How do you go about brainstorming the right solutions in terms of coming up with user experience to address the validated problems to be solved for users

Once the problem is validated, we use the Design for Delight (D4D) framework to drive solution brainstorming, three principles that work really well in sequence. Deep customer empathy first. Before any ideation, the team needs to internalize the job to be done — not the surface-level request, but the underlying goal and the emotional experience around it. At BILL, this means going beyond drop-off data and actually understanding the workarounds users have stitched together. That becomes the creat ...Read More

There are two questions here- how do you find inspiration for and brainstorm user experience; and how do you incorporate the outcomes into your PRD/user stories. Inspiration and Brainstorming Imitation is the best form of flatteryLook at tools and products you admire and ask why do you like them; why are they easy to use? If someone has already cracked the UX, learn from it instead of reinventing the wheel. Also don't limit yourself to a specific product space- a finance app might have something ...Read More

Once you have a good picture of your target user persona(s), their goals, tooling needs, and pain points, design sprints are an effective way to brainstorm the user journeys and experience you want to provide with the product. Design sprints, if run well, can be a structured, efficient, and a fun and inclusive way to get different team members to collaborate on the potential solutions. It's a good way to get input from designers, engineers, PMs as well as sales/customer success teams where appro ...Read More

When thinking about Solutions, think they can come from anywhere - From you, from customers, from cross-functional peers, from industry, competitors, or from your everyday experiences with other products. Hence, it's important to keep you mind open and think of different things where you can get inspiration. When I was at Apple, I would actually monitor how kids used the iPhone (without any manuals) and that was the bar for everybody, how can you make it that simple that no one needs training.  ...Read More

Ah, brainstorming: it sounds so simple, but it can be so hard to do well. I've tried many different approaches over the years, and have found different ones successful depending on the company size, co-location of folks, etc. I'll go over my favorites, but first I want to touch on a few important pre-requisites to the brainstorming itself. Attendees Representatives from teams that will be working on the problem: in startups, this is likely almost everyone on product, design, engineering. At larg ...Read More

I am a strong believer in a user-centered approach and that can be the foundation for any brainstorming. Some ways you can implement this too (in an organization of any size): Understanding Customer/User problems: A good understanding of the problem via customer interviews, Support ticket/feature requests and other feedback Quantifying user problems: A good understanding of metrics and how users are using the feature Cross-functional team: having a diverse team of PM, Design, Engineering and oth ...Read More