The UX Design Process
The design process I follow depends on the business need, impact of the new feature or feature update, project urgency, my role on the team, and the project size.
Many small and obvious improvements can be made without user testing, or with a quick test. Competitive design and software changes can be made more efficiently without extensive prototyping and testing. However, with enough time and budget, I will always choose a multi-step UX design process.
UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM
(Information Gathering and Research)
Business Needs
First, I arrange and participate in conversations with clients or business/product owners to define what the problem is. If those parties came with a pre-fabricated solution, I push for the conversation anyway.
Competitive Research
Once the problem is understood, I do research to see how others have tackled the problem, including asking around to see the ways we solved it in the past. This prevents perpetuating mistakes and revisiting possible solutions.
User Testing to Redefine Problem
When possible, I like to do user testing and surveys to ensure we understand the problem properly. Sometimes a client or internal party (or even myself) will assume there is a problem, when users are perfectly happy with the current functionality.
UX Team Discussions
Some of the previous steps are done with the team, and some are done autonomously; usually it is some kind of combination. At some point there will be conversations with the UX team, where we can bounce questions and ideas off of each other, so that we can consider things we hadn’t thought of, which may drive a new direction of research.
USER PERSONAS
Depending on the business, the user may already be known. If the expected or ideal user is not already known, then user personas can be created by defining user groups, interviewing users, and combining qualitative and quantitative data.
IDEATION
The problem can be broken into smaller pieces, then organized and prioritized.
RAPID PROTOTYPING AND QUICK TESTING
Designers and developers should work together to ensure that the project manager’s (and UX designers’) goals are feasible. this will allow the team to work iteratively if it is appropriate.
The process of sketch > discuss > resketch > wireframe > mockup > test > prototype allows the team to encounter and tackle problems as early as possible, wasting as little time as possible. Though it may seem that there are many steps in this process, a dedicated and focused team can get a quick idea of what will work and what won’t work as they go through these stages (and test users at each stage).
COMPLEX PROTOTYPING
A more complex prototype can be developed in order to test and observe how a user interacts with the piece of software.
USER TESTING
Data powers design! Whenever possible I like to run user tests and surveys to direct mine and my team’s designs. The type of testing will depend on the project.
Question for user:
If you couldn’t get the information you wanted from our site, where would you go? (Insight: Traffic leaving our site)
Why do I test?
Identify problems, bugs, and stumbling blocks that we have overlooked by being too familiar with the product.
Validate assumptions about design “improvements” (or let go of those assumptions if they turn out to be wrong).
Convince leadership, finance, and engineering teams that design is a worthy investment.
Perform basic A/B tests and compare designs against one another, or against a competitor.
Learn about how different demographics react to different designs.
And finally, because I always learn something about another part of the product that I wasn’t looking for!
ANALYTICS
Run analytics on KissMetrics, Optimizely, or another tool to determine (when possible) whether design changes made a difference.
Grab a drink, sit back, and read positive feedback from clients and users!
Or, learn what isn’t working, and get back to work to make it better.