Design mapping. UX2.0

Perhaps once everyone had a feeling “Yes! I did it”. Right now someone is overwhelmed with inspiration, drugged by befallen success, someone still recalls recent achievements with a smile, and someone may have been fighting for a big goal quite a while, trying not to lose heart, making small
progresses each and every day. In either way, our achievements are essential and vital mechanism which give us energy to move on.

When we started creating our own communication system, we wanted to find a new, somewhat unusual, somewhat still familiar approach. But it certainly should have been something else, different from partnership relationship exhausted by corporate dryness.

For sure, as you have guessed it right, it’s really a task to invent something new these days. I won’t insist that in the end we turned the world upside down. Though, something has changed. And, as it turned out, very significantly.

This is exactly that success and joy I’ve mentioned above. Here in our office we call it a Design Map.

What kind of a beast is this design map?

• Design map excludes prototyping from the web-development process.
• It creates the detailed intellectual object of the product. 😧
• It synchronises understanding of the product between a business owner and our team.
• It creates background for the right questions.

And we wouldn’t be that sure if after such an approach we haven’t noticed how our partners’ — yes, that’s the right word — products became strong constructions with balanced forces.

What was the most important in creation of new communication?

Firstly, it’s an opportunity to be present in 2 places at the same moment. Sounds futuristic, doesn’t it? Yes, we are quite a bit of futurists who do not write off the history. In other words, one can say that any product is described in the frames of the declared system. Inner processes of a product exist inside this system and can be regulated from the inside. But in order to determine what this product actually is we must go beyond the system and become an observer. It may sound somewhat confusing. Practically it looks like diving into product depths, building all necessary processes needed for its vital functions; or putting the product under the microscope, examining it as an integral unit, determining how the product lives and interacts with the real world.

Secondly, hierarchy. Quite literally we spell out everything. The whole product always lines up with the rule “parent-child-”. As a result, we receive outright high intuitive interface. Meanwhile we maintain users’ spirit strength and reduce the bounce rate. Just a fairy-tale.

Thirdly, scaling. Imagine how you zoom the photo on your phone with your fingers. The same can be done with a design map — a project can be viewed under any zoom.

But how does it look like — probably you’ll ask. Maybe you will be surprised, but first of all, these are letters. Many letters. Design map is a manifest, a small constitution. The whole product in described in a story-like-and-technical-production format. And only then a few graphic elements may appear whenever necessary.

Nobody will read. Nobody has time. Who needs it. Only prototype gives you understanding of the product. One can run tests and gather metrics with the help of prototype — here and there experts echo in all publications. Yes, they are right. They are right, that there is a proven method presenting companies somewhat satisfactory result. But where would have been the humanity if it hasn’t tried to invent something new? All the benefits that we use today are the fruits of the enthusiasts’ fantasies.

A design map is more than a description of a structure.

Remember “do not think about an elephant” joke? You probably know (if you are not a pumped Taoist) that after visualising image of an elephant it is practically impossible to get rid of thoughts about it. And so on until you kick out an elephant with someone or something else. The prototype for the designer is an elephant. Approaching design graphic implementation, the designer will always be limited by the conditions of the prototype. There are so many buttons: one over there, another over here, a logo over here, a menu over here, etc. “So that’s the point!” — say all adherents of prototyping. Well, not even close. In today’s world it is no secret that design is not just a beautiful picture. Design is a big thing. This is how a product works including everything: a beautiful picture, product operations on the client side, visual communication, and even server-side work. In other words, this is all that a digital product consists of. Therefore, we never constrain the designer within graphic frames, and as a result we get a designer who thinks in all directions, creating not only a picture, but a product that works. So simple.

What about partners? Where do they find time for all this fiction, and what for? They pay money and all that stuff. We answer. Business owner or manager who does not know what he is doing and why is doing, gets something, no one knows what, why, and what for. Those who have already stepped on the rake with the most hard-hitting comment from a client “we want to insert this here” understand very well that it simply kills the whole concept, which executor carefully stores in the bowels of his mind. Account managers run in panic, trying to please clients, designers tear hair on their heads seeing how their child turns into a monster, front-end developers rage and burn out like bulbs due to constant voltage swing. The reason is clear as a day: a customer does not know what you are doing there. He briefed you, threw the logo in PNG and drove on to do his own business. And then he just wanted it like that. Later, at the appointed time, he comes for the finished product tied with a pink bow that he will immediately like. But miracles, alas, happen rarely.

We, however, put the whole project into the customer’s head with all the details from the very beginning, and he becomes our partner in the development process with this vibrant undertaking. And what is more important, we’ve got the same concept of the system and can speak the same language. Doing so, the percentage of strange edits reduces significantly. Only constructive offers. To make this happen, we prepare a presentation with a very detailed review. After a meeting, a partner owes the document — a tool that does not allow to turn off the intended path in the future.

An example of our design map can be found here:

https://fiddle.digital/pdf/dm.pdf (eng version will be available soon)

So don’t we need prototypes at all? Of course, we do. In my opinion, being categorically polar is all demonic. The world does not consist of black and white. And we have situations where this is simply necessary. Although with such projects we just drift apart without meeting each other’s eyes.

Good news. 2020 becomes a year when you can order Design Map for free. To have more info drop us a line at hello@fiddle.digital