Understand Your Business and Your Customer: A Lesson from UX Models
There are a number of UX models, but here are the most commonly used.
If there’s one thing that becomes evident when studying any of these models, it’s the importance of doing your homework! You need to know your customers/users and really understand your business and market before doing anything else.
Todd Zaki Warfel’s UX Model
‘Discovery & Research’ are right at the beginning of this process. User research helps with Functional Design of the product, which informs the Requirements Definition.
Content Inventory is where content is compiled into a big list and analysed. For Information Architecture (IA), Interaction Design (ID), User Interface (UI) Design and Usability, business objectives and user goals are explored. The technology to fit the needs of these is selected, which will be developed in the next three phases.
This model highlights that information about users, existing content and the business are necessary at the beginning of the process, before moving onto Interaction Design, Visual Design and, finally, Engineering.
David Armano’s UX Model
In this model, everything begins with the customer, as shown in the first phase, ‘Uncover’.
Similar to the model above, information is gathered about the business and the customer: personas, behaviour mapping and shadowing (observations), as well as branding. Technology landscape is also outlined. This could be through a competition analysis to see what other similar technology is available, as well as market analysis to see future trends and the latest developments in that technological field. All of this information feeds into the next phase called, ‘Define: The Experience Strategy’.
Having such insights to base ideas on for ideation sessions is key in the process of developing innovative products and solutions.
Namahn Design in Brussels
Field stories have their own path, with the report at the end, and there is no link to the rest of the pathways. The Research User Interface Topics is treated as a solution in its own right.
Stephen P. Anderson UX Model
Stephen says, “It’s all about People, their Activities, and the Context of those activities”. When designing a product, we ask: Who are the people we are designing for? What is the activity (or activities) they are trying to do? And what are the contexts in which they are trying to operate?
“People are more than users”: understanding activities looks more at a task or use case and the context is more than a platform. At Snap Out, this is where we believe that having an understanding of social and cultural psychology and sociology really helps us to understand the context of individual behaviour.
James Kelway’s UX Model
The first stage, “Scope”, is utililised through having a good understanding of “Business Intelligence”, including Business Analysis and Information Architecture. Business analysis is conducted by the Project and Account Managers through a SWOT review, competitor analysis and analysis of business culture. The Information Architecture is conducted by the UX team, to create a Content Audit (similar to Warfel’s UX Model), Heuristic Evaluation and Stakeholder Interviews. Interviewees can range from end-users to decision-makers.
Overall, most of the models seek a business analysis of goals, competition and the product, alongside an understanding of the people who are buying or using the product (customers and users). Both of these areas, across all models, are key building blocks to developing products that are user-centric, that can be delivered within organisational constraints, within or perhaps outside existing markets and with a view of trends and other factors (Political, Economic, etc) that will impact the development of the product.
For more information about these models and a fantastic read about User Experience and User Research, go to The User Experience Team of One: A Research + Design Survival by Leah Buley (or follow her @ Leah Buley).
The Snap Out Team 🚀
