What’s Your UX Combo?
Imagine that the stage is set for the ideal product development conditions- the users have provided ample feedback, your research and testing are complete with better than expected results, and your team has just enough time until release to put the finishing touches on your product.
Sounds like a dream too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, let our team turn your dream into a reality. I’d like to introduce UX combos. A UX Combo is a set of UX methods selected for a given project, which can provide the best ROI for UX research, design and testing. Within the given resource constraints, namely access to users and time-to-market, UX Combos are a holistic approach to look at your UX efforts.
Click here to read the full article explaining UX Combos
Choosing your UX methods at the beginning of the project is a critical part of the UX Combo approach. If you don’t plan ahead of time, you may as well not use the UX Combo approach. Why? Deciding at the beginning of the project which UX methods you will pursue, will allow enough time to conduct each of the user experience methods properly. The main issues being:
- Getting users for sessions requires planning ahead
- WRT the feedback you get, you need time to digest, analyze, re-design, and build (and sometimes test again).
- If you plan in advance you can make sure users are involved in the optimal way (again, ROI)
With this approach, at the beginning of each project we now ask “What’s your UX Combo?” and have an instant and deep understanding of how we choose which UX methods are right for the project.
Want to boost your UX? Let WalkMe help you.
UX Methods are Grouped into 3 Stages on the Product Development Timeline
The first step for our team was to understand the relationship between the product timeline and the available qualitative user experience methods.
I’m mainly referring to the qualitative UX methods, since analyzing current user behavior data is less time sensitive and, sometimes, less relevant when you’re designing a new feature. This timeline brings UX designers and product managers on the same page by placing the main qualitative methods that we can pursue on top of the timeline at which point they become relevant. The methods are broken to two types: Those that involve users and those who don’t. The reason for this breakdown is to highlight the effort required to access users, and that your selection is very much dependent on that.
Take a look at the timeline below:
In high level, the UX methods are broken to three stages within the product/UX timeline:
- Research — Collecting requirements via stakeholders, users, competitors, etc.
- Design — UX Concepts and later on Wireframes
- Testing — Prototype testing, and usability testing (pre and post release)
Ideally, you would want to have at least one UX method incorporated from each of the three stages. This begins the feedback loop early which makes it possible for your final product to be in line with user needs from the beginning, and gives you additional opportunities to iterate and refine later on. What you don’t want to do is have all feedback gathered in one stage. If you wait till the end, you are likely to have more to fix than if you had relevant input in the beginning. Having feedback only in the middle or beginning means you won’t have information on your final product.
A UX Combo is a Mix of Methods, Represented on the Timeline
High Access to Users, Short Time to Market
In this case, I can squeeze in fairly easily the Requirement Capture AND Prototype Testing so I have two stages of user input. Based on these and if time presses, I should feel fairly comfortable to release the product and only test it after its launch, to minimize Time to Market.
High Access to Users, Long Time to Market
A different variation of the same approach can be achieved by replacing Concept Design and Concept Testing, with Participatory Design.
Low Access to Users, Short Time to Market
For the worst case scenario when you’re limited both with users and time, interview stakeholders, come up with concepts and test them with users.
Low Access to Users, Long Time to Market
If getting access to users is harder but time-wise you’re comfortable, then you need to be frugal with your users. In this scenario, work independently with non-user methods and involve the users only twice: to confirm assumptions via Concept Testing and to test the real thing before it’s out.
Use these four guides to help you plan your UX research methods:
Part 1: UX Methods for a Short Time to Market and Low Access to Users
Part 2: UX Methods for a Long Time to Market and High Access to Users
Part 3: UX Methods for a Short Time to Market and High Access to Users
Part 4: UX Methods for a Long Time to Market and Low Access to Users
