UX Process
It all begins with an idea. Knowing which ideas are worth pursuing and in what ways, this is where User Experience is needed. This process is driven by behavioral psychology and neuroscience research. Everything streams from the “Why” of the business mission through to the “Who”, “What” and finally “How”.
Step 1.
Discover
The first part of any project is researching who the user is and how they are being served by the current available options in the market.
What are the tasks that they need to perform? What are the things they love about existing solutions? It’s time to explore blue ocean opportunities and meet needs. What are the pain points that cause frustration? What lessons can be drawn from competitive solutions? This data is collected and compiled for the next step.
Step 2.
Define
Now, it’s time to pull that data together! We test to see if our hypothesis holds true with user interviews, data surveys, and other analytics. Once we have consensus, we can start to chart the data into useful artifacts.
Depending on the product timeline and requirements there may be a need for the following items: User Personas, Journey map, Empathy maps, and Affinity maps.
Step 3.
Create
With a framework of solid requirements we can now start the visual design process. Low fidelity disciplines like sketching and paper prototyping are low effort high output methods of quickly trying out ideas and seeing how they work together.
Sketches and wireframes are put through a round of quick automated testing. Services such as Usertesting.com, are automated and allow you to compile trusted results into actionable video clips quite quickly. In-person interviews, although helpful, take more time and staff to run a survey. Allowing observation of non-verbal feedback and the ability to capture spoken feedback.
After the results point to a positive lift, it’s time to build out the final high fidelity creative mockups.
Step 4.
Deliver
Delivering the final designs is a step where it’s important to be connected with stakeholders (Product, Engineering, legal, SME’s, etc) and build collaborative relationships. The goal is not to throw something over the wall but to work together from the start with these peer groups to produce the best possible viable product.
In cross functional teams UX/Product Designers and Engineers could be working in pods to help identify any technical dependencies and forge ownership of the final solution.
It can be helpful to provide design specifications for non-design focused developers, so pixel-perfect results can be achieved and maintained.
The ultimate solution to keeping products consistent is building a pre-coded component Design System where viable.