Generally I work in a zoom-in-zoom-out methodology similar to a double diamond, but more free-form.

My process generally focuses on four areas

1. Introspective writing and artifact creation
2. Data collection & analysis
3. collaborative synthesis
4. Testing and iteration

1. introspective writing and artifact creation
   1. I like to make stuff, hypothetical artifacts that tell a story from a specific perspective, or express my own design aesthetic (which is informed by a lifetime of heightened sensitivity and a decade of self-taught, but professionally applied social psychology, human motivation theory, and social neuroscience.
2. data collection & analysis
   1. I take data in from all sources. from social media, to internal UR, to formal user segmentation studies and modeled cohorts. Each data point serves a distinct roll in my process.
      1. Social medial: the canary in the mine
         1. Reddit, X, TikTok, Threads, etc. paint a preview the product impact in year. If player sentiment is toxic, it bodes poorly for product performance. I like to look at “why.”
         2. Typically social media and Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are near echoes of one another, with internal NPS studies trailing behind about a month or two. I’m sure there are PMs who can school me on this. But it’s an anecdotal observation.
         3. Players tend to be a hyper-sophisticated consumer group.
            1. They understand design intent, see right through attempts to obfuscate engagement, business, and monetization goals, and they provide well reasoned (tho often technically and economically unfeasible) suggestions to known design problems. There’s a old adage that which is that “Players can tell you what’s wrong, but they can’t tell you how to fix it.” This comes from a place of dated hubris, formed pre-social media by old guard game dev leadership. Thinking like this will kill your business.
            2. The language players on social media use exhibits a keen attention to game design theory and process
      2. Internal UR: the subject matter experts in the mine
      3. External UR and Analytics
3. and collaborative synthesis

1. At the highest level it involves authoring artifacts as quickly and dirtily as possible wile writing prose and analysis from the perspective of a few “human condition” base cohorts. I find that a an account of a player’s journey through a system is difficult to beat in terms of raw force of making a thing. and can be the catalyst for many other artifacts such as swim lanes and cost benefit analysis. It’s critical to not create too rosy of picture when creating this prose. I’m talking Jonathan Franzon / Cormack MaCarthy level authentic, with depth and flaws – people are tired and busy and burnt out on media. They will hate your product for the company who makes it or for your identity or any number of reasons. accept that
2. While it is possible and often necessary to condition an emotional response or a desired behavior in a user (getting the user to eat their vegetables), it’s much faster if we can hot-wire the user’s brain with some applied Social Learning Theory.
3. Like any relationship, players must be won over. we must overcome their skepticism and doubt and mistrust for the organization. we have to go at their pace, and give them agency, letting them dictate the terms of the partnership. Is our product a reliable friend who keenly listens for and understands their needs or is it the annoying person who shows up uninvited?
   • A cynical lapsed player
   • An oblivious new player
   • An engaged-but-tired player
4. abstracting that prose into families of cohort needs. These become guiding principals and are almost always beautifully contradictory. I’ll then prioritize on group’s need over another’s. But I will try to address all the subtle needs in ways that don’t off-put the primary cohort.

Stories and Antistories