My UX Process
Empathise
Field Research
Meeting users in real life, observing them in their work environment, and asking the right questions is one of the most important steps to uncover what their needs and pain points are.
Field research presentation of how PG&E workers currently report map changes
Personas
Personas are generated from field research and interviews. They summarize who the users are and what their needs and pain points are so that they can be addressed in final designs.
Current Process Flows
The current process flow helps me verify with users and stakeholders what my understanding of the current process is. This flow also allows me to identify where the pain points are and areas of opportunity.
Electric workers current process of submitting map corrections.
Gathering statistics and data
Asking for the right data and statistics is also part of going to the field to understand users on an individual level, but getting stats on a higher level might be useful to uncover the entire landscape of the problem space as well.
Data on which departments submitted map corrections.
2. Define
COMPETITIVE Analysis
Seeking out examples in the wild to see how others have tried to solve your problem can help define your problem space, open up conversations with your stakeholders about how others have solved similar problems, as well as move into the next step of ideation.
Aspirational flows
Defining a proposed flow that targets the users pain points and needs should be defined and validated so that the designs can address these areas. This is a good asset to have in meetings to clarify with users and stakeholders if they think the proposed flow will have the desired outcome and either validate or invalidate my assumptions.
Aspirational flow of proposed new map corrections submission process.
Proposed flow for new Inspectors report submission process.
“How Might We” Questions
“How Might We” questions are derived from insights from interviews and research with users. Designers and stakeholders work together to vote on the most compelling HMW questions to take to the ideation phase.
Example of HMW questions from working with a client with a new startup idea for a fashion product.
3. Ideate
Hand sketching Ideas
Hand sketching is an easy and cost efficient way to get ideas in front of users and stakeholders to get initial reactions from them about the direction the idea is going. You can get quick feedback to validate your ideas, or feedback that the idea won’t work without investing too much time into an idea that might be wrong.
Crazy 8’s Ideation Session
Crazy 8’s is an easy way to ideate with user and stakeholders to get ideas across and lead you to ideas that you want to explore further.
Lo Fi Ideation in Figma
Figma is an online collaboration tool that has made it easy to collaborate with other designers and stakeholders to share lo-fi designs early on. In the case below, the client already had components in a design system, so ideating with existing visuals was beneficial to help the client imagine what the new design proposals would look like.
4. Prototype
Interactive Prototype
An interactive Invision prototype helps you see the new flow you designed in action to get a look and feel of how the final interaction might be.
5. Test
Once the prototype is complete, you can get feedback from real users in the field. With their feedback, you can iterate the designs to address areas where the users might have been confused or did not have the ideal user experience. This can be done remotely as well, where the user can share their screen while interacting with and talking through your prototype.
6. Repeat Prototype & Test phases as needed
It’s rare that you will get the design 100% right the first time, so it’s important to apply feedback from users and stakeholders to your designs, prototype and test as needed before finalizing your designs for development.
