The UX Design Process

There are several major versions of the User Experience Design process. Each follows a similar format:

Three main UX processes are used by companies. Each focuses on putting users at the center of product design and development. When a product team develops digital products, it takes into account the user’s requirements, objectives, and feedback. Satisfying user’s needs and wants becomes a priority, and every design decision is evaluated in the context of whether it delivers value to the users. User Experience Design gives you a way of adding an emotional impact into your products.

Two of these processes, User Centered Design and Design Thinking are very similar. Each breaks the process into distinct stages.

User-Centered Design

User-centered design is based on a few fundamental principles that can be applied for the product design process:

• Users are involved in the design process from the very beginning. Critical design decisions are evaluated based on how they work for end-users.
• Integration of user needs with business requirements. The product team always tries to align business requirements with user’s needs.
• Introducing user feedback loop in the product life cycle. The product team collects and analyzes feedback from users regularly. This information helps the team to make more user-focused decisions.
• Iterative design process. The product team continually works on improving the user’s experience; it introduces changes as it gains more understanding about their target audience.

Here is a User Centered Design process one of our instructors created for a recent company. It is very similar to Design Thinking, but includes a distinct Kickoff phase, where you learn about the project to be done by your client, supervisor, or other stakeholder.

Design Thinking is a well-known process created at Stanford and popularized by the design company IDEO.

Watch this short video to learn more about Design Thinking

The Double Diamond

The Double Diamond is a British-originated process which emphasizes the importance of Divergent and Convergent phases.

In Divergent phases, the focus is on quantity and variety.

• For instance, in the Discover phase we execute a variety of research techniques such as interviews, competitive analysis, user observation, surveys, etc.

In Convergent phases we narrow the results of a divergent process into one or a small number of items.

• In the convergent Define phase we create a small number of artifacts that demonstrate what we learned in our research phase

Accordingly:

• In the divergent Develop (Design) phase we may conceive of many different designs
• Then we build out one or two promising designs in the convergent Deliver phase

To summarize, the basic building blocks of the UX Process are

• A kickoff phase, where the stakeholder (owner, product manager, supervisor, client) expresses what they believe needs to be built. This phase is not covered in two of the processes, but it exists in all software projects.
• The Discover or Empathize phase encompasses user research
• The Define or Evaluate phase narrows in on defining the problem. Deliverables include a number of artifacts to help define the problem and communicate research findings
• The Design or Develop phase is where actual design gets done. It encompasses three stages, Ideate (Design), Prototype, and Test. This is where many UX designers spend the majority of their time.
• Implement or Deliver is where final coding takes place and the product is delivered. But UX work doesn’t stop there as changes in users’ expectations and attitudes may necessitate rework, and new improvements are always being planned.

This short article reviews what we learned about the UX Design Process and a bit more