The most important step is always the first one. I take the time to cut through the noise and distractions and get to the heart of the usability issues with your product. I look at everything from the audience to the servers. I meet with stakeholders, clients, employees, and everyone in between.
This is the most critical time for the project. You must have a designer who can see the requirements from a neutral perspective based on objective observation and data. You need to see what the client needs, and not necessarily what they’re asking for.
The User Requirements document (aka Functional Requirements, Product Requirements) is a formal collection of all of the requirements for every aspect of the project. This is a separate document from the Technical Requirements for development and Marketing Requirements for promoting the product.
This document does not have to be fully complete before work can progress. Instead, I think of it as one of many “living documents” that get updated as the project moves along.
Once a set of formal requirements has been established, you can move forward with the process of designing the layout of the necessary interface elements. Deciding how to arrange content and UI takes a combination of Graphic Design and UX thinking. You also need to know your WCAC Accessibility Guidelines or you’ll end up doing more work to fix it later.
Wireframes are usually the end product of this phase. The more basic, the better. Colour, type, and interaction/animation details should all be left out at this stage. It is important to really understand the user journey in order to make a process that is logical and accessible.
Depending on the project, this phase requires interaction with one or more developers. I love to communicate as directly as possible with all project contributors, and I will create tickets and documents specifically for the development team. This helps everyone to contribute and ask questions before anyone has to spend time on code.
Need someone to write the HTML and/or CSS? I got you. I have been coding and teaching code for many years. I’m happy to help pitch in on the front-end development.
Nothing good happens by accident. It requires trial and error in varying amounts. The more times you can put up a potential solution in front of actual users, the more chance you have for success. Finding out what doesn’t work about your product is far more valuable than finding out what does.
User testing at this step is crucial. It is not enough just to review a design with stakeholders, you need to see it in action and watch someone actually using it. This is the only way to truly evaluate your product. Gather user feedback, make some decisions and start the whole process again. That’s the UX Way.
