We had a surprise guest speaker from CarMax the other day, Jake Mitchell. Thanks to Jake I left class with a new outlook on product design and project strategy as it pertains to the user experience.
Two aspects of Jake's talk relate back to building our sites, the lean start-up methodology and empathy mapping. For the past few weeks in class we've been working on the building blocks of creating a successful user experience, starting with creating user personas. While these user personas are specific to individuals, Jake explained empathy mapping looks at the bigger picture. The four quadrants of the map ( Says, thinks, does, feels) in the CarMax business correlates to the user experience online and in person as consumers shop for cars. I thought it was slightly funny, but true that in the example their was a sticky note that said "cry", but it's the truth, the car buying process makes a lot of people upset and in order to fix the problem Jake has to know it is a problem.
The lean start-up methodology calls for experimentation over elaborate planning, the point is to make sure the product is viable before developing it. There's something inspiring about failing fast but continuing learning and developing ways to pivot when conditions are less than perfect, especially when developing a product. I'm looking to take a lean start-up approach to my site by being brave and putting it out there despite it being unfinished. Is it fulfilling a need? A personal need, yes, but also thinking back to my user personas thinking about what they feel and think. If I apply to a job and they read my resume with my website link, will they feel the need to find out more? Maybe. Is it viable? Yes, I can easily maintain my website and these blog posts, so that means here I have an MVP.
I don't think a product design job is in my future, but I enjoyed a real life example of the user experience and discussing how the methodology and processes relate back to class.