Craft a product strategy and design framework using the principles and techniques of user experience…in two days.
- Are you being told what to build, but you don’t agree it’s what your customers need?
- Is your feature list out of control, but you can’t figure out how to pare it down?
- Are members of your team butting heads when it comes to making design decisions?
- Are your customers complaining and none of the changes you’ve made have helped?
- Does your team understand the value of UX, but still isn’t sure what methods to use, how to do them, and how to make sense of the results?
Whether your team is new to user experience design or has yet to adopt a consistent UX process, you can create a new future for your company in just two days.
It’s going to be a lot of hard work and will require your team’s undivided attention. You will be forced to reconsider how you and your team have been making decisions, come to terms with just how little you know about your customers (and each other), and change the way you work together forever. If you’re willing to go there, keep reading.
Working with Whitney was not just a pleasure, but a transformative business experience.” ~ Kitty Kolding, CEO, House Party
I have the experience and integrity you deserve
As an internationally-recognized independent consultant, I have helped to establish a User Experience discipline within product and engineering teams at dozens of Fortune 500s, nonprofits and growing startups. My clients routinely report increased usage and reduced customer complaints after working with me. They spend less money making poor choices and make more money from happier customers. They devise long-term strategies for product growth by developing greater empathy for their customers to better predict their future needs. Best of all, they feel more confident in their decisions as a team, enjoy working together more, and find greater purpose in their work.
Armed with a decade of experience and a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, I am an expert in making technology easier and more pleasurable to use. I have honed the leading tools and techniques for understanding customer problems and resolving them immediately. But I don’t just design usable interfaces; I go deeper to foster an organizational culture that empowers teams to do their best work.
I am known for helping companies…
- Gain clarity on how and when to apply UX methods
- Make sense of customer feedback
- Tackle feature bloat
- Defend against unfounded demands
- Reduce team conflicts
- Build stakeholder consensus
- Create happy customers (and colleagues, too!)
Whitney started a cultural shift that has continued to date. Metaphorically, she planted the UX tree that continues to grow in our organization.” ~ Rick Cusick, CIO, Reading Plus
How the UX Jump-Start is different from everything else
In the past, my client engagements have ranged from 2 months to 6 months and cost upwards of $40K. For many companies, it’s an investment that pays for itself before our project is even completed. But for others it can feel like too much time to wait for valuable insights and too much money to risk on something they’ve never tried before.
Just as I encourage my clients to do, I listen carefully to my customers to constantly improve my offerings. That’s why I now offer UX Jump-Start –– intensive workshops that are just two days long at a fraction of the cost of a full engagement.
In two full, strenuous, mind-expanding days, I guide product and engineering teams through the process of developing a product strategy and designing a user experience. Together we can achieve minor miracles.
Day 1
- Clarify business objectives and key performance indicators
- Analyze and prioritize customer/user segments
- Catalog all potential use case scenarios
- Brainstorm features and functionality, then prioritize into a product roadmap
Day 2
- Storyboard key scenarios for highest priority user types
- Inventory and organize all screens/pages
- Sketch key screens/pages to start planning UI design
Whitney managed sensitive discussion deftly and provided valuable feedback that is being used today. Her level of professionalism, creativity and attention to detail are difficult to come by.”
~ Chris Drury, Director of Program Management, Hearst Communications
But then what happens?
I have repeat business from more than 60% of my clients. That means 6 out of 10 companies find our work together so valuable they don’t want it to stop. Sometimes there’s another big project coming down the pike, and it makes sense for us to do another UX Jump-Start — whether it’s with another team or the same excited folks who now want to use my methods on every project. But other times there’s no immediate fire to put out, just the smolder of the daily grind. That’s when the real work begins.
A UX Jump-Start is designed to treat the symptoms; you can jump-start a car when its battery is depleted, but you can’t assure it’ll keep its charge.
The only way to get at the root of the problem and treat the cause is with long-term care. That’s why I offer user experience coaching for teams and individuals. You set the goals, together we develop strategies for how to achieve them, you do the hard work and report back, together we tweak as necessary to ensure continued success and happiness, you keep putting good intentions into action.
This is advanced-level stuff with a 6-12 month commitment, and requires a tremendous amount of mutual trust and respect. It makes sense for us to find out if we love each other first, so let’s start with a UX Jump-Start.
So ask yourself these questions
Does your team need to make design decisions more objectively and eliminate turf wars? Does your team need to do a better job of designing products that make the business successful? Does your team need to find better ways to relate to your customers and to one another?
You can change it all in just two days with a UX Jump-Start.
Let me know when you’re ready to find out how.
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