90-minute presentation with Janice de Jong, Julia Thompson, Susan Simon Daniels

Three Fates: Weaving Research Into a Product's Destiny

3:45pm – 5:15pm EST Saturday 26 Sep 2015Communitech Hub

In classic Greek mythology, the three fates who represent destiny are:

  • Clotho, the spinner who creates the thread of life.
  • Lachesis, the allotter who measures out life.
  • Atropos, the cutter who severs the thread when the time has come.

We discovered an interesting parallel between the three fates from Greek mythology and the three stages of research throughout a product’s life cycle. In our product research mythology:

  • Clotho is trend research, typically started earliest and carried out on the farthest horizon, about two to three years out. Hear Janice de Jong explain the purpose of trend research, strategies on how to conduct analysis, and how trends influence the product life cycle.
  • Lachesis is research around product ideas and concept exploration, typically carried out a year or so before a product comes to market. Listen to Julia Thompson describe the goals of exploratory research, best practices for methodologies, and how research influences product meaning.
  • Atropos is usability research, typically carried out in the months before a product is launched. Hear Susan Simon Daniels identify goals for usability research, best practices for studies, and how usability research impacts the product being shipped out the door.

In this workshop, you’ll weave your own research plan using exercises and models from our research toolkit. Interwoven with these hands-on exercises, we’ll walk through the three fates model with the BlackBerry Passport smartphone as a real world example. The goal is to identify how you may:

  • Give end-users a voice through qualitative research.
  • Reveal patterns by connecting weak signals to create meaningful insights.
  • Encourage collaboration by working with others to triangulate research and take action.

At the end of the session, through lecture, hands-on input using the framework we provide, and lots of table discussion, you’ll have your own plan to weave research into your product’s destiny and spin out a meaningful user experience.

About Janice de Jong
Trend Forecaster at BlackBerry
Janice de Jong

Before joining BlackBerry as a trend forecaster, Janice de Jong graduated from Industrial Design at Carleton University. Janice believes in understanding today to make a better tomorrow. She is a colour and textile enthusiast who thinks metaphors about weaving make perfect sense. Janice is also a wannabe yogi and volunteers as cat adoption coordinator at the Humane Society

About Julia Thompson
Design Researcher at BlackBerry
Julia Thompson

Julia Thompson joined Design at BlackBerry as a researcher after completing her degree in Industrial Design at Carleton University. Her passion for great design is driven by a deep interest in users and their needs. Julia facilitates bringing the stories, behaviours, and opinions of users to companies and product teams. Lucky teams! And she’s on a personal mission to find good design thinking in the mundane. If you haven’t done so yet you should check out Julie’s blog for a peek into her observations on design.

About Susan Simon Daniels
User Experience Researcher at BlackBerry
Susan Simon Daniels

A hometown girl with stints at OpenText, Sun Life and Quarry Integrated Communications, Susan Simon Daniels is currently a user experience researcher at BlackBerry. While completing her Masters in Language and Rhetoric at the University of Waterloo, Susan began her search for truths universally acknowledged. She will quote poetry and Red Sox baseball statistics given any opportunity, so consider this fair warning.