User experience design (UXD) is the process of enhancing the user satisfaction with a product by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in their interaction with the product. User experience design consists of 5 major steps. They are:
1. Define: First, we need to define the problem statement at hand. For this, we need to be clear on our business strategy. We can arrive at an effective business strategy by understanding our vision, mission and business goals. We also need to define Target KPIs (Key Performance Indexes) towards our defined problem statement.
2. Study: We need to be very clear on our proposed product positioning in the target market segment. That is, our proposed product can be "new" or "old". Similarly our target solution concept can be "new" or "old".
We need to define and study user personas who will be interacting with our proposed product. For defining personas, we will define user attributes like age, sex, demography, their profile (e.g. students, game enthusiasts etc.) and other attributes. We can define personas attributes to appropriate deeper details depending on the context we are in. The more deeper, we define user personas attributes, the more clarity we get about user personas.We can then employ below techniques to study more information about user personas.
(2.1) Interviews: We use different interview techniques to gather information through face to face interactions.
(2.2) Field Study: We conduct field studies to gather information about the environment under which the proposed product will be used. That is, we get information details like (a) whether the users will be using our product in broad day light or night time. (b) Whether the users will be using our product with their left hand or right hand etc.
(2.3) Focus Groups: We call subject matter experts on a focused theme from various business groups just to gather information specific to that focused theme. We will have trained facilitator who will drive quality interactions that will unearth powerful requirements for the proposed product.
(2.4) Surveys:- We can employ either online or offline surveys to gather information about the proposed product quickly from different locations.
(2.6) Usability Testing: As part of this, we will learn how user personas are interacting with our proposed product. We shall conduct this in two modes.
(2.6.1) Moderated Usability Testing: As part of this, users are asked to perform certain task by the moderator. Users are asked to think load and speak whatever is happening in their mind. That is they will be telling something like ... Alright, let me logon.. Then let me click on button. Let me see what I will get... Hah!.. This window is taking long time...." etc. This way, we are able to understand what is going on in the minds of user personas. Thus, moderated usability studies will unearth hidden facts that are difficult to identify. However, there is downside to these moderated usability studies. As these studies are being conducted in the presence of a moderator, the users may interact with the product under pressure. Thus, we may not get real user behavior sometimes under this study.
(2.6.2) Remote Usability Testing: We will ask the users to perform certain tasks in the remote location and provide us the feedback through recorded videos, filled feedback forms or questionnaires. The underlying thought is that when we leave users in their own environment, real user interactions with the product will get unfolded. That is the key. We are doing this to offset the disadvantages offered by Moderated Usability Testing.
(2.7) Product Stakeholder Inputs:- We shall seek product stakeholder inputs to learn dependencies, constraints and assumptions. This way, we can understand the cost or time related constraints under which we need to execute the project.
3. Design: Before, we proceed for design, we will first analyze the information gathered during our STUDY phase and document them. We shall use below tools to achieve this.
(3.1) Service Blue Print: A service blueprint is a diagram that visualizes the relationships between different service components — people, props (physical or digital evidence), and processes — that are directly tied to touch points in a specific customer journey. You can gather more information about Service blue print @ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/service-blueprints-definition/. Thus, service blue print gives us end to end landscape of the proposed context where we will capture all the touch points of users, back office, logistics etc in a matrix format.
(3.2) Story Boards: Story boarding refers to the process of creating a visual representation — a drawing — showing how users are experiencing the problem space, how they are trying to achieve their goals. These depict pictorial depiction of user journey description while achieving the user goals as stated in use cases. You can learn more details about STORY BOARDS @ https://uxknowledgebase.com/storyboarding-part-1-7d020f468420
(3.3) Customer Journey Maps: Journey maps combine two powerful instruments—storytelling and visualization—in order to help teams understand and address customer needs. You can learn more details @ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping/
(3.4) Competitor Auditing: We shall study competitors and rate them as "Good", "Bad" or "Moderate" against the given KPIs. This is to understand the gaps so that we can perform deep dive study in the select areas.
(3.5) Value Proposition: In this step, we will derive critical success factor rating (CSF) to make our product meet our problem statement and business objectives that we defined in our first step called DEFINE.
Using value proposition matrix, we shall learn the present state and the future state critical success factors. This will provide clear guidance to our design where our efforts should be channeling to.
We shall be performing DESIGN using below tools
1. Sketch : It is a drawing board job where we will translate our analysis inputs into information architecture. Information architecture is all about organization of information in a clear and logical way. Such organization follows a clear purpose — helping users navigate complex sets of information. Information architecture is the art and science of structuring and organizing the information in products and services to support usability and findability. You can find more information about Information Architecture @ https://theblog.adobe.com/a-beginners-guide-to-information-architecture-for-ux-designers/ or https://uxplanet.org/information-architecture-basics-for-designers-b5d43df62e20
2. Cards Sorting By Users: We document USER TASKS in terms of cards. We will exhibit these cards in-front of users. We then ask users to sequence these task cards to learn how the user tasks can be designed. Thus, Card sorting is a method used to help design or evaluate the information architecture of a site. In a card sorting session, participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them and they may also help you label these groups.
3. Content Auditing: As part of content auditing, we will arrive at necessary and needed content text to be shown on user interface. This content to be reviewed critically so that it is clear, concise, legible and legally acceptable.
4. Wireframes: We then proceed for designing Wireframes using tools like BALSMIQ, SKETCH etc. A wireframe is a visual representation of a user interface, stripped of any visual design or branding elements. It is used by UX Designers to define the hierarchy of items on a screen and communicate what the items on that page should be based on user needs.
5. Final Design: As part of this we will be finalizing the design where we will be deciding on the colors to be used and elements to be used using tools like MOOD BOARDS.
4. Implement: We will implement design outputs through prototypes. We can use screen to screen navigation prototypes, functional navigation prototypes or simply paper prototypes. Our ideas is to bring the designed assets using prototypes and run the same through the users and capture their feedback. We can use tools like INVISION or ADOBE XD to achieve this.
5. Evaluate: We then evaluate our gathered user feedback on our implemented prototypes. Most of the techniques we used for the step STUDY can be implemented here. We can employ Usability testing, Focus groups, Beta testing, AB Testing (deciding which of the two user flows are efficient out of A and B), Heat Maps (Which areas of the product user interface is gaining maximum clicks), Eye tracking (capturing how user eye is moving in various screens) etc.
We will then incorporate the feedback gathered into our Wireframes and provide our developed assets to development team once we get 100% sign off on user experience aspects. If not, we will again resort to STUDY phase.
We shall be performing DESIGN using below tools
1. Sketch : It is a drawing board job where we will translate our analysis inputs into information architecture. Information architecture is all about organization of information in a clear and logical way. Such organization follows a clear purpose — helping users navigate complex sets of information. Information architecture is the art and science of structuring and organizing the information in products and services to support usability and findability. You can find more information about Information Architecture @ https://theblog.adobe.com/a-beginners-guide-to-information-architecture-for-ux-designers/ or https://uxplanet.org/information-architecture-basics-for-designers-b5d43df62e20
2. Cards Sorting By Users: We document USER TASKS in terms of cards. We will exhibit these cards in-front of users. We then ask users to sequence these task cards to learn how the user tasks can be designed. Thus, Card sorting is a method used to help design or evaluate the information architecture of a site. In a card sorting session, participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them and they may also help you label these groups.
3. Content Auditing: As part of content auditing, we will arrive at necessary and needed content text to be shown on user interface. This content to be reviewed critically so that it is clear, concise, legible and legally acceptable.
4. Wireframes: We then proceed for designing Wireframes using tools like BALSMIQ, SKETCH etc. A wireframe is a visual representation of a user interface, stripped of any visual design or branding elements. It is used by UX Designers to define the hierarchy of items on a screen and communicate what the items on that page should be based on user needs.
5. Final Design: As part of this we will be finalizing the design where we will be deciding on the colors to be used and elements to be used using tools like MOOD BOARDS.
4. Implement: We will implement design outputs through prototypes. We can use screen to screen navigation prototypes, functional navigation prototypes or simply paper prototypes. Our ideas is to bring the designed assets using prototypes and run the same through the users and capture their feedback. We can use tools like INVISION or ADOBE XD to achieve this.
5. Evaluate: We then evaluate our gathered user feedback on our implemented prototypes. Most of the techniques we used for the step STUDY can be implemented here. We can employ Usability testing, Focus groups, Beta testing, AB Testing (deciding which of the two user flows are efficient out of A and B), Heat Maps (Which areas of the product user interface is gaining maximum clicks), Eye tracking (capturing how user eye is moving in various screens) etc.
We will then incorporate the feedback gathered into our Wireframes and provide our developed assets to development team once we get 100% sign off on user experience aspects. If not, we will again resort to STUDY phase.