To develop products people actually want to use, we need to first understand their problems, needs and behaviours. When you first start out, that’s a relatively simple process: you can ask them. But how do you then decide what to do with that information? Your biggest customer wants a new feature that wasn’t on your roadmap. Should you build it? How do you know?
And as you grow it gets even more tricky, right? What if your customer base is diverse? What if your feedback is unstructured? Why are people not using your product the way you thought they would? It can feel overwhelming trying to make sense of all the data pouring into your organisation, but if you get it right, it can help take your design thinking to the next level.
This workshop will consider digital product development from soup to nuts. In part one, we’ll share stories, case studies and methodologies from both ends of the spectrum – a disruptive Gateshead-based AI startup (Wordnerds) and a huge government organisation (DWP) – showcasing some of the tools and techniques that can help you gather powerful insight and drive real product improvements.
In part two we’ll tackle your actual product problems, working together in small groups to unpack actual real-life issues using some of the techniques we’ve discussed, or others our workshoppers bring. We’ll also include plenty of time for discussion and Q&A. The result? We hope we’ll all learn something, see things from a different perspective and solve a few product issues along the way.
18th May
Urban Sciences Building, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG
14:00 – 17:00
YOUR HOSTS FOR THE SESSION
Lucy Batley is the Owner of Traction Industries and was appointed as the Ambassador for Creative and Digital for the North East sitting on the regional committee of the Institute of Directors.
She is also an after-dinner speaker and sits on a number of Boards and Advisory Panels, most notably for Newcastle University and membership body Digital Union. She has a proven track record of building, leading and scaling high-performance design and digital organisations: most recently Traction Industries. She has won prestigious international and national awards and spent five years in Milan specialising in research and brand strategy development.
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Fay Cooper is the Deputy Director – Head of Product at DWP Digital. She has been designing and developing digital public services and products since 2005. With a budget of nearly £200bn, over 90k employees working with over 20m customers, the DWP is a truly colossal organisation delivering a vast number of essential services.
Among her many lines of work, Fay has been successfully championing the DWP Digital Product Leadership team as ‘custodians of the common customer experience’ to make it far easier for customers and stakeholders to work across the entirety of this huge organisation.
