Understand
Charles Kettering, famous engineer and inventor, said “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” But getting to a well stated problem takes a lot of work.
Too often, the real problem isn’t as obvious as you may think. Instead of immediately jumping to a solution, it’s important to observe users in their natural environment and witness their pain points first hand. Only then can we start to think about designing a solution.
Tools
- Empathy
- Ethnographic Research
- User Interviews
- Great Relationships
Analyze
Tons of data points don’t tell us very much on their own. Without proper analysis, all that data we collected doing research isn’t very useful to anyone.
Without proper analysis we’re just guessing and guessing leaves us open for failure. Before we jump into designing a solution we must understand users, their pain points and truly understand the underlying problems they face.
Tools
- Personas
- Journey Maps
- User Flows
- Sticky Notes
Design
This might sound counterintuitive, but designing the most effective solution for an end user is not a job for the UX designer alone. Design is a team effort, so the team’s buy-in is critical.
It’s important to consider technology, budget, and time constraints into any solution we design. This requires input from engineers and stakeholders, iterating until the right solution is found. Regular feedback from the entire team is as critical to the success of the product as anything else we do.
Tools
- Pen & Paper
- White Board
- Prototype
- Visual Design
- Interaction Design
- Design Critiques
Validate
We aren’t our users. If we aren’t involving users at every step, there’s a good chance we’re doing something wrong.
It doesn’t matter how experienced we are as designers, we don’t really know what our users are going to do. We can use heuristics and our experience to make a good guess, but ultimately, we need to get our solution in front of a user to see how well it performs.
Tools
- Usability Studies
- User Interviews
- A/B Testing
- Analytics
Learn
We can’t be afraid to be wrong. This is when we fail. This is when we learn. This is when we are able to improve.
Let’s face it. Nothing works out the way we planned all of the time. Too often we approach the validation step with bias and ignore results we didn’t expect or worse, want to believe. If we aren’t learning from our failures, we’re not doing our job.
Tools
- Failure
- Humility
- Grit