March 15, 2022 • 27 mins
Brian Sullivan provides pointers about not letting solutioning get in the way of brainstorming.
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Episode Transcript
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Dan Berlin (00:14):
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of
the 97 UX Things Podcast. DanBerlin here, your host and book
editor. This week, I'm joined byBrian Sullivan, who wrote the
chapter Frame the OpportunityBefore Brainstorming the
Solution. Welcome Brian.
Brian Sullivan (00:28):
Hi Dan, how are you doing?
Dan Berlin (00:30):
I'm doing great.
Thanks for joining the podcasthere today. So can you tell us a
little bit about yourself?
Brian Sullivan (00:37):
Sure. My name is Brian Sullivan. I'm the Director
of User Research and DesignStrategy at Sabre. And in that
role, I lead a team of userresearchers that work in the
travel industry. And we workglobally with different airlines
and travel agencies. I also leadthe digital accessibility
(01:01):
practice at Sabre, which isaward winning. And I lead the
design thinking program, whichincludes product design,
thinking and service designthinking. I teach at Southern
Methodist University and theUniversity of North Texas in the
graduate program. I've been inthe industry about 25 years.
Dan Berlin (01:23):
And can you tell folks what Sabre is? I know it's
one of those companies thataffects everyone, but people may
not even know it exists.
Brian Sullivan (01:31):
Really... and that's a great question, because
a lot of people don't realizethat travel is very complicated
and there's really only threecompanies and that do what Sabre
does. If you have jumped on aplane, or booked a hotel room,
(01:53):
or taken a cruise or rented acar, the shopping and
fulfillment of that on the backend is going to usually be done
by a company like Sabre. Sabreis the most popular platform in
the Western Hemisphere,completely dominate the South
(02:14):
American market. We've made alot of headway into Europe and
Asia recently. But if you'veever shopped or booked any type
of travel or tourism on the backend, it's probably being done by
Sabre.
Dan Berlin (02:33):
Yup, yup. Thanks for that. And can you tell us about
your UX journey? How did youdiscover UX and how did you wind
up where you are today?
Brian Sullivan (02:44):
That's such a terrific question. I think
everybody has a differentjourney and for people that are
a little bit older, like me, youdidn't have programs like
Bentley University or othercollege programs like Kent
State. You kind of had to jumpinto it in a different way. So
(03:09):
my user experience journey beganwith technical writing and there
was a special interest groupthrough the Society for
Technical Communication onusability and I joined that. I
was going to all of thesedifferent seminars, and there
(03:30):
really weren't a lot of books atthe time, but I was just
devouring them. It turned out,there was an open house at
Sabre. I was in a role as atechnical writer and there was
an open house for the usabilitylabs. I went in there and I just
said, this is it. This is what Iwant to do. Because I was
(03:53):
devouring stuff on webpsychology, and usability. That
was from the STC. I really tooka deep dive into it and then I
found out there was thisorganization called the
Usability ProfessionalsAssociation, and that's when I
found my tribe. And, at thetime, the usability labs at
(04:18):
Sabre, it was one of the firstcompanies that had its own...
publicly held company that hadits own usability lab. And it
was founded by Janice James, whofounded the Usability
Professionals Association. Iended up having a couple
interviews and I got a job. Iwas surprised that I got it. I
(04:43):
just started running usabilitytest after usability test. And I
would really say, and I'm nottrying to brag, but for a while
in the travel industry... I'dspent about 12 years just doing
that... I probably was theperson in the world that had the
most experience doing that justbecause I was running so many
(05:07):
projects and surveys. But myjourney began just with being
curious and going to an openhouse and reading books and
talking to people.
Dan Berlin (05:18):
Great. Thanks for that. And super interesting. I
didn't realize the connectionbetween early Sabre usability
and UPA at the time, theUsability Professionals
Association. You also mentionedaward winning accessibility, can
you tell us a little bit moreabout that, and what you have
going on there and how youachieve that?
Brian Sullivan (05:39):
Sure. That was a program that we started a few
years ago. We have a lot ofglobal contracts. It's
embarrassing, in all honesty,that in America we are farther
behind than the rest of theworld and it may be because of a
(06:01):
cultural difference. So in Asia,they're using the WCAG 2.2. WCAG
stands for Web ContentAccessibility Guidelines. In the
United States, it's just not asheavily enforced. About six
years ago, the person that wasthe leader at Sabre said, hey, I
have this wicked problem. Helooked around the room and he
(06:25):
goes, Brian, I want you to solveit. So I ended up doing a little
bit of research from companiesthat have really good
accessibility programs and ittakes a lot to run a successful
program. So the way that weended up setting it up is we had
(06:45):
to get with the legal departmentto talk about, okay, what is our
compliance policy? What is thatgoing to be? We had to publish
that. We also had to look atwhat are the tools that we
needed. And so we had to look atdifferent tools. We also had to
make sure that we hadconsultants that we could talk
(07:07):
to every month just to shape ourprogram. We also needed to train
our staff. We use LinkedInlearning. And what we did is we
looked at the different learningthat was out there and with the
HR department, I tried to figureout, if I am a writer, what do I
(07:31):
need to know? What is thetraining I need to take, if I am
a front-end developer? If I am aproduct manager? If I'm a
designer? And so we figured outwhat is the role based training
and through the learningmanagement system, we pushed
that out, and it became arequirement to get this training
done. We also needed to hire acouple of people to do
(07:55):
accessibility audits for us.
Some of that is done internally,but we also have third-party
audits. We have, I call it theACE team, the Accessibility
Compliance Experts. So the ACEteams meet weekly, and we look
at the progress across the Sabreportfolio. So really, it's it's
(08:20):
about establishing what is theprogram look like? What is our
what is our policy? What are thetools? What are the standards?
What is the training? What isthe auditing? So it's trying to
do this at scale. I think thething that we're trying to do
that's a little bit unique, it'sa bit of the carrot and the
(08:42):
stick approach. So on one hand,you can get slapped on the wrist
and fined legally, and that'stypically how accessibility
programs are defined. That's thestick, but also I think there's
a carrot. And I think it appliesto what we do, Dan. Carrot is
(09:02):
when you consider otherperspectives, when you consider
people that have differentabilities, not a disability, a
different ability, when we areinclusive of them, that is ripe
for innovation to occur. And Ithink that when you can get
(09:25):
people to think about if weconsider these other
opportunities, and I call itopening the aperture a little
bit by including them, then wemake better solutions, better
products, better experiences.
(09:46):
And I think people are reallysensitive to that right now. So
that's how we've shaped theprogram. Knowbility is a firm
out of Austin. they were reallyimpressed with the work. We
didn't win the award right away,it took about three years. They
really liked how we have shapedand rolled out the program. And
(10:10):
I'm lucky enough to haveJennifer Keene-Moore is the lady
that is running it now. She hasrelevant experience at some big
brands doing it, so she's onboard, she's fantastic. And
that's how we run the programthere. I think it's a way that
people have really embraced it.
And it's a lot of fun. It reallyis a lot of fun.
Dan Berlin (10:33):
Yeah, thanks for all that. Super actionable for folks
in terms of how you went aboutimplementing that and giving
steps for some of our listenersif they want to do that as well.
So, thanks for that. Moving onto your chapter Frame the
Opportunity Before Brainstormingthe Solution. Can you tell us
about that, please?
Brian Sullivan (10:51):
Yeah, I think that when you're doing product
design thinking or servicedesign thinking, the first thing
to consider is how we frame theopportunity. And I like to
sometimes refer to it asframestorm before you
brainstorm. And I think thatsometimes when you initially
(11:17):
come into design challenge, thesolution is already built into
the way that it's framed. Right?
And so if we talk about theaperture being a little bit
closed, because people say, oh,well, our design challenges, we
need to build a dashboard forXYZ. Well, you know, is it a
(11:39):
dashboard? What is it that theyreally need to know? And so, if
we take a step back and shape itin terms of three steps, and I
call it the who, what, and why.
The who, what and why. So forany design challenge, the first
(12:02):
part is the who. Who are wedoing this for? And it's a
specific person usually tryingto do something. That's the
what, what are they trying toachieve? And then if you dig a
little bit deeper, why are theytrying to do this? That's the
who, the what, and the why. Andsome of your listeners may have
(12:24):
read the book by Simon Sinek,Start with Why. It's a really
wonderful book. But what we'retrying to do is think about
change, right? And so Dan, Ithink you know this as well as
anybody, if you were to askanyone, hey, do you want to
change? They're gonna say, ohhell no, I'm fine just the way I
(12:45):
am. I love me, right? But if youswitch it just a little bit, and
if you can tease it out and justsay, hey, would you like to
improve here? And the answer isalmost always yes. And it's a
big little thing to say changeversus improve, but how do we
level up an experience, and ifwe don't frame the opportunity
(13:10):
in such a way, the problemspace that we're going to
explore becomes really narrow.
And one of the things that I'vedone is I've moved more from
usability into, co-creatingdesign and into product design
thinking and service designthinking. What I have found is
(13:30):
that it's really important thatthat starting point, where we
shape that design challenge,where we framestorm before we
brainstorm is really key becausepeople often don't think that
way. So that's what the chapteris about. And it's really making
sure that directionally we'reable to maybe have a better
(13:52):
design challenge, so that we canexplore the problem area a
little bit more. But it allstarts with the design
challenge.
Dan Berlin (14:04):
You mentioned the who, what and why. But are there
other attributes of how youshould be framing things at the
beginning of these brainstormingsessions that people find
helpful?
Brian Sullivan (14:18):
Yeah, I'm really glad that you asked that. So the
who, what, why is one way toframe it. I have another tool
that I like to use, I call it atwo-minute read out. And a
two-minute read out, it's almosta fill in the blank. So our
(14:41):
project is called... fill in theblank. The people that use it
are... fill in the blank.
Currently, they strugglebecause... fill in the blank. In
a perfect world, they would beable to do... fill in the blank.
And that would be awesomebecause... fill in the blank,
right? And you're almostadding... you switch at a
(15:03):
certain point from a who, why,into who, what, wow. And the wow
is important because it's anelevator statement, I don't want
to call it a pitch. Because anelevator pitch might take five
floors to explain. But let'simagine that you had one floor
(15:24):
and you had one floor to do yourpitch, you need to have a who,
what, wow statement that is socompelling that people take a
step back. And one of the thingsthat we do is, let's define the
two-minute readout, right. Andthen let's do some user
(15:45):
research, get an understandingof the context, do some journey
mapping. And then if we can takethe top two or three things that
we want to do, and create who,what, wow statements, then we
have a really good direction forthe solutioning that we want to
do. So that's some other thingsthat I use. The other thing,
(16:07):
that if you have a reallydefined product already, using
the business model canvas isreally popular, because you're
talking about segments andchannels and revenue streams and
cost structures anddifferentiation. So those are
some tools that the moreexperienced product managers
(16:28):
that I work with, I mightactually have them, hey, let's
fill that out and use that as astarting point. But then let's
try to distill that down intowho, what, why. And the first
thing that I do always with awho, what, why is I check to
see, is the solution alreadydefined? So let's build a
dashboard for blah, blah, blah.
(16:52):
But who, what, why; who whatwow, two-minute readout,
business model canvas, those aresome of the tools early on that
you can use for framing theopportunity.
Dan Berlin (17:02):
Great. Great. And how do you get to that wow? How
do you determine what that wowis and what is the appropriate
wow for your goals?
Brian Sullivan (17:11):
Yeah, and that's such a compelling question. I
would say that requires threethings. The first thing is it
should be authentic. And what Imean by authentic is, it should
really be based upon real userresearch. Right? We've either
(17:32):
talked to someone, sent out asurvey, or we've observed them,
so it's authentic. So it's notjust an opinion. The other thing
besides being authentic is thatit needs to be revealing, right?
So when somebody says this, who,what, wow, you're like, oh, my
(17:52):
God, I've never thought of itthat way. Right? And the thing
about that is that sometimes weaim low. And how we're going to
do our who, what, wow, it's notmuch of a wow, it's more of a
well, huh? Well, that's obvious.
And so if it's not thatrevealing that they don't take
that step back and say, wow,that's going going to be an
(18:15):
issue. I think the third thingyou have to do is there's got to
be that one metric that matters.
So the one metric that matters,and not to you or the business,
but to that person. Right? So ifyou are a hotel front desk
(18:36):
clerk, what matters to you,right? What matters to somebody
that's a revenue analyst? Soit's what's that one metric that
matters to them? And if you cando that and you have that who,
what, wow statement, a lot oftimes that first who, what, wow
statement is not that good. It'sa sloppy copy. It's a rough
(18:59):
draft, right? And you have tochallenge people to level it up.
And so there's a lot of, youknow, let's try that again,
let's try that again. And a lotof times, putting a metric in
there, that one metric thatmatters, it really speaks to
someone. So an an example thatwe might use comes from American
(19:22):
history. It's John F. Kennedywho said, I believe, by the end
of the century that we can sendan astronaut to the moon and
they can safely return to Earth.
Well, the who in that is theastronaut, the what is going to
the moon, the wow is safelyreturning to Earth. Because we
(19:45):
could we could hit the moon fora long time, but safely
returning that person to Earthwas the wow statement. And
people took a step back, andthey go wow, can we do this? The
other thing Dan, that I'llmention about who, what, wow
statements is, if it's socompelling, people are going to
(20:05):
say this, oh my God, show methis. I want to demo, show me
this. Because the other thingthat can happen is they're gonna
say, I don't believe that andyou need to prove it. Right? And
so we think about a journey map,that's where we're identifying
pain points. The who, what, wow,is the talking points. The
(20:26):
people that don't believe itneed proof points and that's
where experiments and data andusability testing comes into
play. And then once you showthem the proof points, it almost
becomes that much easier to getfunding and resources to it. But
pain points, talking points,proof points.
Dan Berlin (20:51):
I think what you said there about KPIs or having
a personal KPI was superinteresting. It really seems
that is the only way to wowsomeone is to really understand
what will move the needle forthem. And that personal KPI...
we only think about businessKPIs, but we should be thinking
about that at the end user aswell.
Brian Sullivan (21:11):
Yeah, I agree with you because what we're
trying to do with research anddesign is we're trying to do
behavior change. At the end, wewant someone to change from
maybe the way that they'renormally doing something, a
task, a routine, whatever it is.
And if you can have that onemetric that matters to them,
(21:33):
that speaks to them and theyunderstand the importance, the
likelihood of them changingtheir behavior or routine is, I
think, exponentially increased,because they see the value of
the change that you're puttingon them. And I think that's why
that one metric that matter,it's really critical. When
(21:55):
you're coming up with a who,what, wow.
Dan Berlin (22:00):
Especially if they're getting feedback on a
regular basis and getting thoseupdates to see how that change
is coming along.
Brian Sullivan (22:05):
Yeah, because they can see that this is making
a difference and it'scompelling. If you think about
the fact that we are allcreatures of habit... so we
normally have... there's thisthing that trigger triggers us
into whatever the routine is,right? So something will get us
started doing a routine, thenwe'll go through these tasks,
(22:30):
whatever it is, and the routine,but it's the reward. Where
they're seeing that reward andthen they understand, oh, my
God, the next time this happens,here's the trigger. And as long
as I get that reward and I get asome type of treatment, maybe I
get a bonus, or I get time backor something in my day. So yeah,
(22:52):
that one metric that matters,and getting that feedback and
that reward, that's what helpspeople to change their habits,
routines and behaviors.
Dan Berlin (23:00):
So what else about your chapter were you hoping to
convey here today?
Brian Sullivan (23:05):
I think that the main message is that before we
dive headlong into any project,take a step back and don't just
start solutioning. Don't justjump, take a step back and just
ask why. Who, what, why. Andmaybe you open the aperture and
(23:28):
then you can explore differentthings. And I think a lot of
times we get really busy withour work And we don't take that
step back to say why.
Dan Berlin (23:39):
Yup. And we so quickly jump to solutioning. So
yeah, thank you for all of that.
Brian, thank you for thatinformation about your career
and your chapter. In our finalmoments here, we like getting a
career tip for folks. Whetherthey're breaking into UX now, or
they have lots of experience, doyou have a career tip for
everyone?
Brian Sullivan (24:00):
Yeah, it's such a good question, especially
again, the way you framed it,because the advice that I would
give for really just aboutanyone, whether you're moving
from campus to career, or you'reat your first job and you're
trying to level up. The thingthat I think that is important
is it's more about your mindsetthan your skill set. And it's
(24:26):
not that the skill set's notimportant, it is. But your
mindset, I think, is reallyimfportant. And I think that a
lot of times people have a fixedmindset. And they see things as
black and white and there aren'tdifferent options for me and
they're a little bit closeminded. And you know, we're in
(24:47):
the business, Dan, of beingsuper creative, and we have to
deal with a lot of feedback. AndI think having an open mindset
allows us to grow and it allowsus to be open to new experiences
and new ideas, new input. And sohaving a growth mindset, I
(25:08):
think, is really important. Andit's hard. It's really hard for
younger designers that are, youknow, they're pixel perfect
designers. And they will takecritiques personally, it's
almost like a personal attack.
But it's really about the work,making the work better. Getting
that input and growing. So it'sreally about mindset, not
(25:32):
skillset. And I would say thesame thing, if somebody is
transitioning from being acontributor to a manager. Your
mindset is more important thanyour skill set. I'm not
diminishing the skill set, butit's the mindset that I think
can set you apart from people.
(25:55):
So that would be the advice thatI would give just about any
person that's in this field.
Dan Berlin (26:00):
Yep. That's wonderful. Thank you for that.
And it's so true that,especially in design, no matter
where you are in design, whetheryou're a researcher who's
moderating sessions, and wasgetting critique on that, or
you're a designer doingwireframes, or visual design,
there's critique opportunitiesthere. We very much have to be
open to that because in UX, itdepends, it always depends.
Brian Sullivan (26:23):
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
Dan Berlin (26:25):
So Brian, this has been a wonderful conversation.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
Brian Sullivan (26:30):
Oh, you're welcome. I had a blast Dan. And
congratulations on the podcastcontinued success, sir.
Dan Berlin (26:35):
Great. Thank you for that. My guest today has been
Brian Sullivan, author of thechapter Frame the Opportunity
Before Brainstorming theSolution. Thanks for listening,
everyone. You've been listeningto the 97 UX things podcast
companion to the book 97 ThingsEvery UX Practitioner Should
Know published by O'Reilly andavailable at your local
bookshop. All book royalties goto UX nonprofits as well any
(26:59):
funds raised by this podcast.
The theme music is Moisturizethe Situation by Consider the
Source and I'm your host andbook editor Dan Berlin. Please
remember to find the needs inyour community and fill them
with your best work. Thanks forlistening.
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of
the 97 UX Things Podcast. DanBerlin here, your host and book
editor. This week, I'm joined byBrian Sullivan, who wrote the
chapter Frame the OpportunityBefore Brainstorming the
Solution. Welcome Brian.
Brian Sullivan (00:28):
Hi Dan, how are you doing?
Dan Berlin (00:30):
I'm doing great.
Thanks for joining the podcasthere today. So can you tell us a
little bit about yourself?
Brian Sullivan (00:37):
Sure. My name is Brian Sullivan. I'm the Director
of User Research and DesignStrategy at Sabre. And in that
role, I lead a team of userresearchers that work in the
travel industry. And we workglobally with different airlines
and travel agencies. I also leadthe digital accessibility
(01:01):
practice at Sabre, which isaward winning. And I lead the
design thinking program, whichincludes product design,
thinking and service designthinking. I teach at Southern
Methodist University and theUniversity of North Texas in the
graduate program. I've been inthe industry about 25 years.
Dan Berlin (01:23):
And can you tell folks what Sabre is? I know it's
one of those companies thataffects everyone, but people may
not even know it exists.
Brian Sullivan (01:31):
Really... and that's a great question, because
a lot of people don't realizethat travel is very complicated
and there's really only threecompanies and that do what Sabre
does. If you have jumped on aplane, or booked a hotel room,
(01:53):
or taken a cruise or rented acar, the shopping and
fulfillment of that on the backend is going to usually be done
by a company like Sabre. Sabreis the most popular platform in
the Western Hemisphere,completely dominate the South
(02:14):
American market. We've made alot of headway into Europe and
Asia recently. But if you'veever shopped or booked any type
of travel or tourism on the backend, it's probably being done by
Sabre.
Dan Berlin (02:33):
Yup, yup. Thanks for that. And can you tell us about
your UX journey? How did youdiscover UX and how did you wind
up where you are today?
Brian Sullivan (02:44):
That's such a terrific question. I think
everybody has a differentjourney and for people that are
a little bit older, like me, youdidn't have programs like
Bentley University or othercollege programs like Kent
State. You kind of had to jumpinto it in a different way. So
(03:09):
my user experience journey beganwith technical writing and there
was a special interest groupthrough the Society for
Technical Communication onusability and I joined that. I
was going to all of thesedifferent seminars, and there
(03:30):
really weren't a lot of books atthe time, but I was just
devouring them. It turned out,there was an open house at
Sabre. I was in a role as atechnical writer and there was
an open house for the usabilitylabs. I went in there and I just
said, this is it. This is what Iwant to do. Because I was
(03:53):
devouring stuff on webpsychology, and usability. That
was from the STC. I really tooka deep dive into it and then I
found out there was thisorganization called the
Usability ProfessionalsAssociation, and that's when I
found my tribe. And, at thetime, the usability labs at
(04:18):
Sabre, it was one of the firstcompanies that had its own...
publicly held company that hadits own usability lab. And it
was founded by Janice James, whofounded the Usability
Professionals Association. Iended up having a couple
interviews and I got a job. Iwas surprised that I got it. I
(04:43):
just started running usabilitytest after usability test. And I
would really say, and I'm nottrying to brag, but for a while
in the travel industry... I'dspent about 12 years just doing
that... I probably was theperson in the world that had the
most experience doing that justbecause I was running so many
(05:07):
projects and surveys. But myjourney began just with being
curious and going to an openhouse and reading books and
talking to people.
Dan Berlin (05:18):
Great. Thanks for that. And super interesting. I
didn't realize the connectionbetween early Sabre usability
and UPA at the time, theUsability Professionals
Association. You also mentionedaward winning accessibility, can
you tell us a little bit moreabout that, and what you have
going on there and how youachieve that?
Brian Sullivan (05:39):
Sure. That was a program that we started a few
years ago. We have a lot ofglobal contracts. It's
embarrassing, in all honesty,that in America we are farther
behind than the rest of theworld and it may be because of a
(06:01):
cultural difference. So in Asia,they're using the WCAG 2.2. WCAG
stands for Web ContentAccessibility Guidelines. In the
United States, it's just not asheavily enforced. About six
years ago, the person that wasthe leader at Sabre said, hey, I
have this wicked problem. Helooked around the room and he
(06:25):
goes, Brian, I want you to solveit. So I ended up doing a little
bit of research from companiesthat have really good
accessibility programs and ittakes a lot to run a successful
program. So the way that weended up setting it up is we had
(06:45):
to get with the legal departmentto talk about, okay, what is our
compliance policy? What is thatgoing to be? We had to publish
that. We also had to look atwhat are the tools that we
needed. And so we had to look atdifferent tools. We also had to
make sure that we hadconsultants that we could talk
(07:07):
to every month just to shape ourprogram. We also needed to train
our staff. We use LinkedInlearning. And what we did is we
looked at the different learningthat was out there and with the
HR department, I tried to figureout, if I am a writer, what do I
(07:31):
need to know? What is thetraining I need to take, if I am
a front-end developer? If I am aproduct manager? If I'm a
designer? And so we figured outwhat is the role based training
and through the learningmanagement system, we pushed
that out, and it became arequirement to get this training
done. We also needed to hire acouple of people to do
(07:55):
accessibility audits for us.
Some of that is done internally,but we also have third-party
audits. We have, I call it theACE team, the Accessibility
Compliance Experts. So the ACEteams meet weekly, and we look
at the progress across the Sabreportfolio. So really, it's it's
(08:20):
about establishing what is theprogram look like? What is our
what is our policy? What are thetools? What are the standards?
What is the training? What isthe auditing? So it's trying to
do this at scale. I think thething that we're trying to do
that's a little bit unique, it'sa bit of the carrot and the
(08:42):
stick approach. So on one hand,you can get slapped on the wrist
and fined legally, and that'stypically how accessibility
programs are defined. That's thestick, but also I think there's
a carrot. And I think it appliesto what we do, Dan. Carrot is
(09:02):
when you consider otherperspectives, when you consider
people that have differentabilities, not a disability, a
different ability, when we areinclusive of them, that is ripe
for innovation to occur. And Ithink that when you can get
(09:25):
people to think about if weconsider these other
opportunities, and I call itopening the aperture a little
bit by including them, then wemake better solutions, better
products, better experiences.
(09:46):
And I think people are reallysensitive to that right now. So
that's how we've shaped theprogram. Knowbility is a firm
out of Austin. they were reallyimpressed with the work. We
didn't win the award right away,it took about three years. They
really liked how we have shapedand rolled out the program. And
(10:10):
I'm lucky enough to haveJennifer Keene-Moore is the lady
that is running it now. She hasrelevant experience at some big
brands doing it, so she's onboard, she's fantastic. And
that's how we run the programthere. I think it's a way that
people have really embraced it.
And it's a lot of fun. It reallyis a lot of fun.
Dan Berlin (10:33):
Yeah, thanks for all that. Super actionable for folks
in terms of how you went aboutimplementing that and giving
steps for some of our listenersif they want to do that as well.
So, thanks for that. Moving onto your chapter Frame the
Opportunity Before Brainstormingthe Solution. Can you tell us
about that, please?
Brian Sullivan (10:51):
Yeah, I think that when you're doing product
design thinking or servicedesign thinking, the first thing
to consider is how we frame theopportunity. And I like to
sometimes refer to it asframestorm before you
brainstorm. And I think thatsometimes when you initially
(11:17):
come into design challenge, thesolution is already built into
the way that it's framed. Right?
And so if we talk about theaperture being a little bit
closed, because people say, oh,well, our design challenges, we
need to build a dashboard forXYZ. Well, you know, is it a
(11:39):
dashboard? What is it that theyreally need to know? And so, if
we take a step back and shape itin terms of three steps, and I
call it the who, what, and why.
The who, what and why. So forany design challenge, the first
(12:02):
part is the who. Who are wedoing this for? And it's a
specific person usually tryingto do something. That's the
what, what are they trying toachieve? And then if you dig a
little bit deeper, why are theytrying to do this? That's the
who, the what, and the why. Andsome of your listeners may have
(12:24):
read the book by Simon Sinek,Start with Why. It's a really
wonderful book. But what we'retrying to do is think about
change, right? And so Dan, Ithink you know this as well as
anybody, if you were to askanyone, hey, do you want to
change? They're gonna say, ohhell no, I'm fine just the way I
(12:45):
am. I love me, right? But if youswitch it just a little bit, and
if you can tease it out and justsay, hey, would you like to
improve here? And the answer isalmost always yes. And it's a
big little thing to say changeversus improve, but how do we
level up an experience, and ifwe don't frame the opportunity
(13:10):
in such a way, the problemspace that we're going to
explore becomes really narrow.
And one of the things that I'vedone is I've moved more from
usability into, co-creatingdesign and into product design
thinking and service designthinking. What I have found is
(13:30):
that it's really important thatthat starting point, where we
shape that design challenge,where we framestorm before we
brainstorm is really key becausepeople often don't think that
way. So that's what the chapteris about. And it's really making
sure that directionally we'reable to maybe have a better
(13:52):
design challenge, so that we canexplore the problem area a
little bit more. But it allstarts with the design
challenge.
Dan Berlin (14:04):
You mentioned the who, what and why. But are there
other attributes of how youshould be framing things at the
beginning of these brainstormingsessions that people find
helpful?
Brian Sullivan (14:18):
Yeah, I'm really glad that you asked that. So the
who, what, why is one way toframe it. I have another tool
that I like to use, I call it atwo-minute read out. And a
two-minute read out, it's almosta fill in the blank. So our
(14:41):
project is called... fill in theblank. The people that use it
are... fill in the blank.
Currently, they strugglebecause... fill in the blank. In
a perfect world, they would beable to do... fill in the blank.
And that would be awesomebecause... fill in the blank,
right? And you're almostadding... you switch at a
(15:03):
certain point from a who, why,into who, what, wow. And the wow
is important because it's anelevator statement, I don't want
to call it a pitch. Because anelevator pitch might take five
floors to explain. But let'simagine that you had one floor
(15:24):
and you had one floor to do yourpitch, you need to have a who,
what, wow statement that is socompelling that people take a
step back. And one of the thingsthat we do is, let's define the
two-minute readout, right. Andthen let's do some user
(15:45):
research, get an understandingof the context, do some journey
mapping. And then if we can takethe top two or three things that
we want to do, and create who,what, wow statements, then we
have a really good direction forthe solutioning that we want to
do. So that's some other thingsthat I use. The other thing,
(16:07):
that if you have a reallydefined product already, using
the business model canvas isreally popular, because you're
talking about segments andchannels and revenue streams and
cost structures anddifferentiation. So those are
some tools that the moreexperienced product managers
(16:28):
that I work with, I mightactually have them, hey, let's
fill that out and use that as astarting point. But then let's
try to distill that down intowho, what, why. And the first
thing that I do always with awho, what, why is I check to
see, is the solution alreadydefined? So let's build a
dashboard for blah, blah, blah.
(16:52):
But who, what, why; who whatwow, two-minute readout,
business model canvas, those aresome of the tools early on that
you can use for framing theopportunity.
Dan Berlin (17:02):
Great. Great. And how do you get to that wow? How
do you determine what that wowis and what is the appropriate
wow for your goals?
Brian Sullivan (17:11):
Yeah, and that's such a compelling question. I
would say that requires threethings. The first thing is it
should be authentic. And what Imean by authentic is, it should
really be based upon real userresearch. Right? We've either
(17:32):
talked to someone, sent out asurvey, or we've observed them,
so it's authentic. So it's notjust an opinion. The other thing
besides being authentic is thatit needs to be revealing, right?
So when somebody says this, who,what, wow, you're like, oh, my
(17:52):
God, I've never thought of itthat way. Right? And the thing
about that is that sometimes weaim low. And how we're going to
do our who, what, wow, it's notmuch of a wow, it's more of a
well, huh? Well, that's obvious.
And so if it's not thatrevealing that they don't take
that step back and say, wow,that's going going to be an
(18:15):
issue. I think the third thingyou have to do is there's got to
be that one metric that matters.
So the one metric that matters,and not to you or the business,
but to that person. Right? So ifyou are a hotel front desk
(18:36):
clerk, what matters to you,right? What matters to somebody
that's a revenue analyst? Soit's what's that one metric that
matters to them? And if you cando that and you have that who,
what, wow statement, a lot oftimes that first who, what, wow
statement is not that good. It'sa sloppy copy. It's a rough
(18:59):
draft, right? And you have tochallenge people to level it up.
And so there's a lot of, youknow, let's try that again,
let's try that again. And a lotof times, putting a metric in
there, that one metric thatmatters, it really speaks to
someone. So an an example thatwe might use comes from American
(19:22):
history. It's John F. Kennedywho said, I believe, by the end
of the century that we can sendan astronaut to the moon and
they can safely return to Earth.
Well, the who in that is theastronaut, the what is going to
the moon, the wow is safelyreturning to Earth. Because we
(19:45):
could we could hit the moon fora long time, but safely
returning that person to Earthwas the wow statement. And
people took a step back, andthey go wow, can we do this? The
other thing Dan, that I'llmention about who, what, wow
statements is, if it's socompelling, people are going to
(20:05):
say this, oh my God, show methis. I want to demo, show me
this. Because the other thingthat can happen is they're gonna
say, I don't believe that andyou need to prove it. Right? And
so we think about a journey map,that's where we're identifying
pain points. The who, what, wow,is the talking points. The
(20:26):
people that don't believe itneed proof points and that's
where experiments and data andusability testing comes into
play. And then once you showthem the proof points, it almost
becomes that much easier to getfunding and resources to it. But
pain points, talking points,proof points.
Dan Berlin (20:51):
I think what you said there about KPIs or having
a personal KPI was superinteresting. It really seems
that is the only way to wowsomeone is to really understand
what will move the needle forthem. And that personal KPI...
we only think about businessKPIs, but we should be thinking
about that at the end user aswell.
Brian Sullivan (21:11):
Yeah, I agree with you because what we're
trying to do with research anddesign is we're trying to do
behavior change. At the end, wewant someone to change from
maybe the way that they'renormally doing something, a
task, a routine, whatever it is.
And if you can have that onemetric that matters to them,
(21:33):
that speaks to them and theyunderstand the importance, the
likelihood of them changingtheir behavior or routine is, I
think, exponentially increased,because they see the value of
the change that you're puttingon them. And I think that's why
that one metric that matter,it's really critical. When
(21:55):
you're coming up with a who,what, wow.
Dan Berlin (22:00):
Especially if they're getting feedback on a
regular basis and getting thoseupdates to see how that change
is coming along.
Brian Sullivan (22:05):
Yeah, because they can see that this is making
a difference and it'scompelling. If you think about
the fact that we are allcreatures of habit... so we
normally have... there's thisthing that trigger triggers us
into whatever the routine is,right? So something will get us
started doing a routine, thenwe'll go through these tasks,
(22:30):
whatever it is, and the routine,but it's the reward. Where
they're seeing that reward andthen they understand, oh, my
God, the next time this happens,here's the trigger. And as long
as I get that reward and I get asome type of treatment, maybe I
get a bonus, or I get time backor something in my day. So yeah,
(22:52):
that one metric that matters,and getting that feedback and
that reward, that's what helpspeople to change their habits,
routines and behaviors.
Dan Berlin (23:00):
So what else about your chapter were you hoping to
convey here today?
Brian Sullivan (23:05):
I think that the main message is that before we
dive headlong into any project,take a step back and don't just
start solutioning. Don't justjump, take a step back and just
ask why. Who, what, why. Andmaybe you open the aperture and
(23:28):
then you can explore differentthings. And I think a lot of
times we get really busy withour work And we don't take that
step back to say why.
Dan Berlin (23:39):
Yup. And we so quickly jump to solutioning. So
yeah, thank you for all of that.
Brian, thank you for thatinformation about your career
and your chapter. In our finalmoments here, we like getting a
career tip for folks. Whetherthey're breaking into UX now, or
they have lots of experience, doyou have a career tip for
everyone?
Brian Sullivan (24:00):
Yeah, it's such a good question, especially
again, the way you framed it,because the advice that I would
give for really just aboutanyone, whether you're moving
from campus to career, or you'reat your first job and you're
trying to level up. The thingthat I think that is important
is it's more about your mindsetthan your skill set. And it's
(24:26):
not that the skill set's notimportant, it is. But your
mindset, I think, is reallyimfportant. And I think that a
lot of times people have a fixedmindset. And they see things as
black and white and there aren'tdifferent options for me and
they're a little bit closeminded. And you know, we're in
(24:47):
the business, Dan, of beingsuper creative, and we have to
deal with a lot of feedback. AndI think having an open mindset
allows us to grow and it allowsus to be open to new experiences
and new ideas, new input. And sohaving a growth mindset, I
(25:08):
think, is really important. Andit's hard. It's really hard for
younger designers that are, youknow, they're pixel perfect
designers. And they will takecritiques personally, it's
almost like a personal attack.
But it's really about the work,making the work better. Getting
that input and growing. So it'sreally about mindset, not
(25:32):
skillset. And I would say thesame thing, if somebody is
transitioning from being acontributor to a manager. Your
mindset is more important thanyour skill set. I'm not
diminishing the skill set, butit's the mindset that I think
can set you apart from people.
(25:55):
So that would be the advice thatI would give just about any
person that's in this field.
Dan Berlin (26:00):
Yep. That's wonderful. Thank you for that.
And it's so true that,especially in design, no matter
where you are in design, whetheryou're a researcher who's
moderating sessions, and wasgetting critique on that, or
you're a designer doingwireframes, or visual design,
there's critique opportunitiesthere. We very much have to be
open to that because in UX, itdepends, it always depends.
Brian Sullivan (26:23):
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
Dan Berlin (26:25):
So Brian, this has been a wonderful conversation.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
Brian Sullivan (26:30):
Oh, you're welcome. I had a blast Dan. And
congratulations on the podcastcontinued success, sir.
Dan Berlin (26:35):
Great. Thank you for that. My guest today has been
Brian Sullivan, author of thechapter Frame the Opportunity
Before Brainstorming theSolution. Thanks for listening,
everyone. You've been listeningto the 97 UX things podcast
companion to the book 97 ThingsEvery UX Practitioner Should
Know published by O'Reilly andavailable at your local
bookshop. All book royalties goto UX nonprofits as well any
(26:59):
funds raised by this podcast.
The theme music is Moisturizethe Situation by Consider the
Source and I'm your host andbook editor Dan Berlin. Please
remember to find the needs inyour community and fill them
with your best work. Thanks forlistening.
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