I like to make thinky things — canvases, frameworks, methods, and tools to help people think and work more clearly and creatively.
Many of them are in the design thinking tradition, or management consulting / strategy, but I hope you will find your own unique applications and interpretations of them.
VMT (Product Clarity Framework)
A strategy framework and canvas for identifying weaknesses in the overall conceptual model and communication strategy behind your brand, business, or product. A tool for aligning the business/brand or product/content sides of your business.
Possible Applications
Anchor practice as a business consultant or digital strategist. Ensure branding, messaging, communications, and design choices align and amplify company vision, value proposition, etc. Improve working relationship between departments. Facilitate planning of a digital strategy or content strategy engagement. Guide teaching or self-learning in digital strategy and content strategy topics.
Of Interest To
CEOs and CMOs, design directors, strategy consultants, digital strategists, content strategists, product marketing managers, product managers and owners
User Understanding Framework
A meta-framework to map common research activities, tool, and deliverables against four areas of insight about your users.
Applications
Identify gaps in understanding. Guide the teaching of user research methods. Ideate new user understanding tools. Structure conversations about user needs and behavior.
Related Methods
user research, user-centered design, UX research, UX design, personas, empathy mapping, mental models
Of Interest To
UX designers, UX writers, content writers and specialists, technical writers, UX researchers
Content Ecosystem Mapping
A diagram-driven approach to strategic facilitation, current state analysis, and future-state design for large or complex digital initiatives.
Applications
website redesigns and consolidations, digital strategy alignment, competitor analysis, product design (especially SaaS apps and other multi-channel digital products), digital service design, content gap analysis
Related Methods
concept modeling, content modeling, information architecture, domain modeling, OOUX
Of Interest To
startups, enterprises, content strategists, information architects, brand strategists, digital strategists
Messaging Map
An ideation framework for product and brand positioning concepts, based on Aristotle’s three rhetorical appeals, which, for our purposes, are described as logic, emotion, and reputation.
Possible Applications
Develop concepts for marketing campaigns, or for individual communications. Reframe conversations when stakeholders are stuck on a single message / approach. Develop communications that will appeal to different audiences.
Related Ideas
rhetoric, marketing, advertising, messaging, brand strategy, product positioning
Change Communication Canvas
A canvas/worksheet for identifying communication needs regarding a change to your product or service to your customers/users.
Applications
Communication planning. Change management. Individual or group ideation of communication strategy for critical moments and milestones like new versions, feature deprecations, pricing changes, rebrands, consolidations.
Of Interest To
product marketers, product managers, product owners, tech startups, app designers, digital service providers, enterprise businesses, content designers, content strategists
Design Writing Process
A flexible framework and process that can guide your design writing work or be used as a canvas against which to plan a complex workflow.
Applications
Writing and content production workflows, UX/interface writing as part of a product/design team, personal writing projects and assignments.
Of Interest To
designers, content designers, content strategists, technical writers … anyone who writes, really
Design Rolemapping 2×2
A 2×2 canvas that maps design and content roles (e.g. UX writer, information architect, product owner) against four common factors to emphasize
Applications:
Related: concept modeling, information architecture, domain modeling, OOUX
Six Principles of Friendly Interface Design
Design principles to guide the creation of conversational interfaces, based on human-to-human interaction principles (aka manners) and the work of Dale Carnegie.
Applications
Product design, app design, UX design.
Of Interest To
product designers, UX designers, UX writers, content designers, design leaders