 things so far you know people have spoken about you know CSS content management learning this like so much good stuff going on. I've been attending MetaRef for the last couple of years and you know every year like good folks good talented folks you know have conversations with so it's an honor to be here. Today you know I I'm gonna talk about a couple things that I've learned over the years around you know getting products and features out into the market right and one of the things you know is just for context I've worked mostly in the product space these are some of the places I've worked in currently I'm at for those of you who don't know it's a video enterprise video company we help some of these companies you know the video conferencing and I'm today I'm gonna talk about from the product perspective from shipping this kind of a product three you know particular thing that you know I found useful and maybe some of these could be applicable to you as well so first thing is you know process right there's all kinds of different processes some companies do a lot of you know mostly everybody is doing agile but there's there's also another one I heard recently of water crumb fall and like people who are not able to move from one to the other and all kinds of things right but every company every team every product every feature every market situation needs some of the other small tweaks to make here and there to you know make ship their product properly right think you know in the morning we heard about gojek and what kind of processes they follow and such right like so similar to that every company needs to tweak it a little bit but one thing to that I've seen over and over is that a lot of compromises are made right at some point so you know I think like again like I said earlier you know judgment calls right there's something like that right so I'll talk from that perspective on you know related to agile how to not let those compromises you know have a negative impact on your you know product on your design and mostly on the design right so the the whole overall thing is that you know with the agile you have like a huge set of things you want to do you pick a couple of them you make a sprint out of it in a couple of weeks you you know you create something you ship it and hopefully at the end you have something that you can put out there in the market right but you know along the way designers right specifically the process of design you know again like like Nupur also said takes a certain amount of time and you want to give it a certain amount of time and you want it to be holistic but there is you know not as much time right this is what every designer would want that give me time up front to do a holistic you know long design process big upfront design and then I will give you then you can do your sprint and you know you can implement that right but the reality is that you don't have that kind of time it's not there right so what do you do right what do you do you know sit in the corner and sulk do you ask for more time do you ask for more budget do you ask you know what what is really what to happen at that point of time when you want to do design holistically and you know that your product is going to suffer if you don't what what should be done right so the thing is that it we expect to ask for more time and then we make the product better the thing the reality it works the other way around you make something better and that gives you the right to ask for more time to ask for more budget to ask for more right so I want to start with requirements right are typically short story of you know one of my one of my past projects in a different company I was sitting you know there was a team of business analysts and product managers who were working on a project they did not have a designer so their classic style was that they sat around a table they discussed the requirements they discussed what they wanted to build and they you know they would typically one or two people in the team thought a little bit more visually and said you know what it should be you know done in this right so let's take an example they would write requirements which said we need a pop-up to let the user select their location from a drop-down right this is not a requirement this is a spec this is a UI spec and I don't know you know has anyone seen anything like this has anyone seen requirements like this your fans yeah right couple you have right so that's the thing right so you when you have a situation like this what do you what do you do right so when the product grew and they started targeting more markets they said okay we need a designer on the team so you know I joined that team and I start getting your message this okay so what do you want to do with this drop down and you know that's it is that what you want me to do so this kind of thing this kind of requirement narrows your thinking right it really you know closes you from thinking more broadly and you you know when you are told that okay this this is all you have to do it should not take long how long does it take to you know get this out there right so you might come up and you know imagine I'm sure when I describe that you imagine something like this and maybe this is a little more glorified oh you know what let's put a combo box because you can type in it let's you know you know let's put our big geographies right up front so people can select it quickly but this is still very narrow right this is not this is not brought thinking do you you never got the you know when you got a requirement like this you know you've got to get rid of you know everything that is a UI spec right so I'm going to cancel out a couple of these things right so what are you left with you need the user's location right this is what you this is what you wanted over there but why if you got the spec saying a drop down you never got the chance to ask why so if you broaden the thing you get a chance to ask why so as them I said oh you we need to calculate taxes like why right so because you want to show the final price including taxes before payment okay okay now I know what you want right now we're talking and now this lets me think more broadly right do we maybe we have the location already maybe there is a different way to get the location maybe you know we can detect the location like there may be a so many different ways that we can do it maybe we don't need it I don't know it but until I'm not given the chance to figure it out I can't right that's the whole point right so that's the first thing is broader thinking what I did at that particular company in that particular context was that I you know worked with them to slowly and gradually change the way they wrote requirements so that they wrote more about user's goals than you know describing the UI elements right not by saying them hey that's not what you're supposed to do but working with them collaborating with them and really you know changing the culture slowly project by project and with people right so that's the first one the next thing is research and in this case I'm talking about user research that you know it's always beneficial we all know it and we need to do it right but your sprints go like this right when when are you doing research right when you say somehow you're able to bargain for some time and you're going to pull out three days if you have three days like don't do research don't just don't do it because you're not going to be thorough I think a lot of people have said that you know what any research is better than no research but yeah you might do something but you can actually do better right so what my suggestion is that you know do research always this is something that you know I do and my team does at the moment right so while your sprints are going on your research is always going on so kind of the way we the way we do this right is there are a couple of different things that are going on but you know I'll talk about some of them so the first one is something we call coffee talks right which is we have we have we have we constantly have sessions lined up with our users and this of course works in a certain context when you have a product and a long-term you know plan around it where you know the users are the same the context is the same it goes on right essentially we always have users lined up it doesn't matter what project is going on and there are always different projects going on different you know features that are being worked on but anytime you want feedback every week there are a few people ready for you to talk to and you can ask them there is no context around it right so the typical discussion has two parts the first part is a little bit around demographics and usage we ask them how you know about them tells about their company their work style how they use our product and stuff like that and how their company's culture is around it the other one is design feedback so whatever is going on that at that point of time we show it to them we get feedback from them right so this gives us a good you know sense and there's always data of course we hear of many other things also right so the other advantage of this is that they're not only giving us feedback about that particular thing but there are a lot of other things that get uncovered right in that conversation and we may not have the bandwidth to solve that at that point of time right but when we do you will already have all this input to begin right so we won't have to you know buy time and ask for time and ask for more budget or whatever it is right the second thing is data roundups so essentially you know what we do is every week the design team gets together the design leads get together different product teams get together and there's a lot of data that we gather from various sources about usage about the market about our users and all of that and the idea is to bring up different things and share with each other right so like I said one of it is users data we're always looking at and tracking every time there's a new feature the requirement also you know and this is again something that's not hundred percent there but I'm trying to get that get that to happen which is every requirement you also write down what you're going to measure how you're going to measure it and then you keep tracking it as you know as you go right the other is direct feedback so we use something called and sure a lot of companies use this a net promoter score that's not the score it's not our sample image but net promoter score which is a survey that goes out to users and you know they they rate your company and they give you direct feedback right so we're always getting that looking at that a lot of people have access to it internally and we're always you know pulling out certain feedback about certain topics and and and you know collating that so this is all the comment analysis doing you know making affinity diagram saying that okay all the feedback that we got about this particular feature is all here right and different features are there you may not be fixing all of them right now but when you want to fix them like I said earlier you it's ready you can look at this and and and you know get your analysis right this is one that I use personally and I think this is for capturing internal ideas right what happens is that so we internally we use slack a lot every product has and I'm sure a lot of you use it the same way or any equivalent but every product has a room and people are discussing ideas they're giving feedback and things like that and when you get it you're like wow that's amazing you know that that that that makes sense but sooner later that thing gets lost something else bigger comes up and it's gone that that feedback is somewhere in the chat and and it goes away right so just a small you know productivity tip that I have here is to you know use you know I use that your you know make I star messages in slack and they end up in a spreadsheet that it is very short and simple and then what I get to do is that I look at look at that spreadsheet and figure out what to do for each line of feedback there are something which are we already addressing there are others which we you know which I which I just need to see the trend how often it happens I can go go back and see the data so against each of them I can start sticking off that okay I've done this or I need to do something about it right so these are just like you know just just some of the things in there right so like I said earlier sites if you if you do these kind of things if you do ongoing your insights always ready they're waiting to be applied right the so that that's what it is do do ongoing research right the third thing and last thing I want to talk about is around minimum viable features of the commenter I'm sure you've all heard it MVP MVF MVP is more you know for for when you have a new product and for feature it's it's more about you know you have a product it's all working now you're adding more features to it right and there's always shortage of time all that stuff right so how do you how do you still and and you know the product your product team always you know wants the bare minimum let's do in the first version let's do the bare minimum and get it out there right and then we'll get feedback and that's great right so how do you how does how does a designer still like think holistically at you know in in that environment right so let me give you a there's a small feature that we have in one of our products it's called questions and questions and answers and essentially it's like something like like our format here right I'm a presenter and your attendees you will ask me questions I will answer them but this is done virtually over you know online on the internet right so it's at the very bare minimum to you need you need a couple of things right and I'll walk through some screenshots of showing that right so the first thing is is you need to give the attendee of a small form to answer a question to ask a question right a composer question and and send it right and at the bottom you see the for the presenter to receive that question right and then to post you know compose an answer post the answer and the answer goes back to the attendee that's really you know if you say a question answer that's all you need right bare minimum now when you think about this there are there are there are a couple of different perspectives right so you you will you will definitely have a situation where you will need to have more features in initial discussions a lot of people will throw a lot of ideas and some everyone will feel that different features are important right so the the ideas at a very high level still take the time to explore it a little bit more right and I'll tell you what I'm talking about here so this is our basic form right question and cancel button and a post you know button right now some you know one of the things that we don't want people to write like we want them to be articulate and write like a small concise question so we need a character count and a limit over there right what if you know the question is a little controversial and someone doesn't want to reveal their identity they want to be anonymous so we need that what if you know other people have the same question so you know we need a word button so that that question bubbles up to the top right so these are some of the features that you can you can do right and then once they get an answer this was one that we observed internally as well which was once they get an answer someone might have a reply to give right where they may have a follow-up question or they may just want to say thank you or something like that right and so then you want to give them another space to write that reply and and send that reply as well right and you know the last one here is that to mark that question as answer so it's closed it's out of the presenter's view they don't need to bother about it anymore so I can go on and on with this there is moderation around it there are so many things the thing is you know at a very high level you still want to explore all of these things and have a very high level design around them right when you say minimum viable just don't do just the minimum feature explore some of the other ones but don't go like too deep into them right just you know the your actual final design will just have the that bare minimum feature but it's still worthwhile to spend the time to explore the others so that then you can start observing how people are using that and then that way you can prioritize which ones of these to put out there first right otherwise it's just opinion right everyone feels that different things are important right so just you know in summary you know design two versions your full feature should be low fidelity and your minimum version could be it should be the high fidelity and then that's how you quickly put it out there but without missing all the ideas that come forth and then keep watching which ones you know based on based on the usage right so that's you know my third point which is do a holistic minimum viable feature not you know just just the minimum so that's pretty much it I think I went to have good time now broader thinking by you know opening up your research to be written in a very you know broad and non-specification kind of way the the next thing is ongoing research do it all the time because you will otherwise there's no other way to find time to do it and the last thing is to do a holistic minimum viable feature and of course these are things that have worked for me you know there are obviously different and better and other ways of doing this so it's a good dialogue I'd like to learn from you guys also and yeah that's pretty much it you can find me on Twitter Thank you. Any questions? Yeah hi great talk. Thanks. So my question is basically around so you have a standard way of doing things right and maybe you've worked on multiple products and you might have realized that they might have a very similar way of also looking at to a large extent right so how do you ensure that you step out of that zone and are able to work on something which is completely different from what you've made up to now like the products that you've worked on it's completely different maybe the design language is completely different the style is completely different how do you ensure that your team is able to do all of those things also So if I understand your question correctly what you're saying is that if there is a brand new product or a brand new feature to do then how do you step out of the process? Yes how do you ensure that you don't carry forward the same design language from a different product but you give it a proper like you were saying right broader thinking you give it a proper thought over there and it's a different style language and everything. So I mean essentially how you would one of the ways that you know to do it is to you know again once you start with your research right you will always get some of the other different insights which will drive you know that kind of thinking and you have to go deep into that if you have a new product definitely you have to go deeper into the research related to that product and that product and that market and that kind of user right this context that I have been talking about right now is going with one set of products and adding features to it and you know building upon that right when you have a new one of course you will start from scratch and do it. There is definitely some you know I get what you're saying right which is that it's challenging to switch out from something and you know that context switching for that to happen is something very specific. I think one of the things is definitely you know being on the field you know going out and immersing yourself in the in the user's context right that is the best way to you know kind of have you know get their context and then. So I really like the part where you say research is continuous right because it's not related to projects it's more about your users as a whole right or something that I've experienced is and it might be different for different products but. Is that how do you really find insight like how what is the right way to poke your users so that they give newer and newer insights because after after sometime it seems to get redundant right like all your users kind of are saying the same thing and you're not learning anything. So yeah I mean once all your users are saying the same thing then you've established a pattern and you know what you need to do about that right. One of the things that I've tried in the past is you know making two or three different designs which are which are fairly different right from each other not just small variation. And you throw it out there even if it's intern stakeholder feedback sometimes you don't even have enough clarity you make something and throw it out there and it's OK if they tell you it's wrong because then you can ask them tell me what's wrong right tell me what what else should be there right and sometimes knowing you don't have to be 100% sure that this is the right way to do it even if it's wrong it's wrong you put it out there and that's how you get feedback so that could be one way where you know you think of a radically different approach. And you know it's not practical you know for a fact you know a lot of people internally will tell you why you're showing this to users what if they expect this and all that and you have to discuss that and you know get buy in and then put it out there and see what happens right sometimes you might get something interesting all of that. So the first part of your question was that how do you get buying for the time right required to do research. I think I touched upon a little bit when I started which is that you have to do some of it on your own time show the value and that's how you get buying you can't go and ask that hey I want to do this and I need time and money for it. And yeah there are places where it does happen but more often than not it's very hard it's a much more challenging thing to do. You if you are passionate enough you will find the time you will find a way to get it done and maybe you want you can do it in every project but there has to be some project where you can squeeze up some time to do it and show the value and then you know you can once people see value and you communicate the results you can communicate your process you show that it was effective you can get a buying right and make it part of your overall process. I think the second part of your question if you could repeat that sorry. The second part was more around when you go about ideating or thinking about you know what how is it that whatever you're creating is going to shape up the features and everything so how do you go about like involving your team with that. Right right right so yeah in terms of involving the team I think it's it's absolutely important that you are collaborating with you know everyone. All the time now you have to of course take some expectations and rules right so I think what you're alluding to is kind of you know collaborative you know a group design that everybody is giving design inputs and you know the designers lost as you know what am I doing here. Right that that is that is a risk but that depends on what kind of relationship you form with the team right there are you know sometimes you also might you know end up giving them some ideas sometimes you might get something really good out of it but it's a lot about. Setting that expectation and it won't work the same way in every project it will work with some people some people it won't. The only thing that will happen is that if everybody has given you a certain kind of feedback then you have to see that you know there is value in that right there is a reason why three more people are telling you something. And if you are trying to do the opposite of that if you think the opposite of that or a different thing makes sense then you need more rational you need more data you need more. You know evidence to say that okay you know this is I like your suggestion and here's another way let's test this let's try it out right. So you know one small thing that we use sometimes and usually the other outside feedback that you get if it's around very specific things around you know design around you know layout or whatever. There's one tool that we try called usability hub you can post versions of designs online and get feedback from you know 20 30 people it's a simple click test that takes them five seconds to do it's not very expensive. And within you know 15 minutes or whatever you get a response and sometimes you know we put like many many many versions of things out there which you know we've gotten feedback on and you get. It's not perfect because they're not your end users but you still get a general sense of you know where you know what direction you can go to be one thing to try. Thank you. Thank you Samir. Thanks.