Iterative design thinking

About a month ago, I reached out to my friend and illustrator Kalyani Matey with what I thought was a rather simple and harmless ask: I want to design the cover image for my newsletter. Can you draw a simple visual that tells the story behind "Product Nuggets"?

This soon turned into a very fun, collaborative, and iterative exercise that helped me flex my design thinking muscles and get creative with an artist. I thought it might be an interesting story to share as my next nugget since this relates well with how we design our product features.

Step 1) We started with easy word prompts!

Kalyani asked me to describe my vision and thoughts behind why I started the newsletter. She asked me for prompts to use while designing the visual.

"I share my early career stories in product, data, tech and life..."

"I want the image to be very simple but memorable (easy to remember)..."

"I write to help those who I can't mentor 1:1 regularly..."

Step 2) We looked at some images to inspire our thinking

I shared examples of visuals that I liked off the internet and more importantly why I liked them. The ideas ranged from images from other writers who inspire me to images found on the internet while I searched for my prompts.

"This sketch from The Hard Parts of Growth it is very simple and relevant. The pencil head can be reimagined as a mountain peak..." (Author: Ami Vora )

"I feel inspired by the how I got here podcast logo: A parachute floating over the mountains..." (Podcast hosts: Lara Mitra and Eric Eliasson )

"I like this image of a little dove carrying a message around the world..."

"I like this image of about storytelling..."

Step 3) Turning cues into sketches and prototypes.

Kalyani took my spiraling prompts and visuals and turned them into meaningful sketches. Her interpretation of my ideas was very refreshing and creative.

(👆🏻You can see the iterative sketches in the cover image of this article. LinkedIn doesn't allow for embedded images yet - sorry!)

#1 - A magnifying glass pointing to the sky. Zooming into a cloud it shows the cloud is a bunch of nodes connected with each other.

#2 - A lighthouse with a bulb to depict that you are showing the way as a product manager during tough times and tides.

#3 - Tight rope walking to show that you are trying to strike a balance between user needs and business constraints.

#4 - A domino standing in the center of a city skyline.

After some discussions, I shortlisted the lighthouse and tight rope as they resonated more with the vision I had for the newsletter.

Step 4) Usability tests to validate our assumptions

I further chose to validate the intuitiveness of the ones we shortlisted with friends and family around me. I showed them the images and asked: What comes to your mind when you look at this?

After they responded without any leading questions, I told them about my idea of using it as a cover for the newsletter and did a pulse check on whether it complimented the purpose.

The person walking a tight rope visual had the highest votes (both before and after UT) as it was simple, meaningful, and self-explanatory.

Step 5) Adding personalization to turn the sketch into a high fidelity design

Now that we had narrowed down on the concept and the high-level wireframe, it was time to get to the specific.

What metaphors do we want to use?

After some brainstorming, I chose to use "Career Goals" and "Business Outcomes" to represent the 2 ends of the balancing rope.

How do we add a touch of personalization to this?

Kalyani suggested changing the person to a carefree woman since it represents me as a storyteller in more authenticity.

She played around with colors, opacity, and gradients and we settled on the vibrant yet calming sunrise/sunset backdrop and graphics inked in a navy blue that feels hand-drawn with a pen.

Less is more?

I also did a few usability tests to test whether the image without any text (career goals & business outcomes) resonated the same way as the image with the words in the windows. We discovered that the text added much more context to the graphic and was not worth the tradeoff of removing details for simplicity.

And finally, we got the cover image for this newsletter publish ready!

I have truly enjoyed writing the Product Nuggets so far. My hope is to reach more early career folks with candid stories (and mistakes) about my career in product, data and tech. This article marks a little celebratory milestone as the newsletter crossed 1K+ subscribers on LinkedIn leaving me feeling so humbled and motivated.

I would love to hear from each one of you on how I can make this newsletter most useful to you.

🎨Collaboration credits: Kalyani Matey is a budding illustrator. She stepped out of her corporate role in sales & marketing to leave her footprint as an artist on the world. Do visit her page on Instagram @kukacreative to collaborate with her.