I was asked to do a Q &A session to talk about the UX team I started years ago because our team was new and most people didn’t understand what design was and why it was important to the company. I reflected on what I said then compared to how I run my current UX team and realized I haven’t changed too much in my strategy. I decided to share the article because it might be helpful to those who are getting started with staffing up a UX team. (Some edits were made to remove contact/location information).
Q&A with Christina Ho
Human-Centered Design Director
John Hancock
Q: What kind of services does your team provide?
CH: We are comprised of user experience generalists who provide various design capabilities, ranging from discovery through strategic design, service design, usability testing, user research, and data analytics. We also help with creating low to high fidelity prototypes/workflows and visual design. At the core, our team focuses on providing human centered design and the application of UX best practices.
Q: What role does your team play in the organization?
CH: We are part of the digital transformation team working in agile XP methodology, so by design, we are embedded as part of the core digital squads. A typical squad is made up of engineers, a product manager, and a product designer – which is our role in a digital squad. In addition, we provide support to other design teams throughout the organization – such as brand, marketing, and the innovation team.
Q: Why is it important to have design embedded into every project?
CH: An embedded design team member on a project helps the team clearly define customer problems and make sure the team is solving the right problem, while adding value to the business. Furthermore, we help establish and champion design methods and processes that support and enable the digital transformation and our culture. As product designers, we serve as an integral part of the team – serving as the voice of the customer. We obsess about our customers – they are the center of all that we do.
Q: You have mentioned that your team helps with Discovery? What do you mean by Discovery?
CH: Discovery is the start of a project. During this stage, we first help a team identify the right stakeholders and key decision-makers. Next, we talk with customers so we can better understand what they truly need, as well as identify their pain points. Why do we do this? By talking to our customers firsthand, we can ensure what we build will be the right solution to address our customers’ needs. Conversations with customers help the team develop empathy and perspectives that open up the range of opportunities to positively impact John Hancock’s customers. We notice new things and gather insights based on our conversations and interactions. We are then armed with a wealth of field data that we bring back to the team to help them define problems they are trying to solve.
Q: When is the good time for a team to reach out to you?
CH: In the beginning. we often find that people view design as only visual and bring us in when the solution is finalized – this leads to many missed opportunities. If you involve a product designer early, we can help identify whether a product designer’s involvement is required. If we find that there is a need, we can help bring real customer problems to light early, helping teams find the right solution that helps resolve them.
Q: Who can request services from your team?
CH: Anyone. Whether you’re a business owner, product manager, or an engineer that needs help with design, or just have questions about design, you can reach out to us anytime. You can find us sitting on the 2nd floor, email us or find us on Slack. We also post frequently on the #topics-design channel.
Q: How do you typically work with your clients. What’s your process?
CH: We typically start by having an initial conversation with our clients to understand what the ask is, and, also have them fill out an intake form. Before we begin doing any work, we want to understand the business problem we are asked to help solve. If the project has high business impact, i.e. direct to customer projects, we are more likely to work on the project, given that we have resources that have bandwidth to take on new projects. We find that using a pairing model – have both a lead designer and embedded designer – to be very effective for the team. We work closely with the product manager/product owner throughout the process. We begin with a kickoff meeting where we try to identify all the key players, discuss how our discovery process works, and at a high-level, set clear expectations of the outcomes to expect from this initial stage, which typically takes about 8 weeks. The lead designer tends to drive these activities – i.e. scheduling of the research plan and deliverables, while the embedded designer will be focused on execution. This usually involves in-person/video/call interviews, constant communication with key stakeholders, and data gathering throughout the process.
Once we have completed the discovery phase, we move into the Design phase where we begin ideation – thinking about all the possible ways to solve the problem. When we get an agreement from the team on which solution to use, we begin to do prototyping (low fidelity, no color designs). We intentionally do this so our stakeholders can focus on the function/workflow and not be hung up on the visuals; it is easier to comment on those. We work in iterative cycles, whether it’s during prototyping or testing phases. Our goal is to test quickly to make sure we are on the right path and not waste precious engineering time. If not, we can pivot and adjust more easily with shorter feedback loops with our customers/stakeholders. Upon the completion of the research, we provide reports containing our findings and recommendations.
On a day-to-day basis, we have daily updates with the team to give each other updates on progress and address roadblocks and produce a weekly/bi-weekly report outlining on-going research activities to the entire team. We constantly analyze and synthesize our findings and make sure that the entire team is on the same page. For our own team, we primarily use Slack for team communication/collaboration. We also offer an opportunity to include people who might be interested in shadowing us during our research activities, so they get to know the customers better.
Q: We know you are tasked in establishing Community of Practice for the Design discipline. Why do you think we need it and who will benefit from it?
CH: Everyone can benefit by being part of our community. As part of the company’s digital transformation, we need to establish processes that will allow design practices to be shared and adopted across the organization. Today – design is solving complex issues to ensure the products we produce are competitive and, most importantly, desirable by our users. We are currently working with different teams from other segments to help bring alignment as the design community and provide support to one another. It’s a very exciting time at for us. We know the importance of using human centered design in our company and we created a website to talk about this in more detail.
Just to shed light on the current work we have been/and are working on, our customers span from the following business units: Insurance, GWAM (RPS), IT Operations, Brand/Marketing, Annuities, Digital Advice, Risk, and Global. We have other topics available on our site – a research toolkit, section about design systems, lean canvas, customer journey mapping, and many more topics to come.
Q: What kind of projects would you like to be working on?
CH: I like working on projects that involve finding innovative ways to solve real customer problems. That said, I don’t have a preference between working on designing new products and services or updating existing ones. I believe that even with existing products we can find innovative ways to bring improvement. As far as my team is concerned, I encourage them to be more proactive than reactive, and find projects that they are passionate about – that make them excited.
Q: How does one initiate a request to get services?
CH: Easy! Just send us an email and someone from our team will reach out to you to set up an initial consultation.
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