Discovery Activities

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  • jtb26

    Interested to hear what different people/agencies do at the outset of projects. We do a lot of upfront research and stakeholder interviews. We also try and run activities or exercises that are enjoyable too. What kind of things do you do with clients, or internally?

    Some of the things we do include:
    * Ideo style brainstorming
    * Card Sorting (including special decks we've made for look and feel)
    * Mental Models

  • vaxorcist0

    from various agencies over the years.... more in the "ad agency" mindset than what design and web shops may do, but....

    Before any work done...

    0. Determine business objectives, competitors etc... and involve the client in this step a lot, also determine who has approval authority and who does not, who influences, and who seems to say no to interesting ideas.... who's positive,etc...

    1.Determine target market very, very precisely,involve the client a bit less, establish that you're learning valuable info... and suggest to the clients mind that he's not as representative of the target market as he may automatically think he is, but he may have valuable insights into some details about their demographics, psychographics or "back rationalisations"

    2. Use focus groups, interviews, research to find out the "central insights" into the "repilian" part of the target markets buying patterns, then also determine the "back rationalisations" they are most likely to use to justify an often gut-level decision. Car and SUV buyers are a great example here....

    3. Using insights from #2, come up with a handful of "psychographic profiles" and "example personalities" who are likely to buy. Also, come up with a few "example personalities" who are likely to be skeptics, and at least one who is/ are going to be "eternal tire kickers"

    4. Use the personalities and insights in part 3 to determine your criteria for brainstorming ideas, and how to pick or reject certain paths... be open to sketching out ideas, but when it's time to cull, be clear that a certain idea may only appeal to tire kickers personalities... etc...

    5. Use all of the above to write a sketch brief...individually or in pairs come up with mockup ads, or storyboards,etc... but tie each brief to a business objective and target market personality /reptilian buying trigger / back rationalisation / etc... so that going forward, you're evaluating NOT on random matters of taste, but on tactics, strategy and brilliance in going after a direct aim, rather than just being cool for the sake of being cool...

    and remember, focus groups are for the beginning, to get insights, they are NOT for the end, to show ads to ask opinions of the ads, that turns into the Gong Show and/or a "make the logo bigger and turn the color red" kind of thing....