R&D Toolkit
  1. Overview
      2. Overview
    1. Introduction
      2.
      1. Recent Updates
        2.
    2. Tools
      3.
      1. Research
        2.
      2. Delivery
        3.
    3. Resources
      4.
      1. R&D
        2.
      2. Websites
        3.
      3. Project Tracking
        4.
      4. Further Resources
        5.
  2. Research
      3. Research Tools
    1. Problem
      2.
      1. Discovery
        2.
      2. Prioritisation
        3.
      3. Project Scoping
        4.
      4. Framing
        5.
    2. Empathise
      3.
      1. Investigate
        2.
      2. User Interview
        3.
      3. User Insights
        4.
      4. Data
        5.
    3. Mapping
      4.
      1. Research Mapping
        2.
      2. User Mapping
        3.
      3. Organisation Mapping
        4.
    4. Synthesis
      5.
      1. Problem Reframing
        2.
      2. Define
        3.
      3. Feature Prioritisation
        4.
  3. Design
      4. Design Tools
    1. Ideation
      2.
      1. Warm Up
        2.
      2. Sketching
        3.
      3. Storyboarding
        4.
      4. Design Studio
        5.
  4. Delivery
      5. Delivery Tools
    1. Agile
      2.
    2. Scrum
      3.
      1. Overview
        2.
      2. Team
        3.
      3. Events
        4.
      4. Artifacts
        5.
      5. Glossary
        6.

marc.tools

A Product R&D Toolkit

Welcome. I'm Marc and this is a Toolkit to create things.
Research Tools    Mapping
User Mapping

Once we have solid actionable research, user insights and a better understanding of the problem at hand, we can begin to map this data in a way that helps further visualise the user themselves, and the issue they are facing.

By understanding the various aspects of the user's existing experience we are starting to set ourselves up for the ideation phase.

Section Tools
Persona
Empathy Map
Customer Journey Map
Experience Map
  
Mapping    User Mapping
Tool Info
Category User Mapping
Updated 24/08/20
Templates   PDF     Miro
Creator Alan Cooper

A Persona is a typical example of a user, they act as a representation of a users' goal and are created as a means of building empathy with a user and connecting it with an overarching purpose. By creating them, we can not only use them to understand the users, but also the purpose of the product and business and ultimately helps focus the design to solve the user problem.

The Persona is built up of the relevant elements of the project, along with trends that have been identified during rebased and based on an audience, not a specific person. It will capture the audience motivations, the frustrations they face and the core soul of the audience. It is important not to use generalisations or stereotypes, and to update regularly throughout the project.

Along with a Persona template, they are also used in Problem Statements, User Stories and How Might We's. We can compile them from key quotes and other insights gathered during the research phase.

Further Resources
  Persona versus Proto-Persona
  Personas - DIY Toolkit
  
Mapping    User Mapping
Tool Info
Category User Mapping
Updated 28/08/20
Templates   PDF     Miro
Creator Dave Gray

As the name suggests, Empathy Maps help us to build empathy with our users, understanding their thoughts and actions, and turning them into actionable insights.

They are particularly helpful when sharing knowledge about the users to the team, helping to create a common understanding and shared user perspective.

They can also uncover missing information or research that needs to be filled in and uncover user needs, whilst guiding us towards constant innovation by revisiting them regularly and going deeper with understanding.

Further Resources
  Enterprise Design Thinking - Empathy Map
  Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking
  Empathy Map – Why and How to Use It
  Adapting empathy maps for UX design
  
Mapping    User Mapping
Tool Info
Category User Mapping
Updated 28/08/20
Templates   PDF     Miro
Creator Colin Shaw

A Customer Journey Map is a visualisation of a process that a user follows in order to achieve a goal, with a specific business, service or product.

By following this process, it helps to understand what a user goes through over the period of time trying to reach that goal, surfacing the needs and pain points of the user.

Derived from research, including usability, it is plotted by understanding the various touchpoint a user might have within the journey - these touchpoints will expose problems and therefore opportunities for further investigation, it will also surface potentially new customer segments.

Further Resources
  7 Ways to Analyze a Customer-Journey Map
  How to Create an Effective Customer Journey Map
  
Mapping    User Mapping
Tool Info
Category User Mapping
Updated 28/08/20
Templates   PDF     Miro
Creator N/A

Experience Maps are a visual representation of the end to end experience a user goes through currently when trying to achieve their goal outside of a Product.

It helps with understanding the user and their experience of a particular scenario by understanding the cause from the user's point of view.

Consisting of 3 core areas, an Experience Map will focus on the;

  • User Journey through the main stages towards their goal considering the User's actions inside and outside the product (online and offline) from their point of view.
  • Analyse the Task they are trying to achieve by walking through their steps ourselves, using user interview insights including usability testing and observing users contextually.
  • and understand the user's Emotional state as they proceed through their goal. User thoughts, feelings, motivations, reactions, attitude, moods and general attention can be included.

The Experience Map itself is dependent on the project, so you can include a number of things that help visualise things, for example you can also use the experience map to tie the user and business together by including a SWOT analysis.

Further Resources
  Experience Maps
  Creating an experience map
  Developing an experience map, A to Z.
  Problem Framing v2: Part 4 of 4