Roadmap To Creating a Successful Solution Design

Solution design is an extensive process that starts with digging into undefined problems in a business and ends with an aesthetically attractive and technically useful design that solves all of them. It takes perseverance and a lot of run-throughs to be able to identify some of the best practices that work in favour of a good solution design. If you’re a designer, believe me, until those best practices are made customary to your design methodology, you’re not on your road to a successful solution design. Here, I’ve listed some best design methods that make up my strategic roadmap to creating products that are not just good solutions but also, inspiring designs.

STEP-1 #INSPIRATION

Guerrilla Research

Speedy and aggressive research is an amazing way to explore a product, identify problems and think of some obvious solutions that all other designers and non-designers might have thought of. Done right, the thought process triggered at this stage can help one get an extra edge to rise above and beyond all the commonly viable solutions and think out of the rectangle to solve the same problems. This is when you can be creative and innovate a next level of solution.

Client Interviews

It’s the identification of a specific need that gives birth to a new product and by conducting interviews with the founders and higher-ups, I make sure that the existence of the very product is aptly articulated by me as well as by the entire design team. By the end of this phase, I am able to gather technical insights about the product and gain understanding of why it should exist, who gets benefited from it and how can I make it better. Going about this phase right is as critical as empathizing with users, for the simple fact that great businesses thrive on great products and great products create a great end-to-end experience.

User Interviews

Interviewing some of the existing customers gives you an opportunity to understand how people (who the design caters to) perceive your company or brand as. Believe me or not, business owners are so vested in giving their ideas life that hardly do they think about spending any further time and money on research and validation. The feedback received by real users at this stage is extremely helpful in opening the eyes of such people by showing them the right picture. There’s nothing more refreshing, valuable and insightful than an actual conversation with your customer.

C-P-S Hypothesis

Another powerful tool that I use without fail is the Customer-Product-Solution hypothesis (C-P-S hypothesis). The beauty of this minimalistic tool is that it helps you draw a meaningful conclusion from each phase. It’s a single sentence description of who is your customer, what problems do they have and what is the solution that you offer. I usually write it down after several meetings with users and the client and walk it with me throughout the process.

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

An advanced version of the CPS hypothesis, BMC is also an amazing way to describe a business idea. Centric to the BMC model is the Unique Value proposition and the canvas lists your business idea, key partners, stakeholders, resources and your revenue model. Defining problems without any problems is challenging and putting together a BMC model quickly and accurately is a pivotal step in the direction of a successful design.

Surveys and Feedback Forums

Both surveys and feedback forums help you gather feedback on a large scale and extract results using statistical analysis. Asking the right questions, distributing them across the right channels and gathering answers through a trustworthy and confidential platform are keys.

Google Analytics

As a solution designer, user research holds an extremely valuable space in my entire design process. Google Analytics gives me a deeper understanding of the target audience — Who are they? What are their likes and dislikes? How do they interact with the brand? How does their user journey look like? and so on. You can extract as much real-time information as you would like to from this platform.

Optimal Workshop

One of my most cherished #UXtool and also, an affordable means of gathering qualitative user data, Optimal Workshop is enriched with features that can help you take informed decisions while still at the ideation stage. Some of it’s features that I use more often than others include first-click testing, card sorting and questions (a survey tool).

#IDEATION

Paper sketching

Paper sketching is always a quick and dirty ideation tool that you can use before using more complex, design techniques. However, to do this more often, you have to have a good relationship with your team who can agree to work on scrappy documentation. Often times or as needed, I use post-it notes interchangeably with paper sketching.

Wireframing

Unlike most designers, I do not hit the wireframing ground until I build confidence in the solution that I’ve on paper or in my mind. A logical structure flows from a good solution. This is where interactions are build and loose ends connected. When built, wireframe becomes the backbone of a design and should always contain a representation of every little piece of the final product. My go to tool for wireframing is Sketch.

Prototyping

One of the most engaging form of design documentation is prototyping or pilot testing. It is one step ahead to the final product and makes readers visualize the actual functioning of the interface. Done right and backed with constant user testing, prototyping can pay for itself.

#IMPLEMENTATION

Multivariate Designs

Solution to a lot of problems in design comes from A/B testing or multivariate testing. You can do A/B testing for validating feature prioritization, typography, choice of images, copy, design patterns and a whole host of other things that make up a particular design.

Iterations

Iterating a design is a continuous and non-stop phase that brings you one step closer to your audience with each iteration made. This is a proven fact but unfortunately, not very well understood by most designers. I love to work on projects where I feel an emotional connect with its target users and this helps me stay involved in the project till the minutest iterations have been made and the design starts moving the profit needle.