Before handing on developing prototypes, sitemaps and wireframes, we need to raise questions regarding the product — as much as possible. So, nothing better than knowing the circle involving the user experience, whereas decisions based on user-centred design in User Experience Design projects.
The purpose of User Experience is to work to make it easy and pleasant interaction and user contact with your brand through its products or services, viewing elements, communication or usability. It’s essential to comprise all the variables such as desires, emotions and experience of a person.
UX step is disregarded in many projects. Some companies often “predict” behaviours or actions of their customers without study, research, or testing, just by feeling or do not know the use and value of your business process. We need to understand more about people and, therefore, to work with UX; we should create a checklist, starting with a method to organize the flow of ideas, since there are various areas of knowledge in a relationship at all times within a project, especially involving User Experience Design.
So we can work with four steps:
COLLECT PROBLEMS > IDEAS TO SOLUTIONS > SETTING SEGMENTAL PRIORITIES > WORKING IN IDEA
Kanban Board
We can use different UX design techniques to organize ideas, and one of them is Kanban (Visual Signaling). There are various apps and software that use this technique (like Trello). The frame and your sticky-notes are often used in room strategies. The main decisions are taken together, especially at the beginning of a digital project, including UX design.
Another tool that uses Kaban in a holistic view is 360 ° View. With it is possible to answer frequently asked questions of the business as a whole.
360-degree View Diagram
Business, Sales and Marketing
- What are the business goals?
- What is profitable?
Design and Research
- What do people need?
- What is useful and enjoyable?
Technology
- What is possible?
- What features can be built now or later?
At the intersection of UX, Business and Technology is the opportunity. This 360 ° view method is one of the best ways to analyze user needs. This type of diagram can be changed by updating the account in the project scope.
Proto-persona
It’s time to find out who is your user name, your needs, goals, behaviour (problems, hobbies, etc.), and demographic information. For this, a widespread exercise is a brainstorm with a short questionnaire among the UX team to each report their assumptions and observations about your target users and use your answers to create the first draft of proto-persona.
Soon after, you should group all the information and continue the design phase. All assumptions and data collected should be noted, especially on how to use your product/service.
Name the proto-persona and outline how they can be. It is essential to “humanize” the proto-persona: it needs to create empathy within your team and bring it to life in a way that your team can easily understand.
They may appear different profiles of people using your service or interface. So, you can create separate profiles, defining primary and secondary proto-personas, for example. However, it is essential to know that proto-persona is the beta version of the ultimate persona. We need to study this type of persona through interviews and survey research about the user.
Pro customized tool using Mural
Blueprint Strategy
Blueprint is a map showing all points of contact between consumer and brand, as well as the internal procedures necessary for this from happening interaction. It is useful to view the path that consumers run across multiple channels, for example (site, SAC, e-commerce) and to identify opportunities for improvement. — Fabrício Teixeira
UX strategy Blue Print
In the Blueprint strategy, we need to answer some questions on different boards. Here are some examples:
Challenges
- What problems are you trying to solve? What obstacles did you overcome?
Aspirations
- What are the ideal desired results?
- What do you want to achieve?
Focus areas
- What is the scope of the strategy?
- What are you going to focus on the most significant impact?
Guidelines
- How will we overcome the challenges?
- What specific mantras will guide the teams?
Activities
- What kind of activities solves problems?
- What capabilities reach their aspirations?
Measurements
- What kinds of measures do you employ?
- What metrics will be used to succeed?
Blueprint Strategy applied: considering the personas, interactions and emotions during the interaction. Source: servicedesigntools
According to the UX Blueprint strategic model, there is no initial risk of experimenting with alternatives: cross items, move notes, rework ideas, knead and start over. Here the strategy will be developed, starting with the challenges and aspirations.
After that, define where they fit. It exposes the strategic choice dependencies is an advantage of the Blueprint: allowing you to see all the elements at once. There are several situations in which you can use the Blueprint of the UX strategy, such as briefings or launch meetings, to guide the discussion and stay focused on the exercise, as it builds a panel based on consensus.
Consumer Journey Map
The consumer journey map is a guided graph that describes a user’s journey representing the different points of contact that characterize their interaction with the service.
In the Consumer Journey Map, the interaction is described step by step, emphasizing aspects such as the flow of information and devices. At the same time, there is a higher level of synthesis. Designers can define what motivates and the consumer’s real needs in this stage, analyzing each step of their navigation.
Customer Journey Example: Pricesmart App, by Sam Flores by Sam Flores
Stakeholders interviews
The stakeholders must go through an interview script, from company employees to external people concerned with the project’s approval. Here come the decision-makers in different aspects of the business. As they come from other areas, ideas can be shared anonymously to guarantee suitability. At this moment, the collection of insights is fundamental for the definition of business success goals and the prioritization of its functionalities.
Barbara Miotto, a designer based on the book Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services by Kim Goodwin, created an essential list that we share below:
* Replace these words with the names given to your project, product, etc.
About the product:
• What will this new product * be?
• What worries you about this product *? What’s the worst that could happen?
• What are the business expectations for this product *?
• What would you define as success?
• What do we still need to clarify?
• What are our biggest competitors?
About users:
• Who is this new product for *?
• What kind of interview with the user would be relevant to this project?
• Who do we expect users to be five years from now?
On the relationship of people with the project:
• What is your role in this project?
• I will talk to [person 1] *, [person 2] * and [person 3] *. Is there anyone else I should talk to?
Questions to Marketing stakeholders:
• Who are your customers today, and how could they be different five years from now?
• How does this product fit into the company’s product portfolio?
• What are [Brand] *’s most significant competitors? What are the company’s points of concern about them?
• How do you think this product could be differentiated?
• What do you think of the company’s current identity *, and how does it influence this project?
Practical information:
• What has already been defined about the project *? Who defined it?
• What are the requirements for this project *?
• What technical decisions were made?
• When will this new version be released?
There are numerous techniques for implementing UX strategy, and these are just a few of them.
