Problem
Designers working on our flagship account servicing application had varying levels of education, experience, and motivation. While the team had strong UX talent, most lacked experience with native applications. We needed to elevate the team to ensure a baseline understanding of native experience design.
Key Questions:
- How can we mature our design organization collectively?
- How do we quickly train hundreds of designers in a way that resonates and sticks?
- How can we ensure the quality of our experience?
- How do we measure quality?
Action
Reporting to the new Vice President of Experience Quality, I developed a curriculum plan, course schedule, and content outlines, which were compiled into a roadmap for leadership approval.
We brought in an exceptional content strategist and a junior designer to help create the Design College, ensuring the program had a strong narrative that built on concepts week by week, while allowing flexibility for anyone to join at any time without feeling lost.
We decided on a 30-minute session every Wednesday afternoon, accommodating both East and West Coast teams.
Over the first six months, we held 10 sessions, starting with foundational experience quality principles. Sessions were recorded and shared, and we created a “quality checklist” to guide designers through key factors like accessibility, adherence to design systems, and edge cases.
Measuring quality was challenging, but we identified key metrics to track the program’s effectiveness. The checklist became an additional step in the enterprise-wide review process, ensuring features addressed specific factors. During design reviews, we tracked checklist completion and identified areas for improvement.
We tracked attendance by department and team, reporting these numbers to senior leadership. After each class, we sent out surveys to attendees, synthesizing the data to identify trends and areas to pivot as needed.
Results
In seven months, we’ve held 17 sessions, including five with guest speakers.
We’ve covered foundational design concepts—organizational models, grid structures, and design systems—explored the three-dimensional worlds of iOS and Android ecosystems, and delved into the tactical use of motion.
As we’ve tracked design reviews, the number of failed items has decreased. Designers are reaching out more frequently for feedback, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Attendance ranges from 100-200 participants each week, with many maintaining perfect attendance.
While we’ve made significant progress, new challenges continue to emerge as we strive for consistent quality across our native applications.
FULL CASE STUDY
Skills
- Curriculum planning
- Roadmapping
- Strategy
- Storytelling
- Course development
- People management
- Training
- Facilitation
- UX vision
- Culture building
Course Feedback
“It was awesome! Learned a lot in just 20 minutes.”
“This was really useful to me, hoping this can be longer.”
“I was vibing with all the material and felt like it just wasn’t long enough to cover everything. It was amazing though! I can’t wait for the next class! ^-^”
“I like the analogies and imagery – especially Adam Hillman’s assemblage work! Looking forward to getting into more detail.”
“The class was great! It was presented in a very interesting and fun way. Learned a lot about design differences between iOS and Android.”
~ Anonymous attendee feedback