The Dimensional Design Process — The First Dimension

As we previously mentioned, a core philosophy we follow at Incipient is known as the “Dimensional Design Process.” Recently, founder and CMO of Social Marketing Solutions John White covered our process in Inc.

In simple words, we follow this process to segment our client’s thoughts and establish a clear strategy for an MVP in addition to a scalable roadmap. By stripping down the idea to its bare essential form, we create result-orientated goals based on the core functionality or concept we are seeking to validate.

The best way to understand the “Dimensional Design Process” is by thinking of building a house in terms of three dimensions. We’ve written about all three in the links shared previously but this article focuses on “Dimension One.” Let’s get into it.

Dimension One

“Dimension One” focuses establishing the foundation and structural elements of the product that we will seek to iterate and vet throughout the remaining dimension. It consists of a dynamic balance of both the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX).

It’s the blueprint phase. If you’re building a house, you have already established the real estate and it’s time to establish the structural elements of your home. You’ve thought about how many bedrooms and bathrooms there will be. You’ve thought whether you’d like a basement or not. You’ve visualized the general purpose and utility of each room.

In our analogy, this translates to what our core features are. In the first dimension, you’ve asked yourself what solution your product will provide. You’ve thought about the functionality of its features and what sort of value it brings to the user. You’ve defined the components necessary to successfully execute the define function.

Upon the conclusion of this dimension, we should have the core structural components and relationships or flows of these components defined in a hierarchical matter.

Discovery, Review of Provided Assets and Project Documentation

The first step of “Dimension One” is to review any and all provided documentation from the client, in addition to the requirements built out for the initial scope. If the client has no existing materials for their project, then there are a few exercises you can complete to get a better understanding of how they envision their product.

Here’s one of our questionnaires we use to gain a deeper understanding of our client’s mission and vision. To kickoff this process we typically do a workshop or one-hour collaboration call. At the end of this call, you should be able to answer the following questions.

1. What is the problem that we are seeking to solve?
2. How do we plan to solve said problem?
3. What core elements or features are required for a full solution?
4. What is the general flow or hierarchy the user will experience?

In the example you can see some PowerPoint wireframes that one of our clients provided to us upon us engaging. In our first meeting, our goal was to answer the questions above. By understanding their vision, we were able to align everyone’s high-level perspectives for our team to execute the next steps. Our understanding involved a complete analysis of each one of their designs to define each feature’s role in the full solution and completing a simple app flow.

Establish the Initial UX through a User-Centric Approach

Once all stakeholders and our team are aligned with expectations, we proceed to vetting the initial expectations through a user centric approach.

A user centric approach is a framework of processes in which “usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or process are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process.”

Utilizing the foundation established in the initial meeting, our team seeks to complete a contextual analysis with an emphasis on both visibility and accessibility of the product. This is done to identify the core functionalities and the relations each one has or doesn’t have with another.

Upon the completion of this step you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Which features have direct relationships and/or indirect relationships?
2. What are the core features that need to be easily accessible to the user?
3. What role do the secondary features play in providing the solution?
4. How does the user flow throughout the application at a high level?

In order to answer these questions, it can be helpful to close your eyes and complete visualization exercise to put yourself in the position of the future user. Leveraging empathy, envision yourself experiencing the problem you are seeking to solve and logging into your product. What are the key elements that you need to be presented with first to solve that problem and how do the other features play a role?

In our example below, you can see what the core features or flows are along with sub-features. Plus, you get a better understand of the relation between the core features and how a user would be directed through them.

UI Sketches

Establish general expectations of core functionalities, related components and flow of product in the form of a sketch. Now that we know what the core elements of the product are and how they relate and co-exist, we know what to begin with to establish a more concrete foundation.

You want to complete this initial process in sketch form because there are still a lot of assumptions and high-level information. By completing them with free hand, the initial turnaround is much quicker and any modifications take minutes without the barrier of having to edit digital files.

This is an iterative process that can be replicated multiples times also taking into consideration different user exercises such as card-sorting (“a process involving sorting a series of cards, each labeled with a piece of content or functionality, into groups that make sense to users”) which will indicate where users feel content belongs and how it should be grouped on the site. From this information we can derive the users’ ideal structure for the information architecture, developing a high-level site map of the website.

Using the user-centric flow established above as our framework, we seek to define each screen that is associated with the process.

As you look to you outline all of the screens ask yourself the following questions per design:

1. What is the solution this screen is providing?
2. What data needs to be presented or collected to complete the solution?
3. What is the best way to present the components to the user?
4. How does this transition or tie into the next series of screens?

When you complete this process, you should have a sketch for each core element along with the data. Components defined in step one should exist within the proper feature.

Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

Here’s the end result of the first dimension. After vetting out the flow, completing user evaluations and finalizing the structural components per screen, you move to digital renderings. You now have the core framework and structure for the product. Ideally, no changes will be made structurally from here on out. “Dimension One” lays the entire foundation of the product and first iterative process. The second dimension embarks on a chapter to add branding, complete visual designs and create a prototype.