Here are five ways we can work together
Product Launch Consulting
The journey from idea to a launched product can be long and dreadful. So many features to include and so much customer feedback to consider. What you’ve originally planned to launch in three weeks is already taking three months and isn’t even ready yet.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
I help startups think through their initial user experience, prioritize customer requests and features, and create an agile, iterative product launch plan. I also introduce people to tools and platforms that accelerate the delivery of their minimum viable product instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel. Finally, I help create a test/feedback plan for iterating on the original prototype and delivering future versions of the product.
Expert Usability/Design Review
While user feedback is essential for the success of every product, you shouldn’t launch a product that violates basic usability principles and heuristics. Otherwise, the feedback you’re getting isn’t anything new. You’ve just spent time gathering feedback to fix problems you shouldn’t have launched with in the first place.
Conducting an expert usability/design review helps you identify and fix these issues prior to launch, so the feedback you’re getting is efficient and insightful. During the review, we’ll be walking through your product and pointing out every usability violation and different ways to fix it. In a couple of hours, you’ll have a list of the critical changes that will make your product simpler, friendlier, and more usable.
This review is probably the most important step prior to launching a new product. It also works great for launched or even mature ones.
Deep Dive Design
This is an intensive design session that goes through every step of the design process with team members, and creates a design blueprint for the product. It usually takes design agencies 3-5 weeks to do this. We’ll do it together in 3-5 days depending on the size of the product. This process includes everyone in your team, and integrates all business, technical, and marketing input into product design. Besides getting the initial product design done, your team gets a hands-on extensive user experience training.
The deep dive design goes through the following phases:
- Outlining product vision and establishing success metrics
- Defining personas, user stories and use case scenarios
- Creating task flows and feature requirements
- Ideation, brainstorming and design explorations
- Product flow, sketches and storyboards
The D3 process eliminates weeks of endless communication and throwing wireframes, documents and prototypes across the cyberspace with typical design consulting projects. Because of the instant feedback loop, all technical and business issues are identified, flagged, and potentially fixed on the spot.
It’s product design on steroids. And it helped several startups launch the right product fast.
UX/Design Training Workshops
I run a variety of one-day workshops, including
- UX and Design for Hackers and Founders
- Prototyping new products and features in 30 minutes or less
- Usability testing on a shoestring budget
Workshop can be attended online or on-site.
Startup Advisory
I also advise startups on user experience, product design and online marketing.