Pre-conference workshop

The business of experience

Jess McMullin, Yvonne Shek

To truly progress in the design and user experience disciplines, we need to increase our influence in the organizations we work with. This influence will not come from better methods for working with users, but from better methods for working with business. While new methods for generating insight, prototyping, and defining solutions are useful, the bigger barriers in many practices are about building consensus, buy-in, bridging competing viewpoints, and actually executing.

In this environment, we need to cultivate business fluency and use our design toolkit to work with stakeholders, not just users. We need to understand and navigate the business of experience.

The business of experience covers the impact of business on user experience, the impact of user experience on business, and perspectives and methods that emerge from this understanding to help practitioners increase their influence.

This workshop will use a combination of presentation, case-studies, discussion, and hands-on activities to explore the business of experience, improve attendees’ business fluency, and provide tools to help attendees make a greater impact with their work.

After this session, practitioners will have a foundation in the business of experience, armed with pragmatic methods and the concepts to guide their activities, communicate value, and increase their influence.

Learning objectives

Concepts covered during the workshop include:

• Business Fluency 101
• Value Centered Design and Design Maturity
• Understanding the Four Constraints of Business
• Use the Experience Impact Framework to identify opportunities and activities to increase influence
• The Governance of Experience: How integrating user experience considerations into corporate governance can increase our influence.

Specific methods and techniques will be taught and practiced, including:

• Scenario Planning
• Backcasting
• Live Capture & Swimlanes
• Design the Box
• Conversational Sketching
• Divide the Dollar & Align Priorities