Session notes: Helping Them Help Us

Michele Wong, Director of UX at PwC, detailed three dimensions where external designers face problems when working on enterprise projects. She has experienced these challenges firsthand, both as a consultant in the past, and now, as the internal leadership representative. Michele delved into kits she created to alleviate the challenges associated with these areas.

1. Onboarding

Especially in a technical subject matter like taxes (the focus area of PWC), external designers often encounter challenges when first joining an enterprise project–leading to a sense of overwhelm.

  • Questions about the subject matter and acronyms (FYI: in the tax world, SALT = State & Local Taxes; MSG = Multiple Service Groups)
  • Mountains of documents, emails, and calendar invites
  • Confusion about the ecosystem and where their project falls on the taxonomy
Enter the onboarding kit: a “tax 101” resource designed to alleviate doubts for new UX designer consultants joining the team. It includes:

Firm-specific resources

  • Org charts
  • Mission statement
  • Overview of tools and ecosystem

Industry-specific resources

  • Acronym cheat sheet
  • Overview of regulations and processes
  • Tax forms dictionary

2. Discovery workshops

The next kit is aimed to counter stakeholder resistance to orchestrating user-centered workshops. Specifically: the skewed perception that discovery activities are time-consuming and costly. Allow us to introduce you to the Discovery kit, a curated list of short discovery methods for tax technology:

  • Curated, effective methods lasting 30 mins to 1/2 day that stakeholders are familiar with. This drives higher adoption, lower resistance, and a lower learning curve for everyone involved.
  • All the artifacts needed to run the workshops: a facilitation guide and how-to videos
  • Templates for before, during, and after workshops. Especially findings decks that align with how stakeholders are used to consuming content.

3. Design system

A Design Kit is no longer just cool, it’s a necessity when leveraging external designers. Otherwise, time and resources will be wasted with re-dos, missing assets, and navigating documentation. Create a single source of truth. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

At PWC, there is one common repository that includes all symbols and guidelines. This builds consistency and a common language.

Pro-tip: don’t forget to receive approval from Branding beginning on Day 1 for your design system. If you don’t have a design system yet, collaborate with Branding on building one.

Tips as you build your kit

1. Adopt the mindset of us AND them

Build trust with external designers–otherwise, even perfect processes won’t matter. Remember that you are all on the same team and that their success is your success (and vice-versa).

2. Don’t expect perfection

Your kit will become more fleshed out and polished over time. There will always be new team members and technology to account for. At the same time, get feedback and do retros on what did/didn’t work well in the kits.

3. Create a kit for kits

Starting from scratch is time-consuming, but it is possible to accelerate the workflow by creating a structure to create content consistently and cohesively.

4. Do not use software that requires a license

This will lead to challenges for external designers who need access.

Faster and more efficient

While the nature of partnering with external designers might never be totally perfect, these kits can help with adoption and buy-in. Your stakeholders will see the benefits immediately: higher impact, increased productivity, and stronger outcomes.