Introduction

Today I am bringing you a recording of a live interview I did at the TDWI Munich conference for data leaders, and this episode is a bit unique as I’m in the “guest” seat being interviewed by the VP of TDWI Europe, Christoph Kreutz. 

Christoph wanted me to explain the new workshop I was giving later that day, which focuses on helping leaders increase user adoption of data products through design. In our chat, I explained the three main areas I pulled out of my full 4-week seminar to create this new ½-day workshop as well as the hands-on practice that participants would be engaging in. The three focal points for the workshop were: measuring usability via usability studies, identifying the unarticulated needs of stakeholders and users, and sketching in low fidelity to avoid over committing to solutions that users won’t value. 

Christoph also asks about the format of the workshop, and I explain how I believe data leaders will best learn design by doing it. As such, the new workshop was designed to use small group activities, role-playing scenarios, peer review…and minimal lecture! After discussing the differences between the abbreviated workshop and my full 4-week seminar, we talk about my consulting and training business “Designing for Analytics,” and conclude with a fun conversation about music and my other career as a professional musician. 

In a hurry? Skip to: 

• I summarize the new workshop version of “Designing Human-Centered Data Products” I was premiering at TDWI (4:18)
• We talk about the format of my workshop (7:32)
• Christoph and I discuss future opportunities for people to participate in this workshop (9:37)
• I explain the format of the main 8-week seminar versus the new half-day workshop  (10:14)
• We talk about one on one coaching (12:22)
• I discuss my background, including my formal music training and my other career as a professional musician (14:03)

• “We spend a lot of time building outputs and infrastructure and pipelines and data engineering and generating stuff, but not always generating outcomes. Users only care about how does this make my life better, my job better, my job easier? How do I look better? How do I get a promotion? How do I make the company more money? Whatever those goals are. And there’s a gap there sometimes, between the things that we ship and delivering these outcomes.” (4:36)
• “In order to run a usability study on a data product, you have to come up with some type of learning goals and some kind of scenarios that you’re going to give to a user and ask them to go show me how you would do x using the data thing that we built for you.” (5:54)
• “The reality is most data users and stakeholders aren’t designers and they’re not thinking about the user’s workflow and how a solution fits into their job. They don’t have that context. So, how do we get the really important requirements out of a user or stakeholder’s head? I teach techniques from qualitative UX interviewing, sales, and even hostage negotiation to get unarticulated needs out of people’s head.” (6:41)
• “How do we work in low fidelity to get data leaders on the same page with a stakeholder or a user? How do we design with users instead of for them? Because most of the time, when we communicate visually, it starts to click (or you’ll know it’s not clicking!)” (7:05)
• “There’s no right or wrong [in the workshop]. [The workshop] is really about the practice of using these design methods and not the final output that comes out of the end of it.” (8:14)
• “You learn design by doing design so I really like to get data people going by trying it instead of talking about trying it. More design doing and less design thinking!” (8:40)
• “The tricky thing [for most of my training clients], [and perhaps this is true with any type of adult education] is, ‘Yeah, I get the concept of what Brian’s talking about, but, how do I apply these design techniques to my situation? I work in this really weird domain, or on this particularly hard data space.’ Working on an exercise or real project, together, in small groups, is how I like start to make the conceptual idea of design into a tangible tool for data leaders..” (12:26)

• Brian’s training seminar