111 / Using Data to Inform Design, with Krissi Xenakis & Jocelyne Dittmer

Product Momentum Podcast

The world may be shrinking, but it doesn’t always feel that way. As product design leaders Krissi Xenakis & Jocelyne Dittmer explain, it’s more important than ever to get aligned around culture and craft, balancing the needs of the business with the needs of the team. Especially with remote and distributed teams, collaboration around complementary skills is essential. One of the most important areas of collaboration for design leaders today is with data scientists and data teams.

In this episode of Product Momentum, Krissi Xenakis & Jocelyne Dittmer join co-hosts Paul Gebel and Freddy Romano, a UX Design Lead at ITX, using their journey to share how maintaining a community of collaboration helps overcome both distance and professional disciplines.

“The design practice continues to evolve,” Jocelyne says. “As it does, similar advances in data science have created an intersection point, making it crucial for these two disciplines to work together so that we can create meaningful experiences for users and drive better outcomes.”

Data is a really big word, adds Krissi. “People assume that if I’m talking about ‘data,’ I must be referring to quantitative metrics or user insights. And I touch on the aspects of qualitative and quantitative in my talk, but it’s less about qualitative vs. quantitative; it’s more about choosing the right research program based on what you need to learn.”

Designers, she continues, sometimes fall into the same trap as other makers when it comes to building a solution before they’ve defined the problem. “It’s wrong to jump in and say, ‘okay, today we’re going to do user testing’ before making sure that user testing will give us the answers we need. There are so many different ways to learn, just like there are so many different ways to design.”

The connection between design and data will become even more important over time, especially with the emergence of AI and other advanced technologies, these experts agree. Designers need to be able to react to that, but also have the foresight to think about what comes next.

“Designers want to be part of the conversation, and if we’re not, we need to inject ourselves into it,” Jocelyne says, “to make sure we’re thinking about desired outcomes and not just about, ‘here’s the data we have today.’”

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Want to hear more from Krissi Xenakis and Jocelyne Dittmer? Grab your tickets now for ITX’s 2nd annual Product + Design Conference, June 22-23 in Rochester, NY. Learn more.

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