https://www.robertcstokes.com/frog daily 0.75 2024-07-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1640997092787-84MFZVDYTHMDZGQ3JRBY/My+Disney+Experience.png frog - My Disney Experience PROBLEM Guests who visit DisneyWorld frequently are very intense itinerary planners. They want to maximize the value of their trips. Disney needed a digital vacation planning experience that was connected to their guests’ MagicBands, allowing them to fill up their own detailed itineraries with FastPass reservations, places they wanted to go, attractions they wanted to see, dining, and and resort accommodations. SOLUTION Generative research to identify guests’ mental model and pain points Feature concept creation and user validation Detailed interaction and visual design Design support during product development IMPACT Created a seamless, end-to-end physical and digital guest experience that tied together all guest activities – from airport arrivals and departures, transportation, lodging, dining, rides, and attractions Enabled Disney to match their legendary live customer service with best-in-class digital vacation planning tools that allow their guests to leave their spreadsheets at home and focus more on being in the moment during their vacation experience Launched in 2012 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1640997829114-URG9EN12364PTNEUT16L/motonav.jpg frog - Motorola Motonav PROBLEM Motorola’s in-car navigation product experience was a boiler-plate user experience that came directly from the third party software developer that Motorola was using to deliver the map experience. It was not based on customer needs or insights; it was mostly an engineering-led product. SOLUTION Led design research to identify customer pain points and needs Came up with feature ideas such as “along the route” gas stations, restaurants, and points of interest (before Google Maps rolled out that feature) Created interaction design specifications IMPACT Gave Motorola a differentiated navigation product experience Launched the product in 2010 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1640998517491-BSJ7P6ZBBXTUOYGJ7HNY/Synopsys.com+image.png frog - Synopsys.com PROBLEM The Synopsys.com website was essentially the company’s org chart manifested on the web; it did not use the terminology of its customers and it was not oriented around what their customers needed. SOLUTION Heuristic evaluation to identify standard usability problems Contextual inquiries to identify customer mental models and pain points Complete information architecture, interaction, and visual design makeover for Synopsys.com IMPACT Launched new company website in 2008 that mapped directly to customer mental models and gave the organization a more modern look and feel https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1640999039514-DPKH0ZBCWLDWGS273RSX/Research_Plan.png frog - Design Research Plan PROBLEM Telecommunications client was searching for means to increase demand for their data services beyond demand for SMS messaging. SOLUTION Created qualitative research plan to uncover usage patterns, pain points, and unmet needs Moderated 15 contextual inquiry sessions which included mind mapping, card sorting, and observation activities Synthesized research findings into an insights framework IMPACT Provided design principles, opportunity areas, and high level concepts for the subsequent design phase https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641137913556-N1EOJPAQ8AW7ZJ1V144B/Heuristic+Eval.png frog - Heuristic Evaluation PROBLEM Synopsys (tech firm that creates design and test tools for silicon chip manufacturers) had an outdated website that had grown organically over many years. The website user experience was confusing and sub-optimal. SOLUTION Conducted a heuristic evaluation of the entire website to identify low hanging fruit problems that could be resolved to improve the user experience IMPACT Fixed fundamental usability problems with the company website, reducing customer confusion and creating an improved acquisition funnel experience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641138200609-9Z5105YJ3R1Q7Z4Z4Y0M/design+concepts.png frog - Design Concept PROBLEM Major consumer electronics manufacturer was looking for new product concepts to revive declining sales in home theater products. SOLUTION After extensive qualitative design research and synthesis, collaborated with other digital and industrial designers to construct a high fidelity product concept that included physical and digital products and services Created detailed wireframes that were converted to high fidelity visual comps IMPACT Provided client with provocative new feature and product concept ideas that were submitted to their leadership for investment consideration Although the product concept was never shipped as originally designed, several of the feature concepts (such as reactive lighting systems) were later rolled out successfully by a competing manufacturer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641138591336-VM60N7VHIXXKJZXJD71H/info+arch.png frog - Information Architecture PROBLEM Client’s digital interactive ecosystem had a very broad scope, covering a wide range of functionality. The relationship and navigation between the different areas of the experience needed to be documented for product managers and developers. SOLUTION Created a site map that explained what the different areas of the experience were, how to navigate between them, and what features customers could access from the various locations in the experience IMPACT Site maps allowed product managers to validate the design system’s organizational construct, shape, navigability, and feature completeness Site maps (and other design artifacts) allowed developers to create a coded solution that matched the design intent https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641138835072-AG6Z6Y0IFSRX64NGXTKQ/process+flow.png frog - Process Flows PROBLEM Client’s digital interactive ecosystem offered powerful features to allow customers to accomplish detailed vacation planning tasks. Explaining to product managers and developers how the design system allowed customers to accomplish these complicated transactions required very detailed system documentation. SOLUTION Created process flows with wireframe “thumbnails” to explain how a user could navigate through the experience and access all the required content and functionality IMPACT Process flows allowed product managers to validate the design system’s organizational construct, shape, navigability, and feature completeness Site maps (and other design artifacts) allowed developers to create a coded solution that matched the design intent https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641146336967-IS4U00PGZK21QF5KI786/interaction+spec.png frog - Interaction Specification PROBLEM Client needed detailed user experience specifications to hand off to a third party development team. SOLUTION Created a detailed interaction specification document that covered all of the elements of the designed system and how each of the elements behaved and related to each other IMPACT Interaction specifications allowed product managers to validate the design system’s organizational construct, shape, navigability, and feature completeness Interaction specifications (and other design artifacts) allowed developers to create a coded solution that matched the design intent https://www.robertcstokes.com/spanning daily 0.75 2024-07-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641300819786-SQZPWKC6AXCN0R0SI09L/Salesforce+backup.png Spanning - Backup for Salesforce PROBLEM Spanning needed a backup product for Salesforce.com that not only worked in the desktop browser but also in the Salesforce1 mobile app. SOLUTION Led the design research and interaction design for the Salesforce.com backup product Worked hand in hand with product management and engineering all the way from hand drawn sketches to fully designed visual comps and specs, ensuring alignment of expectations and design intent Created a responsive design solution that worked equally well in a narrow viewport as it did in a fully-sized desktop browser IMPACT Launched Spanning Backup for Salesforce as one of the first apps to be available within the Salesforce1 mobile native platform Strengthened Spanning’s reputation as a company that delivered excellent user experiences for its customers Helped expand Spanning’s product portfolio and revenue stream https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641301543186-9SBQ3TUIUUATRLY019AN/MS+365+-+device-mockups-2.png Spanning - Backup for Microsoft 365 PROBLEM Spanning needed a backup product for Microsoft (Office) 365 that not only worked in the desktop browser but also in a mobile sized viewport. SOLUTION Led the design research and interaction design for the Microsoft 365 backup product As was the case with the Salesforce Backup product, worked hand in hand with product management and engineering all the way from hand drawn sketches to fully designed visual comps and specs, ensuring alignment of expectations and design intent Created a responsive design solution that worked equally well in a narrow viewport as it did in a fully-sized desktop browser (full feature parity) IMPACT Created a user experience for Spanning Backup for Microsoft 365 that was even better than the company’s original Backup for Google Workspace product, which had very similar product scope and functionality Helped expand Spanning’s product portfolio and revenue stream Made Spanning a more attractive acquisition target for investors, leading first to an acquisition by EMC and later by Dell https://www.robertcstokes.com/aboutme daily 1.0 2026-07-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1ec028b0-1fa5-44ec-b910-08e4f233c29c/Grocery+AI+-++Quantitative+Survey.png about me - Grocery AI I have started my own research project to determine what the potential is for AI-enabled services in the grocery shopping user experience. I am conducting contextual inquiries, shop-alongs, and surveys to gather data and synthesize them into user pain points, needs, and opportunity areas. My end goal is to deliver a report that details a summary of my findings, UX Design Principles, and ideas/recommendations for where AI investments should be made in this space. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641738541875-NZSB3K52HIQNK2HJUW7I/DEI-session.png about me - USAA When Dell acquired Spanning, I decided to join USAA and help them build out their new Chief Design Office. In the span of 18 months I built 8 teams across all of the Bank for a total of 70 people. My primary impacts at USAA have been: to move design upstream from a production-oriented focus to a strategic focus; to develop a prioritization framework that business, design, and engineering use to prioritize work efforts; and to influence partners to launch new digital products. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641660427491-USP9JKGK7Y19GACP3A2Z/MS+365+-+device-mockups-2.png about me - Spanning I left frog in 2013 to go “in-house” and become directly integrated in the product development process. I landed at Spanning Cloud Apps, an Austin-based SaaS company that offers online backup products and services for Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft 365. My biggest impact there was pushing the product management and development teams to build responsive web products that worked equally well in desktop browsers and mobile devices. The products that we shipped while I was there made the company an attractive acquisition target for EMC and later Dell. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641660392249-F4NRA7ESX5PHZNSGW2KY/My+Disney+Experience.png about me - frog frog is where I cut my teeth as a researcher and designer. It was there that I learned how to conduct contextual inquiries and surveys, facilitate design thinking workshops, create product concepts, and do detailed interaction design. During the 9 years I was there I worked with a myriad of clients including Standard & Poor's, KPMG, Disney, Flextronics, AT&T, Motorola, and LG. https://www.robertcstokes.com/usaa daily 0.75 2024-07-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641385829863-EZPAKHMYK42A2X6G6CHP/SAFe.png USAA - Moving Design Upstream in SAFe PROBLEM Designers at USAA were stuck doing production work at the end of the product development life cycle – superficial, low value-added design tasks. SOLUTION Built out design teams with 1 director, 1 producer, and 4 or more designers, giving the overall design team sufficient bandwidth to not only handle execution tasks, but also elevate themselves into higher level discussions about what problem we’re trying to solve and how to solve them Engaged with product and engineering teams at all three levels of the Portfolio SAFe model – Portfolio, Program, and Team Leveraged human centered design techniques such as empathy maps, design research, journey maps, and experience based road maps to reframe problems, focus on user needs, and deliver more value to the business IMPACT Completely re-envisioned the bill pay user experience, providing a healthy product backlog for years to come Created new feature concepts for the end-to-end real estate user journey and an experience based road map Created a credit card journey map that redefined how business partners viewed their epic and feature backlog Closed compliance gaps for deposit accounts Redefined the quote process for life insurance applications, improving funnel throughput Created new feature concepts for the health insurance user journey and an experience based road map which has added to and reprioritized the entire product backlog Designed and implemented a new storefront experience for investing customers to migrate over to a new partner’s platform https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641741054968-3WCJFKPIMWTIUJMDF48V/Prioritization+Framework.png USAA - Prioritization Framework PROBLEM Demand for design services within the Life Company portfolio vastly exceeded the supply of design resources SOLUTION Established a prioritization matrix based on 8 criteria to score and rank each design support request in terms of impact and feasibility Impact criteria: 1) Risk Reduction, 2) Strategic Alignment, 3) Time Criticality, 4) Business Value, and 5) User Value Feasibility criteria: 6) Quickness, 7) Simplicity, and 8) Affordability Leveraging story pointing and WIP Limits to keep designers from being spread too thin, mitigating the risk of burnout IMPACT All Life Co design resources are aligned to the highest business priorities Design resources are never wasting their time on initiatives that are not a priority for the business All partners and stakeholders have a clear understanding of what initiatives the design resources are working on Design teams always know what’s next and where to focus their efforts if one initiative gets paused or slows down Mitigation/reduction of business churn and design team burnout https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641829163602-KRSV8U84PSQQYZHCYV41/Essential-Term.png USAA - New Digital Product Launch PROBLEM Life Co business was facing serious disruption because of insure-tech startups; needed to have an answer to a gap in their product portfolio. SOLUTION Directed design team to craft an “art of the possible” vision for a new, all digital life insurance product The vision or “hero flow” was presented to the business leadership and catalyzed a commitment of business, marketing, actuary, and technology resources to build an all digital product IMPACT Significant business resources have been dedicated to launch the new product, the first new product to be launched in over a decade The MVP launched in fall of 2021; follow up releases are planned for 2022 The Life Co business now has a product that can appeal to a younger target market, and they have begun to close a significant gap in their product portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641738979653-YC6FA8WF6U5ODBLAQD2B/DEI-session.png USAA - Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Initiative PROBLEM USAA designated Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) as a strategic imperative, but Life Co and Workforce experience design teams struggled to find time and bandwidth to dedicate to the effort. SOLUTION Created and led a small team to conduct 6 DEI working sessions on a monthly basis Topics covered included: What do Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Mean; How can I be a better Ally; What policies don’t support DEI and what can we do about them IMPACT Improved design teams’ awareness and education levels on DEI topics Created a space for team members to articulate their point of view and feel more comfortable speaking up assertively in all their meetings at USAA https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/1641739045025-5NALH8V1MW0VQ6I8AAPP/Hiring-Scorecard.png USAA - Hiring Scorecard PROBLEM Hiring managers were inconsistent in their hiring evaluation criteria and would at times not make the best hiring decisions, creating uneven levels of performance and team health. SOLUTION Distilled the contents of job descriptions and identified a reduced set of hiring criteria for each role Developed a template of questions to ask regarding each of the criteria Created a hiring scorecard with a “heat map” to evaluate candidates more objectively and evenly IMPACT Increased the speed of the hiring process across the design organization Improved the rigor and quality of the candidate evaluation process Gave hiring managers and their teams a more transparent, objective way to discuss candidates and make consensus-based decisions In turn, the consensus-based hiring decisions reduced the amount of friction/resistance to the onboarding of new team members https://www.robertcstokes.com/resume daily 0.75 2026-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/eba6bbb6-ff0f-4585-8ac6-0cacfe15822f/Rob+Stokes+-+UX+Researcher+Resume+1+7-31-26.jpg resume - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/080eb3fa-13e9-4046-a4b3-4090e9d7b9a2/Rob+Stokes+-+UX+Researcher+Resume+2+7-31-26.jpg.jpg resume - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/4a84c86b-bd8d-432c-aaad-130f9ed6c07c/Rob+Stokes+-+UX+Researcher+Resume+3+7-31-26.jpg.jpg resume - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/4b927d62-0989-46da-b3f7-b965ac26b07e/Rob+Stokes+-+UX+Researcher+Resume+4+7-31-26.jpg.jpg resume - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.robertcstokes.com/groceryai daily 0.75 2024-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/d8aa8515-fb21-40a8-a930-c31e8c615927/Grocery+AI+-+User+Research+Plan.png Grocery AI - Research Plan PROCESS I began with a statement of context for the research study. I wrote down my objectives (see 4 gaps above) and worked with ChatGPT to iteratively to come up with a list of questions that I wanted to ask participants. I ran the prompt in ChatGPT several times and then curated the questions it gave me using my many years of user research experience. I then used the curated work between myself and ChatGPT to craft a complete research plan for the study. OUTCOME I edited it quite heavily, but ChatGPT was quite impressive at suggesting content for the research plan. Here is a link to the research plan we created. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/0397ed54-39f1-4ac7-a2bb-492abc2b6d7d/Grocery+AI+-+Screening+Criteria.png Grocery AI - Screening Criteria PROCESS I asked ChatGPT to list the kind of criteria that I should include in the study. Afterwards I described what we were looking for in each criteria. Then I asked ChatGPT to rewrite the list of criteria that the two of us had created. OUTCOME We made a robust set of criteria. We covered all the important factors for participants in the research. Here is a link to the screening criteria. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/4e35ca74-e354-4522-be83-c18e1cb2c9a3/Grocery+AI+-+Discussion+Guide.png Grocery AI - Discussion Guide PROCESS Worked with ChatGPT to iterate on questions to ask research participants. Added questions on my own and divided the questions into sections. OUTCOME Conducted 4 contextual inquiries with the discussion guide and used the data to begin synthesis into themes, insights, and ideas. Here is a link to the discussion guide. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/827cd189-de0e-4763-abd7-e84aa04ebc30/Card-sort.png Grocery AI - Card Sort PROCESS I presented interview participants with a deck of cards with labels of objects and topics from their grocery shopping journey. We talked through each of them and they organized them as they saw fit. OUTCOME Not only is it useful to see how people organize the cards (which helps you understand their mental model for the topic), but I also got a chance to rapid fire discuss topics related to the research study. Each card gave me a chance to dig a little deeper into why something mattered or didn’t matter to the participant. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/120f0a5e-d6cd-4788-8403-6cb4d8224cd1/Grocery+AI+-+Coded+Verbatims.png Grocery AI - Coded Verbatims Spreadsheet PROCESS After using an online transcription service, I pulled out the most interesting verbatims (quotes from transcript) and created an observation/takeaway from those verbatims. Then I put those observations/takeaways into a figjam so that I could manually do affinity mapping. OUTCOME A thorough list of uniquely numbered verbatims and takeaways that I can use in conjunction with the affinity mapping figjam to find the original quote when I need it. Note: the manual process of extracting and sorting the verbatims/takeaways is quite time consuming, as it has always been. That is why I’m also exploring AI text analysis tools such as Looppanel and Marvin to speed up the process. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/5b61f8cf-e997-4bde-83b8-314481df1bd6/Grocery+AI+-+figjam+affinity+mapping.png Grocery AI - Affinity Mapping in Figjam PROCESS I took the observations/takeaways from the coded verbatims spreadsheet and created stickies for each of them in the figjam (color coded by participant). Then I started to clump the stickies together if they were about a similar topic. Along the way deeper insights started popping up with UX principles and ideas for how to potentially address user needs. OUTCOME Although the manual sorting process is time consuming (and I’m leaning towards AI text analysis software to speed up the process), I do not think the UX principles and ideas would have emerged as quickly with AI as they did with the manual sorting process. Going through the data manually has a way of “steeping” you in the content and helping your brain make those leaps. Here is a link to the figjam. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/e99677a4-4dcd-4816-83dd-535b7702997b/Grocery+AI+-++Quantitative+Survey.png Grocery AI - Quantitative Survey in Google Forms PROCESS I took a couple of questions directly from the contextual inquiry discussion guide and then created a few questions based on the results of the manual affinity mapping in the figjam. I placed all the questions in a Google Form and shared it with people in my network. OUTCOME In a matter of days I had about 30 survey responses. While not statistically significant, the data was enough to counterbalance some of the insights/ideas I was getting from the contextual inquiry data. For example, based on the contextual inquiries, I was starting to think that people’s grocery shopping values were focused primarily around cost, health, taste, and quality. The survey data confirmed this; quality turned out to be number one, followed closely by health, cost, and taste. On the other hand, I was thinking that everyone might using coupons regularly like most of my contextual inquiry participants, but the survey data demonstrated that 70% of the respondents never or seldom used coupons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61c4e877f84cb8361d6fb251/f42b7964-6176-41e2-ba12-d002584b7fb9/Grocery+AI+-+Quant+Survey+Results.png Grocery AI - Quantitative Survey Results PROCESS Google Forms may not be the most robust survey platform, but it sure makes it easy to create one and basic summaries of the results are created automatically (which is very convenient). I intend to do some descriptive statistical analysis of the data, but that will come later. OUTCOME Several interesting insights have come out of the survey. 76% of participants indicated that they only eat out 1-3 times a week or never (fewer than I had anticipated) 43% of participants shop only 1 time per week and 50% shop 2-3 times a week The distribution of what days people shop is very even across the week. There is no day that clearly stands out above the rest (although Monday is slightly above all the others) 67% of participants shop in store, despite the availability of curbside pickup and delivery options 80% of people shop for and prepare meals that are larger than they need so that they can have leftovers (50% 1-2 times a week, 30% 3-5 times a week) Quality, health, cost, and taste are the most important factors when people are grocery shopping