Written for researchers interested in using design strategy and brand positioning for improving their online research presences (particularly via blogs, blogsites and websites).
Last year, Jon Whelan and I updated this blogsite to prepare for my post-doctoral reality as a media studies research fellow, who can contribute to scholarly publications and pursue new research opportunities. By contrast to our previous work focused on Blogger customisation in 2016, the latest design process was largely a strategic one. It drew strongly on insights from brand positioning, plus design strategy more broadly, for my blogsite's improvements:

A. Why Strategic Design?
Table 1. High-, mid- and practice level design disciplines.

HL  Design Management (i.e. brand & software & service design mx)

HL  Strategic Design (i.e. data analysis informing brand positioning)

ML  Design Thinking (meta-disciplinary)

PL   Surface design

PL   Brand design management

PL   User-centred and experience design

PL   Software and information design

PL   Service design management

PL   Curricular and instructional design

PL   Legal design

PL   Business design management

As Table 1 illustrates, the disciplines of Strategic Design and Design Management are high level (HL) strategic ones. In business, these disciplines typically seek to define and improve the long-term, 'meta' design drivers. By contrast, Design Thinking is a mid-level (ML) meta-disciplinary approach that often seeks to tackle a ‘wicked problem’ space with varied perspectives in a short burst. At the bottom of the table are performance level (PL) practices whose designers' expertise is used for providing discrete, 'micro' solutions.

For an individual blog designer, strategic design considerations may be particularly helpful for answering a big personal challenge. For example, mine was 'How do I update my research blogsite to best support my post-PhD aspirations?' To answer this, I did a strategic design process that included data analysis, a review of my personal branding plus identity development exercises. These informed my creative brief to Jon, plus the ongoing development of this blogsite.

To improve my blog's usability and personal salience, I made the following design changes:
  +1> My roles were simplified;
  +2> I checked how each role and my research interests were reflected in my labels;
  +3> My publication plan addresses my diverse roles and interests;
  +4> I reordered my 'research' navigation to support the postdoctoral publication hierarchy;
  +5> I also took other measures for improved reliability;
  +6> plus security.

+1> Refined my personal brand positioning and roles
Online spaces can provide ready opportunities for individuals to experiment with digital personas. As part of my PhD's broader identity exploration project, my blog featured five roles in its navigation. These were 'researcher', 'designer', 'educator', 'public speaker' and 'volunteer'.

While accurate in terms of identity exploration as a PhD candidate, it made for a complex and potentially confusing navigation structure on the mobile phone (see left in Figure 1). It also seemed important to simplify identities to reduce that inevitable 'he's a jack-of-all-trades' perception!

Figure 1. travisnoakes.co.za navigations (version 2016 vs 2019) in mobile screen by Jon Wheelan, 2019.

To solve both challenges, I did an exercise for simplifying my identity by clearly defining the three roles I prefer to do. Such consolidation also supports a simpler overall online persona that is easier to keep coherent (i.e. I might describe the same roles on; LinkedIn for work, academic portals for research; Twitter micro-blogging or Facebook for friends). My roles were prioritised down to the big three of: 'researcher', 'design steward' and 'techné mentor'. Interestingly, researching design strategy introduced me to the unusual 'design steward' and 'techné mentor' roles: The former reflected how my career in design increasingly involved briefing designers and sharing their work, versus my own designs. As a ‘techné mentor’, I am involved in fluid, once-off educational interventions related to technology. My previous roles (such as speaker and volunteer) proved easy to re-house under the simpler navigation (see right in Figure 1).

+2> Checked that my Postdoctoral roles and interests are covered in Blogger labels
I've tried to make my blog easy to search by using Blogger 'labels' for each of its posts. By analysing my use of labels and how these relate to my roles, I learnt that there were far more articles that related to my role as a techné mentor, than as a researcher or design steward.