dug 
A nice man called David tweeted me once with a link to a video of Russell Davies talking about interestingness, size and creativity. In the video, Russell refers to a project I did a couple of years ago for Birdseye. I just wanted to thank David as it’s always nice to know there are people out there who share the passions I get out of bed for:-)
I’ve been thinking about advertising agencies big and small, partly because of the LGFE reunion, and partly because I’m pretty much always stuck in the thick of one or other user-centred design process debate.
At the time, I sent the following question to a recruiter as we were talking about maybe working together. I still don’t know the answer, but I’m pretty sure it’s tough for a passionate user experience person to work without discovery…
Here was the question I had in mind:
80% of the magic of user-centered design happens in the discovery phase, prior to the IA proposing the information model for an interface. As most pitches involve going to the client with a ready-made proposal, agencies tend to find it difficult to produce user-centered design. Does your agency have a strategy in place to overcome this challenge?
I suppose the answer is “win the business then shove the UE thinking through the door” but I can’t imagine this guy, this guy, this guy, this woman or this guy playing it like that…
Are you a senior agency bod? How do you handle ideas of value, resonance, co-creation and needs assessment? I’m still working on the question :-)