Overview
In 2018, Merck Animal Health, a global leader in animal health solutions, faced a critical juncture. As they transitioned to a new global platform, they recognized an opportunity to revolutionize their IT department’s approach to user experience. This wasn’t just about adapting to new technology—it was about fostering a culture of innovation and user-centricity that would ripple through the entire organization.
To achieve this goal, Merck Animal Health engaged EY’s User Experience Studio. As a Design Director at EY, I helped lead a two-day design thinking workshop for 200 international participants from Merck’s IT team. Our initiative aimed to equip their team with crucial insights into human-centered design and empower them to apply these principles in their daily work.
The Challenge
With their new global platform in place, Merck Animal Health needed to ensure that these systems would be effectively utilized and provide maximum value to the organization. This required a shift in the IT department’s approach, moving from a purely technical focus to a user-centric mindset. Our workshop aimed to facilitate this transition by:
- Introducing user-centric design principles to complement their technical expertise
- Developing strategies to identify and address user needs effectively
- Fostering a culture of innovation and user-centric thinking across the organization
- Equipping IT professionals with practical tools to implement and advocate for UX principles
- Reimagining their approach to digital platforms, with user experience at the forefront
+ Design Direction
+ Workshop Design
+ Workshop Facilitation
+ Design Thinking
The Solution
To catalyze this transformation, we designed an immersive two-day workshop that plunged Merck’s IT team into the world of design thinking. As a Design Director at EY, I collaborated with our team of researchers, designers, and project managers to craft an experience that was both enlightening and immediately applicable.
Hands-On-Activities
Our workshop was built around a series of hands-on activities that brought design thinking to life:
- UX Challenge Deep Dives: Teams grappled with real Merck issues, applying fresh design thinking perspectives to longstanding problems.
- User Interview Masterclass: Participants honed the art of asking the right questions, unlocking valuable user insights.
- Value Proposition Mapping: Teams mapped out user needs and aligned solutions, ensuring their ideas addressed genuine pain points.
- Rapid Ideation: In high-energy sessions, participants generated a whirlwind of diverse ideas, pushing beyond conventional thinking.
- Solution Sketching: Teams brought their best concepts to life visually, refining and iterating as they went.
- Group Presentations: Groups shared their solutions, fostering cross-pollination of ideas and sharpening communication skills.
The two-day design thinking workshop proved to be a catalyst for change at Merck Animal Health. By applying user-centered design principles to real Merck Animal Health challenges—including information accessibility, vaccination tracking, and laboratory workflow optimization—participants experienced firsthand how this approach could enhance their IT projects, improve system usability, and ultimately drive better outcomes for both internal teams and end-users.
This approach yielded several notable outcomes:
- A surge of enthusiasm for innovation and user-centric thinking across the IT department
- The formation of cross-functional teams, breaking down traditional silos
- Development of prototype solutions addressing pressing Merck challenges
Perhaps most importantly, the workshop demonstrated that technical teams could successfully adopt and apply user-centered methodologies to their work. This experience laid the groundwork for a more innovative, user-focused approach to technology solutions at Merck Animal Health, signaling a positive shift in the organization’s digital strategy.
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