Streamlining Design Collaboration in a Distributed Team: A Case Study

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The case study revolves around a project led by John Henry Krahenbuhl, Lead User Experience Designer at Epsilon, for a product launch microsite. The project faced several challenges. Firstly, it had to cater to the interests of multiple client stakeholders, all on a single page. Secondly, consensus had to be reached among the members of a cross-functional team at the agency. Lastly, all this had to be achieved quickly in a distributed work environment. The team consisted of about five core members, with several more who floated in and out as needed. The team was globally distributed, and the client base was also global. The project required fast, efficient, and flexible solutions. The client needed low to medium fidelity assets, along with documentation. The wireframes could be grayscale, and 90% pixel accuracy was sufficient.

The customer in this case study is not explicitly mentioned. However, it can be inferred that the customer is a global company launching a new product. The customer has multiple stakeholders whose interests needed to be incorporated into the design of a single page microsite for the product launch. The customer required low to medium fidelity assets, along with documentation. The wireframes could be grayscale, and 90% pixel accuracy was sufficient. The customer also had a global client base, necessitating a fast, efficient, and flexible solution.

To address the challenge of incorporating multiple stakeholder interests, Krahenbuhl proposed the use of an image carousel. Despite the controversial nature of carousels among designers, it was seen as a practical solution to represent all products well in the deliverables. To facilitate collaboration in a distributed work environment, Krahenbuhl used Axure Share, a tool that allowed him to share an HTML link to the prototype that could be opened on any browser. This enabled real-time changes during conversations to adjust the interactions as they iterated. To address the various questions about the design, a prototype was quickly built to simulate the experience and shared with everyone on the team during the design exploration stage. This helped focus the conversation on the carousel interaction and how it affected the overall experience. The design was evolved in real time, with the original concept of sliding images from left to right being replaced with a fade effect. The prototype helped the team think through all the visual requirements and develop guidelines for the content.

• The use of interactive prototypes and real-time collaboration tools like Axure Share helped the team quickly gather consensus around the design challenge. The prototype allowed the team to visualize the interaction and make necessary adjustments, providing additional insight into things they needed to avoid or change. This approach helped the team work through all the complexities of the interaction that couldn't have been addressed with just a wireframing tool. The team was able to get internal consensus by flushing out all the issues and incorporating everyone’s tweaks through changes made in the prototype. This internal alignment was key to getting external buy-in from the client. The prototyping exercise also helped the team get there faster, reducing the time required for client meetings.

• The prototyping exercise reduced what would have taken at least two meetings with the client into one.
• The entire project, from concept to launch, took a little more than four weeks.