How the double diamond helped me deliver a wedding toast — a UX case study
By: Amy Rosenbaum
Tags: Product Design, Case Study, Ux Writing, User Experience, UX

I recently had the honor of giving a toast at the wedding of two dear friends, Serena and Chris. I was touched to be asked to contribute to one of the most meaningful days of their lives as a couple, but I was also slightly terrified. It was my first time ever putting together a toast for a wedding, and though I have no fear of public speaking, the stakes were incredibly high. My friends would have these memories forever, so I wanted to absolutely crush it.

This toast, like my friends, would be a little nontraditional. I received my brief two weeks before the wedding: “Something Chris and I both deeply love and appreciate are words, memories, and stories from our loved ones, but we know that nobody wants to sit through a million speeches…So, we came up with the idea of collecting lots of people’s stories and having a conglomerate friend’s speech.”

I thought this idea was awesome, and as I started to problem-solve, it hit me: I had a UX project on my hands. I didn’t need to be nervous because there was a process I could use to get it done — the Double Diamond, commonly known as

< DISCOVER | DEFINE > < DEVELOP | DELIVER >

I had two weeks, the length of a design sprint, so I got started immediately.

Sometimes the steps are called different things, but it’s all the same process!

DISCOVER

UX is all about the users, which meant I needed to focus on them first. Serena and Chris were my “clients” — both users and stakeholders — but I needed to keep two other groups in mind: all of the people I was soliciting toasts from and all of the people at the reception who would be listening to my speech.

The first group I’d be dealing with was Chris and Serena’s friends and family, the collective in my collective toast. I approached the email to them like a survey, carefully designing it to achieve my goals. Since people tend to procrastinate or opt out when they feel overwhelmed, I wanted to keep things simple by setting three constraints:

1Deadline: I gave everyone a week to respond, leaving me a week to synthesize, write, edit, and practice the actual speech.

2 Word Count: I asked for 25 words or less per submission, which I hypothesized would

a. lower the user effort in replying

b. allow for maximum inclusion of user toasts

c. keep the final run time of my speech down

3 Theme: By providing a unifying prompt for the toasts, I hoped to spark user creativity and save them the effort of developing their own theme. (Plus, it would be easier for me to turn into a cohesive speech!)

The first prompt I thought of was “advice on how to have a happily married life,” which I felt would be meaningful to Serena and Chris. But I realized this theme left out people who weren’t married, so I wanted to provide a second choice: “how you knew Serena and Chris were right for each other.”

My two prompts settled, I thought about what other information I might need to make the speech work. I decided to ask respondents to describe their relationship to the couple, which would give me context in framing their toasts. Serena then sent out my “survey” in a wedding update email, and with a week to wait, all I could do was hope and trust the process!

I was elated when answers started rolling in, but I did need to account for user error. Some people forgot to include their relationship to the couple, so I followed up with them. Some people wrote longer than 25 words, so I edited and relaxed my criteria as necessary. When the deadline hit, I knew I had some great content, and I couldn’t wait to start my synthesis.

DEFINE

I received 15 submissions in total, 10 pieces of advice on having a happy marriage and 5 stories about Chris and Serena’s relationship.

When I came up with the two prompts, I figured the one that received more responses would become the theme of the entire speech. But just like in an actual UX project, I had to let go of my assumptions and let my research findings determine the design of the product. I truly loved submissions from both prompts, so I made the call to include both in the final toast.

Of the 8 toasts I choose, there was equal representation for the bride and groom, 4 from Chris’ side and 4 from Serena’s side. I achieved near gender-parity and a good sampling of friends from all areas of their lives, including childhood, college, graduate school, and their professional lives. Though I prioritized people who weren’t giving in-person toasts, I did include one sibling, Chris’ brother and best man. (I was also happy to pay homage to Serena’s heritage with 8 toasts, as 8 is one of the most auspicious numbers in Chinese culture.)

With my submissions chosen, I sent out an email to ward off hurt feelings, assuring the respondents that all of their toasts would be sent to Serena and Chris post-wedding. All that was left to do was to bring everything together.

DEVELOP

Sometimes when I sit down to write, I get anxious about finding the right way to express what I want the reader to know. However, treating this toast as a UX project took some of the anxiety out of it. I had done my research, which had given me my content, and I knew very deeply how I wanted the users (both the wedding couple and the audience) to feel.

The first thing I tried to do was give the listeners context, to tell people what and why. The wedding toast was not in a typical format, and I had to prime the audience to receive the rest. To me, this format spoke to my friends’ desire for inclusivity — both as individuals and as a couple — so I framed the collective toast as a way for everyone to feel loved and included.

My next challenge was to order the submissions, to make a narrative from the collective. I shuffled the prompts within their respective groups to begin, finding the toasts that related or responded to each other before crafting a through line. I made sure to give context to each contributor, outlining their relationship to Chris and Serena for the audience’s benefit.

With my core shaped, I started writing my transitions. Only then did the relationship between my two themes (“how you knew Serena and Chris were right for each other” & “advice on how to have a happily married life”) become clear. I was talking about their past and their future, their beginning and their continuance: “With beautiful memories from your past and wise advice for your future, you will find your own way to a long and happy marriage, with help from each other.”

As I came to the close, I also wanted to reference the speech’s source and the reason for its existence: the collective audience. “Of course, you will always have this wonderful community of family and friends to lean on, to ask advice from, and to share in the life you’re making together.” Finally, the actual toast! “Congratulations on taking this first step. As their community, let’s raise our glasses to Serena and Chris.”

The speech had been written, but my work was not over. I made sure to time and further edit it, aiming for my sub-4-minute goal. I practiced out loud and listened to see if my words could be easily understood. (Speaking aloud also made me realize I needed some name pronunciations, which my respondents provided with phonetics, sound-alikes, and even recordings.) Since UX is all about iteration, I practiced over and over, hoping to know the words by heart.

DELIVER

The wedding day arrived, and I realized that there was one aspect of the Double Diamond method I’d overlooked. In lean and agile UX, you can always start your process over and iteratively work to make your product better. For me though, I only had one shot to deliver this speech.

The morning of the wedding, I woke up to find that I had totally lost my voice. I had been sick earlier that week, but since I felt better going into Friday, I wasn’t worried about protecting my voice. Saturday morning, I could barely squeak out a sound. I immediately put myself on hot tea and vocal rest, relying on a particularly animated game of charades to communicate with my friends for most of the day.

At the ceremony, some of my worries fell away. The priest, who had gotten to know my friends during their wedding planning, seemed to echo some of the submissions I incorporated into my toast. Getting this independent validation of my research from her, I felt like I had chosen the words and themes that represented Chris and Serena well.

I started warming up my voice during cocktail hour. I was a little husky and nowhere near full volume, but I could get it done. (It helped that their signature cocktail had three ingredients that improved my vocal quality: whiskey, honey, & lemon.) When I picked up the mic, I breathed deeply and spoke slowly, relying on the muscle memory that comes from rehearsal.

Though I was directing my speech to the newly married couple, I was thrilled by the audience reaction — some laughs, awws, and even cheers as they found themselves represented in the toast. But the most important reaction came from the people in front of me: Serena and Chris, who received a chorus of words from their loved ones on a day that celebrated love and community.

FINDINGS/NEXT STEPS

Serena initially asked to me to work on this toast “because of your literary background and your love of words and people and squishy feelings.” For all those reasons and more, I was proud to claim the role of “speech doula.” But I know that my UX skills were the essential ingredient to my success.

UX is ultimately about problem-solving based on needs and constraints, and it’s taught me how to think through a project strategically. In a perfect world, would I have liked more time or more submissions? Maybe. But my process got me to the solution, and the joy of my friends was worth every second of work. I loved tackling this nontraditional UX project, and I’m looking forward to many more to come — to a long and happy UX career!