The Simple No BS UX Process

In my career as a Product, Furniture, UX Designer and later an educator, I have encountered professionals and students ,alike, often mystified by the many jargon words laden outline of design processes. You may have heard their generic names(the 5Ds or 4W etc).

Designers get so caught up in the following the narrowly defined guidelines of the processes that it often leads to a shallow understanding of the actual problems and results in myopic solutions. Myopic solutions leads to frustrated users and loss of trust in the product. Either the end user was not understood or the wrong problem got solved. The process was at fault.

However that needn't be the case.

A good design process is always simple enough to grasp intuitively and yet robust enough to take on the most complex challenges .Like the few simple moves IP Man uses to defeat the various martial artists in the beautiful poetry of a movie The Grandmaster.

So without further ado, here is my breakdown of the method that has helped me design a low cost chimney for the urban slum households in India to redesigning Banking apps to revitalizing dying crafts for contemporary times. But first..

Begin with the Objective

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of beginning any project by defining its objective first. Designers start with setting a clear objective (what needs to be solved and for what possible user) of the project.

It should be like a log line of a movie.. single line.. and should capture the essence of the story or scope and yet have enough wiggle room for creative exploration.

Sample this log line pitched for Interstellar “ A desperate father travels across space and time to reunite with his daughter” ..thought provoking.

“Designing solutions to mitigate indoor air pollution for urban slum households in India.”..the solution is open ended but the end user and the initial observable problem have been identified.

Now the process itself…broadly of about 4 stages…

Stage 1 : Immersion

The stage where you immerse yourself in understanding and identifying the problem through intense research.

A major highlight of this stage is the Secondary research that involves research from secondary sources(like internet,books etc.) and existing solutions in the market around the given problem. The research ideally should give an in depth knowhow about the prevailing conditions/practices around the topic that ideally helps in building the groundwork for testing and analyzing the validity of the gathered data and assumptions in the next stage called the..

Stage 2 : Exploration

The most critical stage in the design process that involves validating the findings from the Secondary research through Primary Research(PR) methodology. PR involves identifying the potential target users/people who might be facing the problem or fit the description of the users who might adopt the final solutions.

Interviews though various tools(questionnaire, photo journalling etc ) are carried out that generates valuable data around the pain points of the users, their belief systems and behaviours are uneartheed. These data help in insight generation(what is the reason behind the current situation) that further help us in generating potential ideas around the pain points.

2a. Qualitative Research:

Qualitative research relies on data obtained by the researcher from first-hand observation, interviews, questionnaires (on which participants write descriptively), focus groups, participant-observation, recordings made in natural settings, documents, and artifacts. The data are generally nonnumerical.

Qualitative researchers study individuals’ understanding of their social reality.

It gives an in depth data and insight into the selected group of users around the particular topic that helps in designing deep and meaningful solutions

Due to the limited number of participants involved, data can be over generalized or over simplified. Data acquired might be too specific if a future scaling up of the solution is the plan.

2b. Quantitative research:

Quantitative research is a research strategy that focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of data.

Data generated is in numerical form such as statistics, percentages, etc. for e.g. male -female ration in india, literacy percentage.

The researcher analyses the data with the help of statistics and hopes the numbers will yield an unbiased result that can be generalized to some larger population.

Quantitative research sometimes complement the specific non numerical data of qualitative research by quantification and scaling up.

Stage 3 : Intervention

The solution generation stage where the designers and the other non user stakeholders help shape the solution and its details.

The stage generally begins with a closer study of the insights gathered from the Exploration stage.

A typical brain storming session leads to generation of an idea pool(also called as divergent thinking where all and every possible idea is imagined). Many of these ideas are clubbed together in similar idea pools (convergent thinking).

These ideas are generally passed through the 3 fold lenses of Desirability(what might look good/features), viability(whether it is affordable to the end user to the other financial stakeholders) and feasibility(what is technologically possible/whether it can be manufactured using current technology). Mockups/sketches/models/prototypes are made for the next stage.

Stage 4: Demonstration

The testing phase of the process where the solution in form of interactive prototype is tested in participation with the primary and/or secondary users. Active questioning and passive observation helps in generation of feedback and bringing forth shortcomings in the proposed solution that may be pointed out by the user or observed during the user-solution interaction.

Further stages may involve taking the solution through another cycle to resolve identified issues or make it ready for launching and possible scaling up. Later an impact study may also be conducted to ascertain how the solution may have helped the user’s life or ease of performing the intended function positively or negatively.

Conclusion

Ironically we can name this as the IEID methodology. Easier to recall yet very efficient. Furthermore, you can refer to the Human Centered Design Kit of IDEO for case studies that effectively utilized this process to resolve myriad challenges.