Design Challenge 101 — Getting started & Practice

Twelve topics you should think and practice in the design exercise or works.

Credit: Daria Nepriakhina / Unsplash

Sometime I would talk about some idea or methods of work with my friends or colleagues, and some of them were from my experience. Therefore, I want to share some working practice or some worth to share knowledge. To let everyone could exchange thoughts and take reference.

Let’s dive in

First, I want to share about there is getting more and more company adding “Design Challenge(Design exercise)” into the interview process.

There are also two types of challenges which are “on-site whiteboard” and ”take-home exercise” and further adding this stage into the interview process; there is some reason behind the scenes:

1. To test interviewee’s specialized technique. (Hard skill)
   e.g., Whether you could understand the question and whether the solution could meet the standard?
2. To observe interviewee’s communication ability. (Soft skill)
   e.g., Whether you could clearly and precisely describe the design idea and solution?
3. To simulate the scenario whiling working with the colleague.
   e.g., How you handle with the opposite opinion from your colleague or management?
4. To provide an opportunity for the interviewee to demonstrate their potential.
   e.g., Couldn’t find a proper showcase to demonstrate in the portfolio, but think it has great potential.

Here I want to share a design framework, could show you a clear path to approach a problem and lead to a solution. It’s not only could use on Design Challenge but also suitable for your daily works, When you fulfill the content progressively, in the meantime you established the consensus for all the team member, to help everyone could have more understanding of the project, and have more confidence to manage the iteration and challenge in the future.

For the following topic, it would not all mandatory, you could still adjust for the criteria at the present.

1. Define the problem(Problem Statement), which included:

• Who has the problem?
  Define the Target Audience.
• What is the problem?
  Describe what problem they encounter.
• Where did they occur?
  Describe the scenario according to the problem.
• Why this is important?
  Describe the impact on the user and business value.

2. Goal

Describe what’s the purpose of the solution.

3. Research

It contains Qualitative and Quantitative research and analysis.

4. Requirements

If you want to achieve the goal, what requirements need to be complete?

5. Principle

Describe what postulate you’re base on to deliver your solution.

6. User Story

Describe needs and solutions from the user perspective.
e.g., As a user, I want to … to help me …。

7. Constrain

Apply Limitation or Assumption into consideration. No matter is the scenario, technique implementation, resource, priority of the project.

8. Task Flow/Flowcharts

Here could find some reference about Task Flow and Flowcharts.

UX Glossary: Task Flows, User Flows, Flowcharts and some new-ish stuff.

Source & credit: Naema Baskanderi / UX Planet

9. Success

How you define victory? What metrics could help you measure your solution?
e.g., CVR, CTR, User engagement time, Retention rate, NPS etc…。

10. Solution

You could utilize Low-fidelity wireframe or High-fidelity mockups to demonstrate the solution.
Also, it could adopt the Minimum Viable Product concept to deliver the first solution. How to verify the result with a simple and fast way?
More ideally, it could keep pushing and extending a well and reasonable Product roadmap.

11. Prototype

Provide an actionable prototype, not only could increase the efficiency of communication, but also provide a solid concept showcase.

12. Visual Design

Not just implement the visual design, also could taking consideration into the existing product, further extend to the concept of Design System.

Conclusion

The sharing above is a basic process of approaching the problem, mainly could lead your thinking and perception of the problem, moreover to help you and the team to address the solution.

You could probably wonder is there necessary to walk through the entire process every time? I would say if it could deliver a good solution then it is a good method to take. It’s not always guaranteed correct to follow the process or rule.
But if you could complete all the step of it, not only could provide a well-considered design process, but also could take it as a reference document. When it comes to reviewing the performance, it could check again what could adjust and fine tune in the next iteration.

If you like this article, please generous give me some clap👏. And I also welcomed to leave your comment or question below, to have me more understanding about what other topics you would interest to read.

Last but not the least, welcome to follow this channel, I am dedicating in sharing knowledge and experience which you could “Learn today, Practice tomorrow.”

Thank you and see you next time👋.