design process draft

7/30/2019 Design Process Draft

1/9


2/9

Methods

1. Team improvement each monthThere is no perfect solution, hence no way to create a perfect design process. Newproblems will always arise, so we need to have a process that can evolve within time.The safe way of doing this is to include improvement as a important part of theprocess.

My experience is that once each month will be a great pace to take a bigger meetingand evaluate how the team has been working together with each other. The meetingcan also be held twice a month, but we should also remember that we might need

some time to each experiment before changes can be evaluated.

The team should still evolve each day with individual efforts, but each month thewhole team will meet and do this in an structured way.

Areas to discuss:

People Relationships Process Tools

Agenda:

1. What was awesome last month and what can be improved?2. Decide what changes we all will try during upcoming month.

2. Sketches, lo-fi mockups and wireframesWe want to be able to visualize many ideas, this is the main reason why we dontwant to spend time creating high fidelity graphics. The goal in the first phase is tosketch in the fastest tempo possible.

Methods: Use a whiteboard. Take a picture when done, and erase. Draw a newsketch with thick marker on paper or use tools like Balsamiq Mockup to draw linesand boxes on your computer, arrange the content so the flow, the navigation andstructure feels good. Details doesnt matter, its even OK to use Comic Sans as a font

just to make sure that nobody thinks this is the final design.

In the following steps you might need to use any possible method to make sure thatpeople can understand your sketches. You might write notations to describe parts ofthe sketch, you might also invest some time to make the most important part of thesketch more clear to the user by using icons or parts of existing design or fromshared or private asset library. You might even want to make a quick animation.


3/9

Some might be tempted to skip the sketches and start creating a wireframe usingtools like OmniGraffle or similar. Wireframes is great, but as those are muchcleaner than a sketch you make with a thick marker you might be mentally blockedto destroy it with unclear design decisions.

I would recommend to create the sketch with a thick, then thinner and thinnerpens/markers until there is enough details to for people to get back with valueable

feedback on. If youve worked in the team for a while you might not need to do muchfor people to get your idea. Design conventions and similarities with existing design

will help your sketch become understandable.

Feel free to share this knowledge to stakeholders and everyone who is eager to bein the process of designing great interface. The main aim is that sketches should beused to visualize an idea. This is not a skill to keep to yourself. If more people wereable to visualize their thoughts and ideas we wouldnt spend such amount of timetrying to listen and understand. We would actually see it.

You might use colors and add some shadows, but be aware that the focus might be

shifted when doing this. The person who give you feedback might all of a suddenmake comments related to the colors and graphics, instead of the much moreimportant decisions related to structure and navigation.

3. Test, then listen to the feedbackEach new design need to be tested and fortunately there is a lot of ways of doingthis. Its also easy to oversee this step. But if people dont know how to use the finaldesign, it will never be a success.

The solution is simple though. Let people test one or many different designs and

listen in on the feedback provided both personally, but also through data provided. Ifusers are adopting a specific feature more after the design change, this is also great


4/9

data. Be sure to measure how the interface is used, but do it in an effective manner.Too much data doesnt give you more value then just enough data.

Ways to collect feedback:

1. Interviews2. Beta testers3. Employee releasePersonally I really like the interviews. Its common practice that you give the user atask that they should solve. Depending of the prior knowledge you will get differentresults and different focus of the feedback. It strikes me how easy it is to just sit nextto someone and see how they are using the interface. It might sounds trivial butduring my years as a web developer and in close relation to developers atTradedoubler I experienced loads of benefits from just sitting next to someone andsee how they use the offered interface.

Big fail on user design. How real people will use Windows 8.Click to view video

Beta testers are often power users and early adopters who has a loyal relation withthe Spotify brand. Depending on who will be the beta testers, feedback will vary. Ifthe beta is public (as with first Phoenix release for Android) you might receive mediaattention, both good and bad. Be aware of this, but dont be afraid. My personal (andagile) point of view is that you should release early and take care of all the feedback.Be clear to the audience that the design is not final, that were trying of differentalternatives, and that all features wont go into the final version. During the betatesting phase users will share screenshots and they might end up on blogs and inmagazines. This is a great potential to build our brand awareness.

Employee releases is a great routine to check the functionality in a bit larger groupof people while releasing it in a safe environment. This might be good if you releasethings of high marketing value. But, you should know that this group testers is quitehomogeneous, everyone is well aware of Spotify, the functionality that should existetc. The value of releasing to this group must be complemented by other testing.

On this topic I would like to suggest that some functionality could be releasedbefore they are available. Both Apple and Microsoft has been talking abouttheir new OS long time before releasing it. They have published feature specson the web and people are able to discuss them. Developers will be able to try

a unstable beta. This is a much needed process to get input from the wholecommunity. Spotify should also see this as an opportunity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU


5/9

Methods:

When testing a design on or through a website you might also use screen and soundrecording tools in a very efficient way. There is tools where you can send out a link tomany people and they will follow the instructions and their actions and narrate what

they are doing and what they are thinking while doing it. The benefit of this is thatyou can involve people from a wide range of backgrounds. The fact that you will havea hard time influence their behavior might also be a benefit.

Another great method is the number of three. Ive been practicing this when Imdoing sketches. I try to end up with one extreme version, one easy or clean and oneperfect solution. When creating the extreme versions I often find great things to putin the perfect solution. Its often something I find out is quite easy to realise and still

very good to include. It can also be a totally new idea that I didnt dare to write in themore subtle versions of the design. The extreme version help me being creative.

Sometimes someone will like any of the more extreme versions more than

the perfect version of the design. So this is also a great way to find those bolddesign decisions that is really well integrated with the rest. Often I also feel the needto make a simple, and then an even simpler, version of each sketch. This will helpstakeholders to find the right level of features to include.

4. Work together and share what youre doingKnowledge sharing is the key to successful solutions. That is why we have a quickstatus update each day. Although this is actually a meeting without discussions the

meeting itself will give people reasons to talk to each other at a later time.

During this quick meeting of 10-15 minutes I (as in everyone) share what I havebeen doing, what Im doing next and what hold me back in the process. What mightbe helpful is to prepare 3 sticky notes each and put them on the wall. This will alsohelp the team and managers to get a overview during the day without attending thismeeting.

The time of the meeting should be discussed in the team and might be adjusted later.There is benefits of having the meeting in the morning as a way of greet each other(and maybe eat breakfast together?). But if everyone is leaving the office at the same

time each day -it will probably be a lot easier for tell people to tell what they havebeen doing during that same day. And, wouldnt you leave the office with a feelingof being important, if you got an insight of all great things that been done during theday. Maybe enough reason to arrive early next day?

Please experiment with these meetings. But make sure that the purpose is to give aquick status that others in the team will benefit from. From this meeting questionsand ideas will rise and they will be discussed LATER. This meeting is to sync betweenteam members. Manager might not even attend.

Questions and ideas that have been raised during the status meeting should bediscussed with anyone interested. Even stakeholders can be invited as guests,

because its important to discuss the issues with the right persons. Ask yourself whatwill be discussed, who should be involved and who will arrange this meeting. An


6/9

quick solution is to take this meeting right after the status meeting -but be sure toend the status meeting before start discussing current issues.

Meetings are important and often hated, so I will gladly share my top suggestions fora better meeting. This list can be discussed within the team:

1. Start meeting on time, but end it 10 minutes early, e.g. 15:00-15:50.2. Let everyone say whatever is on their mind before starting meeting. Could be

anything. If someone is sad or excited you will probably notice.3. Have an agenda that everyone agree on. Add a break or change position each 40

minutes, e.g. standing by the board, talk in smaller groups, etc.4. Let everyone talk. Some people will need some time to collect their thoughts.

Minorities, tokens and people on video link will have precedence.

5. Really understanding the problemDesign is extremely important. We want people to notice that were doing a great

job. Thats why we need to prioritize things people value the most, that includesboth what the stakeholders and what the colleagues in the same team think is mostimportant.

Its great if there is one dedicated person in the team who works as an experton prioritization. This mean the person need to have a tight relation with eachstakeholder, keep them updated and be clear about their expectations. This person

will make sure that a developer who needs a design, get anything valuable as fast aspossible, so he or she will be able to give feedback in an early stage.

When we find a problem and a difficult design decision must be made, we must besure that we understand the problem. If the problem is particularly difficult everyoneinvolved need to meet the people who are able to describe the problem and all thedifferent angle. We might call this a brief.

Final design, colors, shades and shadows can often be added when development isclose to finish. But the flow, processes and navigation might be hard to change laterin the process. This is why its great to have one specific person who find out whatthe problem is so the team can focus on providing whats expected (and maybe a bitmore than that)

6. Delivery and long term customer serviceThe work isnt done when sending a PSD to a developer. Its not even done when anew design has been presented and described in details. Each design will have a longlife and might be adjusted and improved many times during years to come.

To have an organizational structure for these things are important. Even if the mainpart of the team is working focused on new tasks I wouldnt mind a smaller group

within the team giving great customer service to whoever of our fellow co-workers

whos in need of support from a designer.


7/9

Some request might be from the the external customer support who might need helpin answering questions related to design decisions. Some design related decisionsmight also be teached to customer service so they can give the answers directly.

Medieval helpdesk trying to help someone to start using a book instead of using paper rolls. Click to view

7. Collect all style elements in assets libraryEach graphical element that is created should be saved in a assets library. This is ofgreat help for anyone who need to know the current design guidelines. Each item inthe library should be open for discussion and standards will be set in this context.

This assets can be used when preparing a sketch or mockup for presentations orwhen we need to make some final design alternatives. You will never need to thinkabout what a button should look like. Using this library of graphical elements you

will find a way to quickly design. You will probably also find some challenges thatneeds to discussed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ


8/9

One tool that can be used for this in Evernote. To be able to quickly grab a part of thescreen and add it to a library with a optional title and tags might be a quick way to

begin building this library. With a 5/mo paid subscription you will also be able toa save 1GB of files and have your images indexed for search. Actually, I wouldnt tryany other tool until Id tried this one.

Picks from the library might be chosen to illustrate graphical guidelines to the restof the organization. When developers create their own libraries, or even during the

work that is been done during the hack days, this might be of great help.

But the greatest benefit is when doing the final design. If ever stuck, looking throughthe screenshots of related screens, even from other platforms, might inspire you to

both to improve existing or find a related problem addressed and resolved.

8. Visual design is truly importantYou hate to see this on the last place in this prioritized list huh? I would say thatthe visual design is extremely important, but it wont be of any value if the rest ismissing. And if the other parts of this list exist, the visual design will be much moreinteresting and appreciated piece of work to spend time on.

The value of knowing that the visual design youre currently producing will be lovedboth internally and by end users should be appreciated. Graphics can be great to lookat for whoever interested in the area, but if it is more art than function it might never

be released.


9/9

Screenshot fromDribbble

The colors, shadows, and even size and margins of a simple button can be ofmajor importance and by testing different alternatives with support from real userexperience and data, a graphic designer will constantly learn not only what looksgood, he or she will also learn how to find the perfect balance between usability and

whatever that looks the very best.

This is accomplished by a combination UX Design principles, morespecific information design, interaction design, visual design andresearch.

Copyright notice: Havent found the URL where this image was published.
http://dribbble.com/tags/uihttp://dribbble.com/tags/uihttp://dribbble.com/tags/uihttp://dribbble.com/tags/ui

design process draft

Documents