Leading Product Discovery & UX at DR

The Danish Broadcasting Corporation

DR – the Danish Broadcasting Corporation – is Denmark's public service media enterprise. Each week nearly every single Dane interacts with one of DR's touch points; tuning into a TV channel, turning on the radio or using one of DR's digital products.

My Role

I led the talented 10-person UX team that designs digital products at DR. Our product portfolio included dr.dk (the most visited Danish website), DRTV and Radio streaming apps, DR's news app, children's apps, and many other products aimed at providing great public service for the Danish people.

Furthermore, I was responsible for the product discovery practices across the product management organization, where I worked to ensure a continuous discovery mindset focused around user research, rapid prototyping and experimentation.

Among other things, I've was responsible for:

• Growing the team from 6 to 10 fantastic UX strategists and product designers.
• Transitioning from an “internal agency” model to a hub-and-spoke model with UX’ers and designers embedded in each of our cross-functional product teams.
• Implementing Dual-Track Agile and Continuous Discovery practices.
• Aligning UX tools and processes across the teams, and running UX meetings, design reviews, and weekly 1-on-1s.
• Responsible for cross-team design efforts like our UX Playbook, design system (DR Elements), and key cross-product strategic initiatives (Personalization, etc).

Selected Work

Below are examples of the work, I was involved in at DR.

Redesigning the Front Page of dr.dk

DR.dk is one of the most visited Danish websites, and the front page – with its more than 1.2 million unique visitors a week – plays a particularly important role for Danish news and media consumption.

I played a central role in redesigning and testing the front page to ensure that it is personal and relevant to our users' diverse needs. The front page was rolled out in stages and tested during the summer of 2019, and fully launched shortly after I left DR.

Dual Track Agile + Continuous Discovery

I worked with the teams to implement Dual Track Agile across the department, and ensure that continuous discovery practices such as user research, prototyping and experimentation were first-class citizens in our teams' backlogs.

This included transitioning UX from an “internal agency” model to a hub-and-spoke model with UX’ers and designers embedded in each of the cross-functional product teams.

Design System - DR Elements

The team and I were responsible for our cross-team design efforts like our design system for dr.dk, our UX Playbook, and other cross-product strategic initiatives (Personalization, etc).

We continuously expanded and built upon our design systems as new user needs arose, and to ensure that it is easy to work with for internal stakeholders.

A/B Testing and Experimentation

During my time at DR, we introduced a new A/B testing tool, and I'm spearheaded an effort to onboard and train our Product Managers, Product Owners and UX Designers.

This was part of a larger effort to instill a continuous discovery mindset in the organsiation. At DR, continuous discovery work now follows a slightly revised Double Diamond model with a focus on user feedback, prototyping and experimentation as early as possible.

Events and On-Going Projects

Aside from the on-going work on the core product portfolio, I often worked on time-sensitive or event-based projects throughout the year. This included one-off websites and apps for things like sport championships, national or international elections, or the passing of a significant cultural figure or royalty.

As we worked on these projects, we sought to use established patterns and design systems for consistency, but often used the opportunity to expand our design system, as new needs arose.