All too often you can observe the following: It’s review time and the first public deliverables are to be shown and discussed. The beamer launches and the UX Designer starts describing the pictures (e.g. wireframes). But obviously, nobody seems to get what he’s talking about. The following discussion gets out of hand and carried away – if there’s any discussion at all.
The above scenario lacked context. This is where communication and moderation skills come into place. Don’t worry you don’t have to be an entertainer to succeed. But we need to moderate our deliverables. Especially for scribbles and wireframes, which mostly describe a solution in little detail – which is ok and in early stages even suitable – it is necessary to moderate. We need to start with creating the context.
Giving Context
Before diving into the details, we have to:
- Describe what was observed or general needs that were addressed
- Tell the audience more about the problem or specific requirements and restrictions
- Give them an overview of the possible approaches
- Use the deliverables (here wireframes) to describe the rough concept/solution
- Get feedback which will fuel the following steps
Did you notice anything? Here also you can approach to a better result by Design Thinking. It’s the red thread spinning for you. Keeping the Design Thinking Process in mind can help you build your argumentation chain.
- Empathize: develop knowledge about what your users or business need
- Define: in-depth description of the problems and/or requirements
- Ideate: talk about a range of ideas that crossed your mind
- Prototype: create the deliverables and present them to the audience
- Test/Validate: finally get feedback for your solution approach, e.g. in a sprint review
Conclusion
Structured moderation of your deliverables really helps you to move on. If you can get them all on the boat, everyone has the chance to really understand the core of your solution, presented e.g. with lo-fi wireframes. Then your chances are really good to get valuable feedback and you will well-equipped step into the next iterations.
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