PROXSYS: Product System Experience Design. A Must read for UX Designers

Krishna Maniyar
Sep 1, 2018 · 8 min read

Have you ever being asked to rework on a project you have been working on for a considerable amount of time, having had done all necessary research and implemented the best design practices & keeping the customers in mind but it does not make the mark because the stakeholders have something else in mind or the design/product does not align with their thought process? It is frustrating to see all the time and effort being dumped down the drain because the stakeholders don’t get it.

PROXSYS Design is a step by step process to systematically attain product goals starting from scratch to delivering a technologically sound product. The PROXSYS Process has been derived after have worked on multiple projects involving multiple stakeholders in the fast moving startup world taking care of keeping your work and stakeholders on the same page.

1. Understanding the Problem Statement:

It all begins with the definition of the problem, understanding, articulating and accepting the shortcomings of a system, process or product.

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2. Validating the Problem Statement:

A brief or problem statement can be the result of Market Analysis, Market trend, Competitive Analysis, Product enhancement or the need to reinvent Product based on multiple sources of data. The need can arise from the Sales team or the Tech team or the BoDs for the betterment of the product and the company but it is your Job to analyze the need and validate its presence. The brief should align with the Product road map and should justify the time & effort that goes behind it for the impact it would be essentially creating. As the Product owner, it would be your call accept or reject or modify the brief and validate the Problem statement with a clear understanding of the end goal and its results.

Unless you believe that the problem statement is a valid one, you would never be able to build a product that solves that problem, as you would empathise with the problem.

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When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. — Elon Musk

3. Brainstorm

Have an open discussion with the major stakeholders about the problem, understand their point of view, ear their inputs and understand their approaches. As the product owner, it gives you a broader understanding of the problem and a higher vantage point to tackle the brief. Put out all ideas that come up based on past experiences, successful case-studies, competitor analysis or a proposed thesis. Debate and discuss these ideas until you filter down to about 2–3 approaches to build the product.

While at it sketch down your thoughts, jot down your points and document all of it. The documents play an important role on defining the ‘Initial Outline’ of the Product.

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4. Information Architecture

One of the most crucial parts in building a great Product Eco-System is defining it’s Information Architecture. Breaking down the entire flow of information & interaction by the user since their introduction to the product till the completion of goal by or on the product

A users interaction with the product does not start when the user on-boards or signs up. The interaction begins since the time the user first takes notice of the products existence.

The Products first information flow happens with its first appearance to the user. The first interaction is crucial as it determines if the user will or will not use the product

A complete architectural overview takes care of the Product Offering, overview of the results & final outcome, Progress & Milestones, Rewards & gratification and answers whats ‘Next’.

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5. Conceptualisation

Conceptualisation can happen in multiple stages and multiple ways. The essential core of conceptualisation is to sketch down your ideas and thoughts and convert them into product sketches that are aligned with the approaches you came up while brainstorming. Once you check all the elements and aspects necessary are in place, head for the wire-frames.

6. Tech Feasibility

Once you are ready with the product concepts, present it to the Tech Team or the respective stakeholders for the feasibility of the product. This helps determine if the concepts are feasible to be built with the existing technology and estimate the time, effort and resources needed.

Tech feasibility allows the team to understand if the Product concept expectations are unreal and make amends before working it out to perfection and getting it rejected at its finish line. This also helps the other teams plan and accommodate their time for the development of a new product/feature/update..

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7. Prototyping and Testing

Prototyping can have multiple levels of finesse. A functional only (MVP) prototype to an aesthetically brilliant piece of art, it all depends upon the purpose. The purpose can be to validate the hypotheses the product was built upon or for a future showcase of the company progress for Marketing or investment opportunities. At the end of the day, the prototype should do what it was made to do.

A concept product is an amalgamation of hypotheses, research & innovation without real world validation. A product can be revolutionary in it’s potential and built keeping the simplest of interactions in mind but there is no real way to determine if the product will be successfully used or if it will penetrate the target market without User Testing it first. User testing is done with a set of users falling in the target audience group your product is targeted at where the Users interact with the Product and perform a set of tasks specified before hand. It is suggested to the Users to speak out loudly of what they feel and think are doing to help the observers understand their thought flow clearly. Their behavior & interaction is closely monitored by the observers and documented. For a Visual interface or App, the screens can be recorded to understand and later evaluate how the user navigated & interacted, where did the user get stuck, how much time the users took to complete the task. All these metrics can later be compared to draw results of the test to validate the hypotheses.

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During user testing, always set objective goals that can be plotted across a metric, subjective feedback is almost always misleading. An analysis of the user test should end up in objective results that can be worked upon instantaneously (The text copy used in CTA was confusing/misleading) instead of having a subjective feedback (the product does not instill a sense of aspiration) that will wreck your mind and waste your time analysing the same product again.

User feedback is a key and an incredible tool at this stage as it will have a dramatic impact on the stakeholders. If the feedback is positive, the process will be faster and confidence levels would be higher and if the feedback is negative, it would help rethink the product and what mistakes were made before the product concept hits manufacturing/tech development as these processes are highly time consuming, expensive and involves high effort.

8. Final Prototyping & Phasing

With all the shortcomings corrected, hypotheses validated and prototypes tested build the final Product Prototype. This part of the process is the most fun as by the end of it you have a fully functional and tested product made from scratch.

Tech Products generally are difficult to implement in one go as Tech has multiple dependancies inside and outside of the product (existing framework, other services used..) and hence it is necessary to phase out the product in phases that are realistic for implementation in terms of time, technology & resources and outcome. The major Tech & Product stakeholders play an important role in the distribution of phases based on tech feasibility and business requirements.

Phase definition starts with the creation of MVP (Minimal Viable Product) and then adding layers to the MVP. Each layer has its own impact and value add. These phases are accompanied by a set of deadlines, which help in the execution of the product and structuring & following of the Product- tech pipeline.

9. Delivering Assets

The ready product needs to be share with the Tech team sytematically. Share all assets on a shared drive, upload all screens on Zeplin, if you are introducing animations in the interface, share examples of how they have been implemented and libraries to where they can find it.

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10. Product Presentation

With tech in motion and a clear understanding of the feature/product release it is a good practice to hold across team meet where you present the product or feature and talk about its positioning, potential, the problems solved by the product and products stand against the market leaders/competitors. The presentation gives the Sales & Marketing teams additional firepower to use in their next meetings and campaigns. The presentation allows you to educate the Sales team on how the product you have worked upon can be a game changer and clear off any doubts and concerns they might have.

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11. Product Experience Audit

Once the Tech delivers the product and the product passes the Quality Assurance (QA), the product team does a detailed audit of the experience delivered by the product. Matching font weights & time span between vibrations for haptic response to the time taken for a task to be completed on the product in multiple scenarios.

Once it passes the audit, the Product team waves the green flag for Product/Feature release. They provide documentation about the update, description of the release and update it across all platforms where the Product is accessible to pupil.

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There are more steps the product team can follow after the product release, one of them is taking feedback from the users after have given them enough time to use the product inside out. This helps the team analyse the impact the product has had on different verticals and allowing them to make a more informed decisions on their next steps.

I have used the PROXSYS process in B2C, B2B & a B2B2C companies and it has yeilded me great tangible results saving me a ton of time spent of reworking, fixing and analysing what went wrong.

I hope this helps you make a great product that helps humanity or saves the planet.

Cheers.

Krishna Maniyar

Written by

Founder of theapril.iO _ Reinventing the way Humans interact with Technology

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