Design Process Archives - Dimitris Bizioglis

Building the digital business

Dimitris Bizioglis — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 00:00:21 +0000

A look at how companies of all shapes and sizes can implement or bolster their digital strategy to compete at the standard customers expect.

Digital is the new norm. We are in a world of touchpoints and interactions. Everything is measurable and usually quantifiable. All we want is to understand our customers, their needs and wants, what makes them tick and how to win their loyalty.

What’s more, business has changed over the past 15 years, with a definite shift toward the customer. We’ve started to understand that people want more than one-directional encounters with brands. They want something more. They want an experience.

And as these consumer expectations evolve, tried and tested business models are being put to shame by agile, digital start-ups. A steady revolution is sweeping across the corporate world and those that don’t catch wind are getting left behind.

This digital transformation isn’t something that just happened.

Companies must embody digital inside and out. There is no point in designing a frictionless and award-winning digital customer experience if internally the company is resistant to change or is slow to adopt new technologies.

Only 11% of firms execute digital well.

– Prepare Your Business For The Digital Future, Forrester.

One way to drive digital forward is by implementing a digital center of excellence strategy. This creates a basis for digital excellence across the organisation which makes delivering key experiences and innovating easier in the long run. It will also mean that there is less chance of being left behind as technology inevitably evolves.

What is a digital center of excellence?

Is it a process? Is it a physical space? Is it an aspiration?

In reality, it’s a healthy combination of all three.

It’s a strategy that’s implemented across the business in order to drive effective and efficient digital processes. It has internal implications, given the necessity for free data flow, but at its core is a want to improve the digital experience for all customers and all interactions with the brand.

Quite often the digital center of excellence will be run by a central team that is dedicated to leading the change and establishing precedents for different teams and departments across the organisation. For the strategy to be a success, it must be rooted in collaboration, communication and a dedication to innovate.

Why?

Digital is the number one way people interact with your brand and it’s represented at almost every point of the customer journey. In fact, more and more user journeys are digital-only. As a brand, you need to be optimising across this journey. You need to be looking at the sum of all parts, but to do that you must have a strategy in place. This is when a digital center of excellence comes into its own.

When you think of companies like Airbnb, Spotify, Amazon, or Uber, what do they all have in common? Seamless, frictionless and pleasurable customer experiences, and they are winning market share.

This is now what customers expect. If someone experiences a pain point when interacting with your brand, you’ve already lost.

Given how fragmented the customer journey is and the huge multitude of owned and non-owned touchpoints, it can be really hard to get it right. Things get even more complicated when your bring offline experiences into the mix.

This isn’t to say that if your brand transcends online and offline that you can’t win at digital. The key is to identify the opportunities for optimisation and to avoid shoehorning digital into an interaction.

Always design with the customer in mind.

Regardless of what stage your company is at or which model you decide to go with, there are three core elements involved in a digital center of excellence:

People
Process
Technology

The combination and balance of these will ensure this strategy succeeds.

Digital Center of Excellence Considerations:

Before embarking on this project or progressing a process already in place, consider these questions and use the answers to shape your strategy to your specific needs and requirements.

What’s the ultimate goal?
How mature is the business?
What level of data literacy exists within my organisation?
What degree of customer-first processes are in place?
Who are the key stakeholders?
What’s the most effective way to initiate this strategy?
How open to change is the business?
Do we know what competitors are doing?
What are the industry benchmarks?
What will success look like?

Having a digital mindset as a company is no longer a nice to have, it’s an absolute imperative. Your customers expect the highest standards and are the lifeblood of your organisation, so do everything you can to foster their loyalty. Being digital inside and out will help you achieve success while also preparing for the future and the inevitable change that’s to come.

https://www.brandwatch.com

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Design systems are essential

Dimitris Bizioglis — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 22:05:12 +0000

New studies showing that companies prioritising design are seeing 32% higher revenue than those who aren’t. We’re seeing some dramatic shifts toward more intentional systems and processes. Over the last few years, the concept of a design system, or component-based shared resources between product and brand, has quickly gained momentum. Companies regularly publish their design system documentation, and entire conferences, have emerged dedicated to this topic. 2019 is the year that design systems will become a must-have for any company of consequence. By implementing design systems, forward-thinking companies will not only have an efficient codebase and consistency across platforms and products, but they ’ll be able to get more from their design teams; to unlock their true potential to dig into tough problems, where they were previously spending cycles recreating existing UI. Beyond just documenting the components we use, these systems encompass how a team’s work is produced—design principles, accessibility guidelines, and learning resources.

Exceptional design systems scale design’s impact by allowing product teams to build better products, with limited design resources. Ben Blumenfeldco-Director, Designer Fund

A decade ago, designers mastered a consistent set of tools. Fast forward to today, and designers have more options than ever before. But building a design system is as much about the people and communication as the tooling you choose to manage these systems. And when it comes to design systems, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. We often hear from our customers that no one knows how this “should” be done, and each company has to figure out what will fit their needs. As Spotify’s Josh Mateo and Jillian Nichols say, “Everyone’s business is set up differently and will need to lean into their values and structure to move in the right direction.”

Do you have this problem? Think…

Are you always happy with the speed of product development?
Do your interfaces share the same design patterns, colours, typography and other styles?
Do you always have enough time to deliver a quality product to meet KPIs?
How much time and money do you spend on redundant design or code tasks?
How much time and money do you spend cleaning up design or technical debt?

One NO makes the creation of the design system worthwhile. To overcome these challenges thousands of companies are investing in Design Systems.

What is a Design System?

A scalable framework of decisions & team behaviours across a product portfolio to converge on a cohesive experience. Nathan Curtis

A design system is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications.

The-Structure-of-a-Design-System

Why is a Design System important?

Diana Mounter, Design Systems Manager @ GitHub, summed it up rather well:

Design systems bring order to chaos. Everyone is kept on the same page, so the entire product remains consistent and polished throughout.
Design systems improve the user experience through the repeated use of familiar and proven patterns. Designing anything from scratch leaves room for error, so try to use what already works.
Design systems improve workflow efficiency. Product teams know exactly how components of new features should look and how to implement them.

Is it worth it?

Let’s look at some conservative numbers. Are designers spending 30 minutes/day on any of these?

What shade of blue are we using?
Can you redline this for me?
Can you redesign this, we can’t build it?
Where’s our logo?
Where are approved stock photos?
Was this pattern used somewhere else?

Design System ROI for the Design Team: $50 per hour. Team of 20 designers. 2.5h/week * 52 weeks * $50 * 20 designers = $130,000/year UXPin Inc.

Design System return on investment for the Development Team: Design systems also save time and money. Just by eliminating code redundancy, more than 20% of a developer’s time can be regained. For a team of 100 developers, this means around $2 million per year. projekt202 Managing Architect Drew Loomer

Just the time and money saved thanks to a design system makes the whole project worth it. And this isn’t even the entire value. You’ll deliver better experiences faster. Customers will notice. By using well-tested components, you’ll lower the cost of long-term maintenance. And you’ll get the most out of every new hire, due to faster-standardised onboarding with the design system. A Design System is a full product, which is going to help the creators of a project to build other products. Design systems have the power to transform a typical organisation into a powerful product design force. Special thanks to Heather Phillips and UXPin Inc.

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