Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Attentive's Product Design Org
Design
Published:
July 10, 2024
Author
Almitra Inocencio
Almitra is a leader in business, innovation, and design, whose vision and strategic thinking have driven many facets of Attentive's success. She is currently our VP of Design and has also co-founded Definery, a renowned digital product design consultancy, to deliver high-quality, scalable solutions. Her strategic vision, operational excellence, and genuine care for team development make her an outstanding leader.
We are a unified team focused on the end-to-end user experience, playing a crucial role throughout the product development process. As designers, we contribute, we produce, and we are never stagnant.
Hello world! We're thrilled to welcome you on this magical journey of insights, stories, and work we're passionate about. Here, you'll find a rich tapestry of content that delves into the inner workings of our team, design processes, research methods, and shenanigans that make our organization so unique. With over 150 years of collective experience, we're pros at pushing boundaries and adapting to change.
The Design Voltron
Unicorns are hard to come by, mostly because they're fictional. The same goes for unicorn designers -- aka the amalgamation of a researcher, service designer, systems thinker, art director, graphic designer, motion artist, TED-talker, and front-end developer, in one. The fact of the matter is, everyone is different. At Attentive we cater to strengths and build on weaknesses. Here, we prefer Voltron analogies over mythical horse creatures. Here's the tldr of the design disciplines we foster:
UX Research and Design Strategy
Experience Design
UI and Systems Design
Curious, empathetic, extroverted, adaptable problem solvers. These folks are responsible for learning everything for everyone.
They're the knowledge repository, and the experts on emotional, psychological, and user disposition. Because of this, they're also great listeners. They partner with other designers and team members to spawn new ideas, invalidate bad ones, expose gaps, identify opportunities, and help everyone make better decisions.
Operationally, they are collaborative and have lots of data, timelines, and streams to manage.
Experience design (UX) focuses on the what-if's, the how-it-works, and connecting the dots between all interaction channels.
The ability to frame the problem, form solutions, and defend your thinking differentiates mediocre designers from great ones. Experience designers work with other designers and team members to drive end-to-end user engagement and are the front lines of ideation, product development, and anything that involves providing a service to users; internal or external.
This is what users remember. This is the glue that holds everything together. It must be polished, it must be beautiful, but it must also work for everyone. Type, color, spacing, movement, layout, sizing, platforms, brand.
Some could argue that there are more stakeholders when it comes to UI than any other part of a digital product. And because it's a digital product, our systems need to exist in code. This function partners heavily with UX and DX engineering to ensure consistent implementation from start to finish and everywhere in between.
Designing with Purpose
In an ever-evolving digital world, our customers and consumers are inundated with choices and navigating thousands of messages daily. How can we be intentional with our design decisions? How are we sure we're making the right product choices? These are questions that we are continually asking ourselves and have developed some criteria to use as guiding principles to aspire towards when making design decisions. These principles are mechanisms by which we hold ourselves accountable for delivering quality work.
Think 360: Our product doesn't start or end with UI. The UI is merely a touchpoint. Consider the ecosystem in all aspects of the solution.
Consider ALL users: We're driven to create inclusive, accessible products that meet the diverse needs of all people using our products.
Be the empathetic expert: Personalized mobile messaging and orchestration are relatively new for many marketers. We work with brands to leverage best practices and integrate education throughout the experience, so our customers can develop their confidence while also realizing our value.
Use common sense: We create experiences that are simple, straightforward, and optimized for the task, grounded in sound, practical judgment.
It's not a one-size-fits-all
The foundation of our business is personalization, as is our approach to designing great products. Because of that, we're incredibly thoughtful about the tactics and methods we employ to make sure they're appropriate for achieving specific objectives, at both a macro and micro level.
Goal: Drive Alignment
Goal: Collaborate and Refine
Goal: Planning and Execution
Design helps to make the end state tangible so that everyone knows where weâre going and how to contribute.
Discussions, exercises, and workshops to identify and frame problems to collaborate on solutions.
Analyze proofs of concept, determine next steps, work-product breakdown, and division of labor.
From an executional standpoint, we consider the best tools and techniques based on our objectives. This way, we're able to very efficiently drive towards the most effective solutions within reasonable scope.
Proof of Concept
Design Iteration
Production Design
Strategic, conceptual thinking to manifest new ideas for features or product extensions that are beyond the realm of the immediate roadmap.
Coordination of multiple work streams over time to realize a benefit or end goal.
Quick fixes, add-ons, immediate updates.
Milestone Driven
Continuous Delivery
Maintenance
New venture creation or experiential overhauls. Business objectives are possibly still undefined and teams work together to determine audience value/desirability, feasibility, and viability.
Double Diamond, flare and funnel.
Requirements are evolving as new information is revealed. Clear goals and objectives are documented and priorities are clearly communicated via a roadmap.
Deliverables are iterated upon and move up in fidelity. EPD collaborates to drive strategy and approach based on roadmap and objectives.
Requirements are documented, direction is clear, and overarching experience is minimally affected.
Deliverables are updates to existing assets but primarily result in screen mocks or design components if necessary. Designers should work closely with Eng on implementation for efficiency.
Teamwork makes the dream work
The design team at Attentive is a close-knit team from all walks of life. We pride ourselves in our uniqueness and while we specialize in asking "Why?" and pixel-pushing, we're also a bunch of moms, dads, aunties, uncles, entrepreneurs, artists, animal lovers, animal hoarders, successfully failed musicians, amateur chefs, and a whole lot more.
At an offsite that's giving some "Virtual Insanity" vibes.
We're looking forward to exploring the ever-evolving landscape of product design and research, and sharing how we turn ideas into impactful, real-world solutions for marketers and shoppers alike.
We're always looking to meet new people and add fresh perspectives to our mix. Check out our open roles!
