How do UX designers respond when an urgent feature request lands: a high-value client asks for something, sales wants a feature to beat the competition, or a user reports a bug that affects the whole product? In this five-minute video, Tcules designer Varun Mashru shows two answers from inside the studio.
Two teams of three Tcules designers had one hour to add an AI feature to SurveyMonkey, which already uses AI to generate survey questions but does not let users change them with AI afterwards. The use cases: change the writing style of all questions with a prompt, such as switching from active to passive voice; apply that change to selected questions only; and change each question's response type. Each team had to deliver prioritised use cases, a written solution, an information architecture or user journey, and an interface.
The teams split the work differently. Team one gave each member one part of the design process across every touch point and built a general, scalable editing feature with few new interface elements. Team two gave each member one area of the product, solved the specific use cases first and placed the voice change on the survey preview and edit screens. Varun's conclusion: team two's approach suits a product manager who wants something implemented quickly, team one's suits covering several use cases in one implementation, and the best proposal would bring ideas from both together. The video shows how the teams responded, not a recommended method.
Credits
- Concept and narration: Varun Mashru
- Editing and animation: Meet Parmar
- Visual design: Shoghi Bagul
In the video
“Now in a normal product design cycle, one would have enough time to understand, research, analyse and then solve the problem in design. However, for urgent feature requests the response is very different.” Varun Mashru, 0:54
“Please note that this is not to suggest the best way to respond, but how we respond.” Varun Mashru, 1:13
“Each team member of team one will do a specific part of the design process for all touch points of the user journey, and each team member in team two will do all parts of the design process for a specific touch point of the user journey.” Varun Mashru, 3:08
“Team two is focusing on solving the specific use case first, as fast as possible, and then refining later, while team one seems to be working on a refined version of the feature that will help them implement it with more clarity later on.” Varun Mashru, 3:56
“Since the focus of this activity is not UI fidelity but the fidelity of the solution, both teams are making sure the solutions work well before matching it to the current brand style and making the UI prettier.” Varun Mashru, 4:26
“Regardless of the different approaches, there are valuable solutions from each team that could be brought together to come up with one final proposition.” Varun Mashru, 5:00