The Scoping phase is the foundation of your project and sets the context for future design and development decisions.
We begin each project with a Scoping phase which anchors the project priorities, helping us to define appropriate functionality, content and design strategies. We learn about the project context, the needs and motivations of stakeholders, establish the project boundaries and objectives, and begin to map the opportunities.
The Scope focuses on user experience strategy rather than detailed specifications; in this way we leave room for the project to evolve from the shared understanding we develop through the project. We commence by immersing ourselves in the design context, absorbing provided materials and doing initial desk research to prepare for the Scoping Workshop.
The key elements of a Scope are :
- Discovery: defining the project’s vision and its constraints
- Immersion into the world of the stakeholder
- Opportunity and Content Mapping
- Preliminary Concepting
- Initiating co-design
The Scoping workshop is recorded, translated and reflected back to you in a scoping document which maps the project objectives and design recommendations, including primary and secondary stakeholders. It also provides high level plans for content and key delivery channels and can include workflow maps and diagrams when appropriate.
Driven by the prioritised User Stories, the scoping document lays out the roadmap for the next iteration of design and development.
Our approach ensures internal and external stakeholder participation is central to developing the design responses. Where appropriate, research and user engagement strategies facilitate this.
Critically, we don’t lock clients down to specifications and fixed ideas; we keep the options open and share the process of evolving the design. The subsequent designs are created to be adapted by the people they touch, so they remain relevant and useful for their entire lifecycle.
Scoping Workshops
Scoping workshops form the foundation of every project we conduct. They provide a structured framework for idea generation and dialogue, create a shared project vision and facilitate playful exploration of possibilities.
Each scoping workshop is tailored to the unique needs of your project and is customised from a toolkit of methods and facilitation techniques. We map the project landscape together from various perspectives and identify themes, priorities and gaps.
We encourage a diverse cross-section of stakeholders to come together to explore and create new meanings and connections through brainstorming, persona exploration and scenario mapping. A workshop can reveal new uses for existing systems or ways of leveraging existing touch points by combining and reusing available tools.
Our workshops are also fantastic team building exercises and place your team at the beginning of the journey and at the centre of your project. The activities and discussions reveal many of the unique opportunities available to the project and allow us to develop a shared language around the relevant issues.
