Sharpen the D*mn Axe with JD Jordan

Most design books and talks and conferences take an internal-team, product approach. An artifact approach. We have so much time and so much money and so many people and all that leadership committed to design thinking and customer experience. Let’s do all the things! Yay!

That’s bullsh*t.

We probably all agree, research is critical to the design process. But for freelancers, small companies, startups, and agencies, we don’t have the time or the money or all the people and all the resources we want to make research a part of our process. Even when we have clients invested in design thinking or customer experience, their schedules and budgets don’t give us the flexibility for anything that isn’t actionable or directly relatable to ROI. We’re going to need a deliverable approach.

So let’s chat about…
– Creating space in your process for research and discovery (especially when projects and clients really don’t want to give you any).
– Making research actionable and meaningful for clients and teams.
– The iceberg approach to following up research with a big ole’ tease of your design solutions.

Because it’s incumbent on us to make research indispensable and actionable for our teams and for our clients. Because without it, we’re not validating problems and we’re not really designing—we’re just having craft day at our client’s expense.

About our Speaker
JD is the Executive Design Director at MaxMedia, where he leads a multi-disciplinary team of UXers, visual designers, researchers, and content creators who work on everything from enterprise business intelligence products to interactive and branding solutions for consumer and entertainment clientele. JD is a veteran visual and UX designer with experience as a creative director and a design consultant for some of the biggest agencies and brands in the Southeast. He is the author of the acclaimed novel, Calamity, an occasional contributor to Newsweek and Paste, and is an experienced design educator and public speaker. JD taught UX design at General Assembly, Creative Circus, and The Atlanta College of Art. He also taught history at the University of Georgia.