2023/07/13 | 3mins

Hello, this is Product Designer Carrie🧤 Upstage's design team is largely divided into two job groups: brand design and product design. In the first half of 2023, there was a new purpose organization setting in Upstage to run at high speed as a team of different job groups that make products. This allowed product designers, who were grouped together within functional organizations, to work independently, concentrating on the single product they were making.

In addition, existing design teams are grouped together in a loose organization called chapters to continue essential communication between designers, such as sharing knowledge necessary for work. In this post, the first official offline communication event of the design chapter , “Oh! Introducing “Design day” (aka O’D day) .

why? And how did it go?

WHAT KIND OF CONCERNS ARE DESIGNERS WORKING AT A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY, ESPECIALLY A B2B SALES-ORIENTED AI COMPANY, AND HOW ARE THEY SOLVING IT? THIS FIRST ODYS DAY WAS A PLACE WHERE DESIGNERS COULD OPENLY SHARE THEIR CONCERNS AND PUT THEIR HEADS TOGETHER TO FIND A BETTER SOLUTION AT THIS STAGE WHEN CUSTOMERS APPEARED IN PRODUCTS IN EARNEST AND TECHNOLOGY WAS RAPIDLY CHANGING.

그렇게 첫 번째 오디데이는 두 개의 경험 공유 세션과, 나만의 추천서를 소개하고 교환하는 시간, 그리고 간단한 상반기 회고로 이루어졌습니다. 그럼 바로 소개해 볼게요. 첫 세션이었던 <고객과 제품 사이, 황금 밸런스 찾기>는 프로덕트 디자이너 Journie가 준비해 주었습니다.

Session 1. Finding the golden balance between customers and products

What is it like to make products for enterprise customers? Prior to joining Upstage, Journie was in charge of product design at a company that made similar B2B software as a service (SaaS) products. In this session, Journie shared the challenges she faced as a designer and the lessons learned from working on projects with various business clients.

AS IS OFTEN THE CASE, STARTUPS DEVELOPING B2B PRODUCTS FACE MANY CHALLENGES. SALES THAT STARTED WITHOUT A PRODUCT, MISCOMMUNICATION BETWEEN PRODUCT AND BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS IN THE PROCESS OF NEGOTIATING CONTRACTS, PRODUCTS THAT WERE DEVELOPED WITHOUT CLEARLY DEFINING TARGET USERS AND BECAME SOMETHING NO ONE WANTED, AND TRUE VALUE BY PAINSTAKINGLY COLLECTING USER DATA THE EXPERIENCE THAT THE GOAL SET AGAIN AFTER FINDING " IS LOST IN A SUDDEN AND HUGE DEAL... HOW CAN A DESIGNER OVERCOME THIS DIFFICULTY?

1. Prepare internal standards in preparation for clients who request unreasonable custom functions.

IT WOULD BE IDEAL FOR A B2B STARTUP TO BE PREPARED FROM THE BEGINNING AND DELIVER THE FUNCTIONALITY AS IT IS, BEAUTIFULLY SATISFYING CUSTOMERS. IN THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING AND DELIVERING PROMISED PRODUCTS, IT IS SOMETIMES NECESSARY TO DEVELOP CUSTOM FEATURES DESIRED BY CORPORATE CUSTOMERS. DESPITE THE FACT THAT A LOT OF SEEMINGLY SOLID CONTRACT DOCUMENTS COME AND GO BETWEEN THE TWO COMPANIES, THE ACTUAL WORK TENDS TO BE QUITE FLEXIBLE.

What if the two companies interpret the terms of the contract differently, resulting in misunderstandings, or if the customer needs a feature that was not agreed upon in advance?

In this situation where there is no sharp answer, it would be a strong resource if we gathered the expertise and experience of each member to establish a standard that can be used both inside and outside the company and use it as a guideline for problem solving. If you decide to provide a custom function only for a specific customer, you can use it as a strategic tool to derive a reasonable negotiation by calculating how much resource it will cost.

2. Clearly define users and create products with minimal functionality.

IT'S OBVIOUS AND OBVIOUS, BUT QUITE A FEW PRODUCTS ARE MADE WITHOUT CONSIDERING WHO WILL USE THEM. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE IF THE CORPORATE CUSTOMER'S DOMAIN HAS CHARACTERISTICS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND DEEPLY FROM THE OUTSIDE. IN A SITUATION WHERE IT IS DIFFICULT TO DIRECTLY MEET REAL USERS OF CORPORATE CUSTOMERS AND OBTAIN DATA, DESIGNERS CREATE PRODUCTS AS IF ROWING ALONE IN THE OPEN SEA. IN ADDITION, IF MEMBERS OF THE ORGANIZATION LACK CONSENSUS ON THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS BASED ON DESIGN KNOWLEDGE OR UX RESEARCH, IT IS EASY TO CREATE PRODUCTS WITH AN AMBIGUOUS PERSONA OF 'THIS KIND OF PERSON WILL USE IT'.

In the end, if we listen to the opinions of stakeholders from various backgrounds and attach functions one by one without such clear standards, a product that no one wanted is born with miscellaneous functions that real users did not need. And, in most cases, a valuable price is paid for the product to come into existence and actually test the hypotheses incorrectly. It is the time and effort spent planting logs, analyzing data, and persuading internal personnel to gather user data belatedly.

Session 2. Conversational interface attracting attention with ChatGPT

With ChatGPT3.5, which was released by OpenAI in 2022, conversations with artificial intelligence have already become a natural daily routine for many people. It's not uncommon to see services across all sectors experimenting with new possibilities with the ChatGPT API, even attempting to replace or complement some of the existing digital experiences.

Among them, is it possible to turn the already overly familiar search bar into an interactive interface? Product designer Tim visualizes the future that conversational artificial intelligence can change through several experimental examples for this question that has no set answer or clear success story.

By the way, do users really want "conversation"?

This is the search experience we are all familiar with. Enter a short keyword into the search box, filter one by one from the related search results to leave only what you want, or browse directly to find the desired result. In other words, it takes little effort to ask a question, but it takes a lot of effort to get the answer you want. On the other hand, anyone who has used ChatGPT as an alternative to search knows that it takes a lot of effort and long questions to get the answers you want quickly and accurately.

If we think of users who search in the digital environment, especially in commerce services, we can divide them into a group that has exactly what they want to find and a group that just searches without a specific answer. Also, which device you use to access the service is a factor that affects the search experience. The more mobile you are, the more you need an interface that reduces the number of user inputs and helps users easily access desired results.

Rather than simply thinking of 'let's replace search with a chatbot', how about incorporating the strengths of each technology into the existing experience in a complementary way? We had time to freely think about what kind of new value we could deliver when we combined the experience that only conversational artificial intelligence can provide with an appropriate interface.

🤔 When you enter a search term in natural language in the search bar, the desired search results are returned with filtering, allowing both natural search and browsing results with little input.

🤔 Personalized search with the power of conversational AI that remembers context

🤔 If you search for the recipe you want in natural language, you can add the ingredients to your shopping cart at once.

Upstage has just launched the fledgling Document AI Pack on the market, waiting for user feedback. In addition, we are actively looking for opportunities to integrate into products without missing the changes in user needs due to technological advancement. In this situation, the experiences and concerns that Journie and Tim shared have been a great guide and comfort for designers who are creating B2B AI products.

Recommended book exchange, designer to designer

After 10 designers each prepared and introduced a book, those who wanted to read it freely shared it. Having a conversation with a book on a topic I am interested in, it became a time for me to naturally bring out my current thoughts and concerns and talk about them.

🐠 The illusion of knowing (Jongwon → Journie)
The illusion of knowing like a fish cannot see water prevents it from properly discovering the problem. This is a book that tells the hidden clues and new insights that the author, a doctor of anthropology, has traveled around the world to find the real problem. I would recommend it to product designers who are discovering problems.

1️⃣ THE ONE THING (Kate → Tim)
Even though I spent the day doing my best doing this and that, after a while, 'what did I do today?' There are times when I think about it. This book presents effective ways to create and implement a roadmap to achieve long-term goals. In the end, if you want to achieve something, the only thing you need to do today is to think about something.

👬 Peopleware (Inha → Concentric)
This book was recommended when I went from designing a product to managing a team. It was published in 1987 and is said to be a classic in the IT industry that has been read like a textbook. The author's cynical yet insightful advice helped me a lot in resolving the difficulties I was experiencing recently.

💼 To you who want to leave because of your boss (Rina → Joo-hee)
It is a book that introduces various types of leaders that can be encountered in social life, and tells about the characteristics of each leader and how to work better. I recommend it to people who do a lot of communication work.

👑 Make the world want what you have (Journie → Jongwon)

This is the book of the author who resigned from the company and has been running a bookstore under his own name for 8 years. I think it would be a good read for those who are thinking about life outside the company, what I really want to do, and self-branding.

📻 Super Normal (Tim → Rani)
This is a book that I often looked into while studying industrial design. When my head is complicated because there are so many things to worry about while working, I feel comfortable looking at simple, well-made objects. It will be an opportunity to see again the ordinary objects that have remained with us for a long time.

✍️ Daily Life and Practice of a Designer (Rani → Carrie)
This book is a collection of memos written by the author who ran a design studio, articles contributed to the media, and letters sent and received over the past 10 years. The daily life of an uncool designer is brought out frankly and we talk about design as labor. I would like to recommend it to designers who want to look back on their original intentions.

🪨 Design that does not increase (childish mind → Rina)
I chose it because I thought that senior designers who had built up their careers to some extent would be able to relate to it after seeing the title. It contains the experiences of designers who have worked in various fields for nearly 20 years. I could sympathize with the part of the table of contents, 'When a designer has to leave the director'. If you are a designer who is worried about your career, I think it would be nice to read it.

😵 If you do your best, you will die (Juhee → Inha)
This is a book I chose because I thought that burnout could come recently. I brought it because my favorite writer published a healing essay. When working, there are times when you have no choice but to give up your daily life and work hard. If anyone feels exhausted, I recommend reading it.

🪶 Discover details (Carrie → Kate)
They said they would exchange books, so I expected everyone to come with heavy content, so I brought something light to read. This is a casebook that records a single difference that I found while looking at good spaces, products, and services. I chose it because I wanted to include a small charm that would attract users to the product.

Looking back on the first half of the year, O'D Day Check out

“It was nice to be able to freely talk about design with designers. In fact, it’s hard to take care of the things that we gather and share in chapters because they are not directly related to the work we are doing. I think I can think deeply about one topic.”

"I had just joined and since it was divided into purpose organizations, I had few opportunities to meet and talk with designers, but it was nice to have strong communication through O.D. Day. Starting from this place, I was able to bring work-related difficulties or problems I wanted to solve, share them, and solve them. I hope it develops with time."

"The event venue, session composition, and small events were all fresh and nice. I think it would be nice to borrow this opportunity to share what the designers are thinking about with more upstage stars."

“I think it would be meaningful if we recorded the activities of the chapter in some form. Also, since it is difficult to make the event meaningful and enjoyable every time, it would be nice if we all put our heads together and think about new activities, just like today’s O’D Day planners were there.”

"It's good to do productive activities, but I think there's synergy just by gathering like this. It's a remote environment, so it's hard to see everyone at once. I think it gives."

The first O'D-Day ended successfully like this. I will end this article by cheering for the designers who will be fiercely challenging today to turn difficult technologies into wonderful products. Making AI Beneficial!

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