Ida Aalen gave an excellent presentation about concept design process at the CS Forum 2013 few weeks ago that should really be mandatory reading for every concept designer and content strategist.
North Patrol is a consulting firm specialized in the design of digital services and information systems. We shape ideas into a vision and service concept, find the best architectural and technological solutions, design a functional user experience, and compete to find the ideal partner for implementation work. We do not sell implementation projects, nor do we sell licenses; we are genuinely on the side of the customer.
1 October 2013
Since everyone couldn’t be at the CS forum, we’ve attached the slides of the presentation and some key highlights from the case study for you to see for yourself. Of course there are thousands of somewhat similar presentations around the internet, but this presentation works nicely as a stand-alone learning material with great visuals and real-life images from the workshops.
As a little background, Ida Aalen is a senior interaction designer in Netlife Research in Oslo, Norway. Ida works with user research, interaction design and concept development. She has also written a book on social media in Norway, and previously he has also worked as a journalist in an online newspaper.
Inspired by the presentation, here is a brief summary of the key things to keep in mind when putting together a concept design for a large website:
- Everything starts from setting goals and choosing the target audiences for the website, which can be somewhat different from the general business goals. Ida points out the goals for the website should always be as specific as possible. Setting KPIs is cool, but not always needed.
- Choosing top user tasks is the first step in tactical concept design. Researching top user tasks can also be done before the project starts. Great tools for the work are analytics stats, focus groups, surveys and interviews. But in the end, choosing the right tasks is an expert task usually done in workshops.
- Find out which top user tasks align with business goals for the website. Choose them as your "ultimate top user tasks".
- Choose core messages or themes for the website. It might be "bring out the people" or "faster self-service", whatever you think needs yelling out. Choosing core messages should be aligned with the user research findings, but they can also be influenced by the business goals. (Note: Top user tasks should be highly user-driven, but these core messages can be more about business goals.)
- Key site sections should have dedicated editors who are responsible for collecting, arranging and publishing the content. Those key editors need to understand the user goals and top user tasks thoroughly. Only this makes sure that the concept will also work after the launch and keeps improving.
- Editors need to have a system to decide whether new content goes to the site or not. Not everything should be stuffed to the website even though some business decision maker thinks the content is important. (There is a great example of this kind of criteria in the presentation: slide 79).
Recommended further reading
- Verkkopalvelun konseptisuunnittelu North Patrolissa (In Finnish)
