will be surfaced to users as designed audibly and/or on screen
Depending on complexity of project, conduct your own quality assurance review of the design implementation and/or collaborate with quality assurance specialists who will test design from end to end
Any defects or test findings may be immediately resolved or if low risk, added to the next iteration for resolution

Launch

Design is implemented in test environment first (as noted above)
Once approved, design is pushed to production and is now in a live environment for customers to interact with

Maintain & Improve

Set up regular and recurring collaborative review sessions with the same groups who implemented the design (in most cases)
Document pre and post implementation metrics, volume, agent performance, and ability to resolve the users’ inquiry
Create and share design performance deliverables to stakeholders
Monitor experiences for high or low performance
If particular areas are under-performing, conduct deep-dive sessions on those sections to understand why users are dissatisfied with the experience
Discuss opportunities for improvement, share them with key decision makers for prioritization over other improvement objectives
Once improvement or problem area identified, go back to the top of the creative process for problem identification for enhancement opportunities