Who “Owns” a Framework or Method? Marketing, Designers, R&D, or…?
This is an example of how using a Design Thinking framework helped us surface insights that provided a reasonable answer to what has often been a contentious question. All four phases of Design Thinking were touched upon – for this case, in the following order: Discoveries (Observations and Insights), Frameworks, Solutions then Principles
Scenario:
Marketers and Designers both were using Personas. A conflict arose, since both disciplines were adamant that their Personas were the “right” ones. Who’s Persona should prevail? Both – here’s why and how…
Useful Frames:
Companies typically have touch points with their customers, where the company can influence the customer’s experience. Simplified here, for retail, there are touch points for “sales experience”, “use experience” and “support experience”
Observation and Insights:
Same target customer segment.
Same framework, Personas being used.
Design intent/goals are different.
Focus is different on which touch points company has with customers each discipline is designing for.
Designers
- optimize offerings for “value from use”; primarily through the offering at the “Use Experience” touch point
- often seek out users that push the envelope on the utility of the offering (includes early adopters). Personas are base on the these customers in a target segment
Marketers
- optimize offerings for “value to sell”; though the offering (in-bound marketing) and marketing campaigns (out-bound marketing) at the “Sales Experience” touch point
- often seek the mean or average users that will buy the offering. Personas are based on the “mean” customers in the same target segment.
Principles:
Each discipline must have lattitude to use and adapt the frameworks and methods to achieve their objectives.
All the disciplines must have some common baseline to work against to make equivalent comparisons – for Personas, the same customer segment.
Suggested (Re)solution:
Intent or customer experience touch points you are trying to effect should dictate which Persona to use.
As long as both personas are in the same target customer segment, both Personas are valid and should be applied for their intended purposes.
Designer’s personas should be used by others if key objective is to increase value from use, often to benefit the customer’s “Use Experience”
Marketer’s personas should be used by others if key objective is to increase value to sell, often to benefit the customer’s “Sales Experience”