Reflection – Visualisation

Challenge & Selection

Of the tools presented in the lectures, visualisation is the one that I use most often. When  working with stakeholders of different backgrounds and abstract ideas, starting to visualise the  problem can help to create a common understanding. In these cases, conveying problems or  ideas via visualisation seem more effective than verbal discussion alone.

During the development of a search functionality in a client facing app, I faced the challenge  that technical stakeholders were discussing the search functionality’s capabilities in terms of  systems and data flows, while sales representatives (which were my internal clients) were  discussing the search functionality’s capabilities in terms of curated product offerings and lead  generation.

Application

As the two stakeholder groups were unable to communicate with each other, I started to draft  a paper-based visualisation of the search functionality within the client facing app. To achieve  this, I printed out snippets from the existing user interface of the app and overlaid part of it  with white paper, on which I sketched the search functionality. This rudimentary visualisation  helped to steer the discussion into a productive direction, as both parties were able to discuss  requirements for the search functionality based on something they knew (i.e. the interface of  the existing client facing app).

Insight

Using visualisation enabled the stakeholder to think outside of their siloed knowledge and focus  on creating something new. We were able to do several different iterations of the embedded  search functionality and found solutions for all the concern of the different stakeholders, before  testing the MVP with clients (in our client test lab).

Approach

A different approach, that could have been used to probably come to an equally good outcome,  would have been the mind mapping tool presented in week 4 of this course. We could have  printed out different existing search functionalities and use our client test lab to give the clients  a tour of the different functionalities and then let them pick out the “good stuff”. Then we could  have let them cluster the different functionalities. Finally, we would have been able to draw  insights and connections from the clusters and translate them into requirements.

