UX and Product teams play an essential role in creating better products, but how they achieve this is often underestimated, underutilised, or misunderstood! At gravity9 we know a little better and want to show the real value of UX, and how it makes products useful.
What have UX’ers ever done for us?…
Apart from the…
…User need, evidence-based design.
Why are user needs left out of business/tech decisions? Customer insights as data should inform design development decisions. Data, not opinions or personal assumptions, back decisions on UX efficiency improvements and your return on investment.
UX designers are adept at identifying and solving complex problems. They employ thorough user research to gain insights into user behaviour, pain points, and preferences.
This research-driven approach helps make informed design decisions, leading to products more likely to succeed in the market.
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Build a new user behaviour research pipeline into your design development process and leverage behavioural data to empower useful UX improvements.
Apart from the…
… 1:10:100 Savings on design and development time.
Avoid wastage and align on a collective view early during the mental process of a new project by using UX visualisation of the problem space and solution to build. In the lifecycle of creating products, it is cheaper to make modifications early, during design research, than later in development. Confirming constraints and behaviours saves precious budget and resources: FACT!
For example, would you prefer to spend…
- £* on design research?
- £** to change an existing design?
- £*** to action a change during development?
This example (if a little exaggerated) shows that costs scale rapidly as projects progress further into development. Design exploration is light, agile, and fast, costing you less than jumping into development and having to pivot later.
Correcting problems at the development stage is generally 10x more expensive than fixing the same problem during the UX design phase. If the product goes into deployment, the cost of correcting the problem is multiplied x100. This is also known as the ”rule of 1:10:100”.
UX designers are creative thinkers who bring innovative ideas to the table. They explore design possibilities and think freely to create solutions that meet user needs that stand out in terms of design and functionality.
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UX diagrams and UI visualisation make ideas tangible and shareable, allowing you to collect valuable feedback. UX processes focus down to a universal alignment on ‘It is…’ So that everyone has the same understanding.
Start with small bites – regular and consistent design demonstrations and test sessions. Leverage Agile and Lean planning.
If anyone still doubts the value, try using this formula for design and production and compare the cost of wasted features and production time:
(time worked monthly) x (employee cost) x (# of employees) x (# of months) = cost
Apart from the…
… Focusing emphasis on the essential 5% (to 20%).
The 80-20 rule, also known as the ”Pareto Principle”, states 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes for any given event. Specifically, in a UX context, this can translate as 80% of your users using 20% of your features, or 20% of the code causing 80% of the errors. Good UX user task analysis reduces cognitive overload in user interfaces down to an essential 5% of call-to-action features. A call-to-action prompt within the software is a wayfinding navigation toolset telling users to take a specific or primary action.
Forget about the loudest voice or political opinion. Instead, get users to use interfaces and watch what they do, listen to what they need and avoid building the wrong thing. Using design treatment to focus attention on the essential product features highlights to users the essential hierarchy of “Do this first” actions. The UX design process is iterative; it can cope with change, and designers are willing to adjust based on user feedback and evolving project requirements.
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Validate assumptions and ideas with target users early in the development process. Design basic concepts and validate user goals, tasks, habits, and expectations. Ask; “is it being creatively dreamt up or coming from the tangible, honest day in the life of our target user?”.
These principles can help when it comes to product feature prioritisation, user research, or knowing where to put your focus.
Apart from the…
… Mitigating risk with wireframing.
Quick sketches demonstrate how we might create a solution – we call this “wireframing”. Risk is mitigated by testing ideas as a prototype. Rapid prototyping of ideas or concepts has become popular for good reasons:
- Build time and cost projections are up to 50% more accurate.
- Clarification requests and meetings can be reduced by 80%.
- Post-launch reworks and bug fixes reduce up to 25%!
Risk mitigation and benefits of wireframing include:
- Structural Planning: Wireframes provide a clear outline of a product’s structure and layout and can include the placement of elements, navigation principles, content sections, buttons, and primary interface components.
- User Flow: Wireframes map out the user journey flow through the product and their interaction with interface elements.
- Content Placement: Wireframes demonstrate information organisation, ensuring a logical and intuitive user experience.
- Functional Demons for Feedback and Iteration: Wireframes are simple and quick to create, they facilitate early feedback from stakeholders. This allows for inexpensive, rapid iterations and adjustments to the design before more detailed work begins.
- Collaboration, Costs, and Time Efficiency: Wireframing is a cost-effective and time-efficient way to communicate design concepts. It identifies potential issues and improvements early in the design process, saving time and resources.
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Demo early and often with low-fidelity wireframe representations of the structure and layout of a product, focusing on the essential elements and their relationships. Help stakeholders, designers, and developers understand the overall design and functionality before investing time and resources in more detailed design or coding.
Apart from the…
… Creating results from thinking like a user.
Take a moment to stop thinking on behalf of your brand or business; think about how a customer would approach a challenge and how your design solution would help them solve it. Thinking like your users will improve their willingness to purchase, likeliness to recommend, and can help fight against rates of defection to competitors.
When thinking like a user, try to consider these key aspects:
- Empathy: Try to understand a user’s perspectives and feelings. Think about their background, knowledge, and context.
- User Goals: Identify what primary goals the users want to achieve and prioritise features and functionalities based on their needs.
- Simplicity and Clarity: Keep it simple! Try to minimise complexity and avoid unnecessary elements.
- Maintain Consistency: Keep your design, language, and interactions consistent and maintain one coherent language across all service or product areas.
- Feedback and Communication: Be clear about what users need to do and communicate errors or issues in a user-friendly manner.
- User Testing: Conduct usability testing to identify areas of improvement. Actively seek and incorporate user feedback.
- Accessibility: Ensure that your product is accessible to users with different abilities, consider diverse user needs and how a differently abled person might interact with your product.
- Efficiency: Streamline processes and workflows to save your user’s time. Think about what they want to achieve and minimise the steps that allow them to do this.
- Adaptability: Anticipate different user scenarios and adapt the user experience accordingly. Provide flexibility to accommodate various user preferences.
- Continuous Improvement: Regularly update and refine the product based on user feedback. Stay informed about evolving user needs and industry trends.
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Give the team access to your users, regardless of industry or problem, get out there and listen to your users. There is no excuse for not interacting with their input!
Apart from the…
… Being a friend to developers.
A robust UX and Product team will set you on the right track for successful development by providing open collaboration and communication with a walk-through designs with the development team, explaining processes and answering questions, and easy access between the UX and development teams simplifies progress.
Amongst the tools, content, and details to be shared with developers will be:
- Design Specifications: Outline layout, interactions, and behaviours of each screen including dimensions, spacing, colours, typography, and animations.
- User Flows: Help developers understand the logical progression of the user experience.
- Interactive Prototypes: Reference intended user interactions.
- Style Guides and Design Systems: Style Guide of all visual design elements and iconography and a Design System containing reusable components and patterns to maintain consistency across the application.
- Assets: All assets with clear and consistent naming conventions make it easy for developers to identify and integrate them.
- Annotations and Comments: Comments within design files clarify design decisions, interactions, or animations that might not be immediately apparent.
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All the above, then grab a cup of tea and a slice of cake, and watch the collaboration accelerate your development!