Behind the Curtain: Acquia’s Design Process
At Acquia, our UX/UI designers rely on a strong design process to help create great products that genuinely solve users’ challenges.
All too often, we find that people, even those within our own industry, often mistake our role as that of “making interfaces look pretty”.
Whilst designing great-looking products is certainly part of our job, how we get there is, arguably, where the “design magic” happens.
UX Design requires us to embrace ambiguity, to cut through the ‘noise’ and make sense of what problems we’re tasked to solve. To do this, we rely on our creative process to help us identify clear customer pain points and solve complex problems with thoughtful design.
What does the Design Process look like?
The design process typically depends upon various criteria including: the project requirements, the product, the company and the team.
Whilst there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach, there typically exists 5 key stages:
- Define
- Ideate
- Test
- Build
- Monitor
Our typical design process looks something like this:
1. Define:
This is the stage for information gathering, in order to better understand the “what” and “why” behind our users’ needs.
“What” users want (or think they need) so we can begin to understand “why” they need it.
Fortunately, at Acquia, we have a dedicated team of expert and experienced researchers who conduct much of their research in uncovering latent and explicit user needs through interviews, competitor/market research as well as data analysis. This wealth of information allows us to properly define the problem we are tasked to solve.
Potential artifacts:
- User Personas
- User Stories
- Use Cases
- User journey maps
- Summary of key insights/findings
Outcome:
- A clearly defined problem statement — “what are we trying to solve?”
2. Ideate:
This is where we take the well-defined problem statement and undertake a process of brainstorming and sketching potential solutions. Personally, this is my favourite part of the process because it’s really creative and it pushes me to think outside the box. Often the craziest, most far-out ideas are the best ones, or they at least serve as a great stimulus for other concepts.
Don’t expect simply to arrive at a magical solution straight out of the gate!
During ideation phase, we generate many, many different ideas. Some will be great, others not so much so. Adopting different ideation methodologies, from storyboarding to visualising user workflows, will help elicit diverse solutions. After many rounds of iterations, we’ll decide on a solution (or solutions) which we believe address the problem statement, which we then present to our users for their feedback (see stage 3: ‘Test’).
Potential artifacts:
- Storyboards
- Sketches
- Wireframes
- Prototypes
- User workflows
- List of potential ideas/solutions
Outcome:
- A well-defined, potential solution — it can be anything from a general concept to a visualised solution (i.e. wireframe and/or prototype).
3. Test:
We generally adopt a mixed approach of both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. We take our ideas from the previous stage and present it to our potential users so we can sense-check that our idea(s) suitably solves their problems and meets their expectations. Typically, we do this by getting clickable prototypes and/or medium fidelity mockups in front of real users to elicit their unbiased feedback. Whilst our users “think-aloud”, we also observe their behaviours and interactions with our proposed solution.
Potential artifacts:
- User interview scripts
- Interview recordings
Outcomes:
- Key findings and feedback
- Summary of recommended improvements/iterations
2.1 & 3.1 Iteration of ‘Ideation’ & ’Testing’
The ideation & testing phases are constantly iterative because no solution is ever perfect.
We are continuously iterating and refining our ideas and prototypes to ensure they are intuitive, user-friendly and genuinely solve the user’s pain points originally identified in the “Define” stage.
This is where having a clear Minimum Viable Product (MVP) definition is critical as it helps us draw a line as to when a product is ready to build and launch in market (versus us perfecting a product that may never get in the hands of our users).
Potential artifacts:
- Iterated versions of: wireframes, prototypes and/or concepts
- New findings and insights discovered that are then distilled into a summary of recommended improvements/iterations
Outcome:
- Iterated solution, based on the user feedback, that is ready to build
4. Build:
Once we’ve tested and validated our solution with potential users, we’re ready to build it! This is where we partner closely with our back-end and front-end engineering teams to implement our designs. We generally engage with our engineering team and other key internal stakeholders (e.g. Docs, Support, Sales) throughout the design process so that, when we arrive at this stage, our designs don’t come as a surprise and we have taken into consideration any back-end dependencies or constraints in our designs.
Potential artifacts:
- High-fidelity prototypes
- Detailed design specs (inc. detailed interaction patterns and listing out new components)
- Updated Components Library (Style Guide) (if applicable)
Outcomes:
- Back-end infrastructure is built to support our design (if applicable)
- Front-end interface is built based on our design
5. Monitor:
The process doesn’t end once our designs have been built! The monitoring of the result is often an overlooked step in the process but critical to fostering continuous improvement.
Monitoring the success of our designs ensures that we’re not “launching and leaving” but rather, “launching, learning and improving”.
It’s during this stage that we leverage a plethora of data to monitor the success of our design to help us determine what’s working and what’s not, so that we can iterate our solution to optimise it.
Potential artifacts:
- Qualitative data: customer feedback garnered through interviews, on-site visits or through support calls
- Quantitative research: product usage data, heat maps, surveys, financial analysis
Outcome:
- Concrete, data-driven insights with suggested improvements and next steps to improve our design
Why this design process?
At Acquia, we use this particular design process because it helps structure our thinking.
It’s a proven model that has worked well for us and it ensures that the customer is always at the heart of what we do.
Ultimately, there’s really no right or wrong way to approach design, as it’s a creative process in which differing ideas and opinions are fully embraced. Design is interesting and dynamic, but it’s also ambiguous and open-ended.
I believe design is about recognising that there is no such thing as “THE ONE” solution that solves every single problem. Rather, it’s the pursuit of searching out the many possible resolutions to getting there that makes it so much fun!
Acquia is the open source digital experience company that empowers the world’s most ambitious brands to embrace innovation and create customer moments that matter. If you’re a talented UX/CX Designer or Researcher, come join us! We’re growing our team. Check out our open positions.
