Day 38 — Process series 7/7: “Design Process Comparison”
When taking on a new project, with all the different design processes one can choose from, what would be a wise way to select one over the others?
Quick Recap before Comparison
In this series, we introduced the following design process models:
1. Double Diamond
A visualize framework that describe a general design models. The value is to communicate with stakeholders the idea of 1) 4 stages of typical design activities, and 2) the idea of diverge and converge on ideas and directions. Because of it’s high level of abstractness, it can be applied on top of any other types of design process framework like Design Thinking, Lean UX, etc.
2. Design Thinking
Comparing to other methods that emphasize “testing the solution with customer early and often”, Design Thinking put more weight around insights discovery through research and other pre-solution customer engagement. In other words, redefine the problem to solve through early customer engagement, before proposing any form of potential solutions.
3. Google Design Sprint
A tactical framework that condenses Design Thinking framework into a one-week group-exercise model. With the customized activities for the one-week collaboration, teams can quickly solve a key piece of the bigger problem and get real user feedback.
4. Lean UX
A framework aims to shorten the waterfall process replacing traditional design deliverables with collaborative prototype-creation in order to get feedback faster and reshape the solutioning strategy
Who use What, How and When
Having a good understanding of these popular design process, now we’re ready for more in-depth comparison, to determine what’s right for us in what situation. First, let’s breakdown what we need to be mindful about:
A. Compared by Desired Outcome
- Customer Value: How much do we know about the value of our customer? Are we running on assumptions that haven’t been validated yet? SOLUTION: If we don’t have much evidence to justify our “product belief”, Design Thinking will be a better tool so that we ensure we’re solving the right problem
- Business Result: Similar to customer value, do we have a clear vision of what the business is trying to achieve? How does the product strategy fits in to the holistic business strategy? How do we measure success in business rather than just product performance? SOLUTION: If we haven’t got those straight out, Design Thinking would be more efficient than other product-focused design process, for the purpose of getting the right metrics of product performance.
- Innovative Culture & Digital Transformation: When it comes to longer term success like culture and digital transformation, the considerations fall into two buckets: 1) Is there established culture and rituals of learning? and, 2) Is creativity valued in the organization? SOLUTION: If the culture of learning has not been established yet, utilizing Lean UX and Google Design Sprint can bring us quick wins with smaller investment. Once the learning culture is embedded in the process, we can identify real problems to solve. At this stage, it’s easier to push for integrating more creativity in problem solving skills into the process.
B. Compared by Process Readiness
We’ve talked about all the exciting stuff like vision, customer value, and business outcome. However, not every organization or team is ready for driving the changes. Here I’m listing some key considerations below:
- Organization culture: Most of the design process mentioned require significant investment in order to do it right. For example, hiring agency or consultant to teach the skill set, monitor the transformation progress, and provide coaching along the journey. It’s one thing to create corporate slogan, it’s another thing to really get it done. Serious mid-long term plan and continuous funding and support is the only way to make changes happen. SOLUTION: If the organization culture is not ready for a true design-led process, high-level framework like Double Diamond is something considered less intrusive and has wider acceptance.
- Team competencies: There have been some controversial opinions about the effectiveness of Design Thinking. In the article of “Design Thinking is BS”, or “Design Thinking is Bullsh*t”, people argue that Design Thinking is not something can be implemented correctly without the right skill set and experience. Simply putting sticky notes on the wall is hardly a guarantee of product success; lots of good-old fashion design tasks need to be incorporated in order to ensure the quality delivery. SOLUTION: Among all design processes, Lean UX requires less new skill training and can be picked up easily by encouraging collaborations between designers and developers.
- Team attitude toward change: Lastly, but probably most important, the team attitude about adopting new design process. At the end of the day, it’s the project teams who implement the project deliveries; if teams are not mentally ready for a change, it’s difficult to be effective with new process and tools. SOLUTION: When considering adopting new design process, Google Design Sprint is a nice leeway for teams who are more resistant to changes; reason being it requires short time frame, less commitment from teams other than designers. Also the effect of showing quick wins within a week can help change people’s attitude toward design processes.
Compared by Project Nature
- Level of understanding of users: If the project is simply adding a new feature on a well-established and successful product in which we’ve created effective persona, then it might be wise to use Google Design Sprint to propose solutions and test with users. However, if we have limited understanding of users, it’s more important to utilize Design Thinking to define the problem to solve by understanding true/ hidden user needs, than jumping into solution mode.
- Experience principle: Have the team establish the experience principles yet? For example, the experience principles of utility app or transaction base like shopping cart are usually around usability area (e.g. fast, intuitive), while content consumption service will have a different set of principles (e.g. desirable). If we have all the “homework” done and just want to verify the effectiveness of solutions, Lean UX is a process that can solicit all the realistic feedback across the whole spectrum (assumptions from design, development, & business)
- Level of uncertainty of the project: We don’t know what we don’t know. The level of uncertainty could be a deal breaker. In a project with high uncertainty (e.g. unclear project roadmap, funding, leadership), it’d be better to quickly create low fidelity deliverables as a conversation starter. Google Design Sprint is a good way to drive teams to communicate and unlock project transparency.
Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoy this Design Process series. All these processes are great when used right. I also believe that there will be more design thinkers and new processes created for different needs. For example, the fast growing AI and agentive technology might require different way to solve ethical problems, which are really addressed much in today’s software product industry. I’m curious about your thoughts and would love to see your response!
ABC. Always be clappin’.
