How would I summarize the Scenario Alignment Canvas? Part kickoff workshop, part exposing assumptions and gaps in knowledge, part data collection from the team, and part creation of a research plan. The Scenario Alignment Canvas is a quick starting point to get the team aligned around a user’s scenario or goal, and determining any gaps in team knowledge and finally, determining the need to build out a full persona.
Personas have been a bone of contention in the UX world for quite some time. Many product teams struggle with personas because they have some flaws. Personas often contain useless demographic and marketing data. They take a long time to research and build. Personas quickly get forgotten by the team. They are too generic and “high altitude” to make design and product decisions. Do these persona flaws resonate with you too?
I have created an approach to get product teams aligned around user goals, needs and pain points FAST with an innovative and lean framework. The “Scenario Alignment Canvas” is a multi-purpose tool to kickoff a project, align the team around a user’s scenario, and initiate a research plan (based on gaps in knowledge surfaced through this exercise). All of this can be done, in an hour or two, working through this one magic framework. This talk will cover the inspiration for the Canvas, the problems it solves, how to conduct the activity with your team, and what to do after the team aligns around user scenarios.

Jen Blatz is a Principal UX Researcher at BECU (Boeing Employee Credit Union), one of the largest credit unions in the United States. Jen’s path to UX started in journalism and graphic design, to progress to UX design and finally landing in UX research and strategy. She has worked in a number of fields including finance, mortgage, cloud storage, security and pet health. Jen loves being active in the UX community, and is the co-founder of the UX Research and Strategy group, one of the largest UX groups in the world. Jen is a seasoned conference speaker who has spoken at several UX international conferences.