Design Process Articles & Videos

  • Discovery Mapping Methods

    Mapping can help UX practitioners synthesize insight into one place and visualize the problem space. This video covers 3 maps that are often utilized during the discovery phase of a UX design project: ecosystem maps, experience maps, and process maps.

  • Overcoming Service Blueprinting Frustrations

    Our research with UX practitioners found 3 main areas of frustrations with service-blueprint projects. Here are recommendations for overcoming or alleviating these problems.

  • Sympathy vs. Empathy in UX

    Sympathy acknowledges that users are having difficulties, but empathy goes further by understanding the users' needs and motivations.

  • 5 Prioritization Methods in UX Roadmapping

    The best prioritization method depends on project context, team culture, and success criteria.

  • Context Adds Value to UX Artifacts

    In a museum, knowing the backstory of an artifact makes it more interesting. Similarly, in a UX project, you can make better decisions when you know the context of your UX artifacts like journey maps and wireframes.

  • UX Mapping Methods: Study Guide

    Unsure how to get started using UX mapping methods? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn how to visualize UX insights and ideas into mapped visualizations.

  • Separate UX Backlogs in Agile

    Agile development teams that struggle to keep track of UX work in the product backlog can utilize a separate backlog for UX. This method can help siloed teams where UX and development aren't in direct communication. Separate UX backlogs do have pros and cons, which are discussed here.

  • Facilitating UX Workshops: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to start designing and facilitating UX workshops.

  • A Designer's Identity

    What does it mean to be a "designer?" Let's broaden the definition, based on the purpose, not the discipline. (Keynote by our Chief Designer, Sarah Gibbons)

  • Translating UX Concepts into Design Practice

    Edgar Anzaldua presents a 6-year case study of learning and applying ever-more subtle UX concepts and growing his influence. Always something new to learn, from junior to senior professional level.

  • Design Thinking: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn about design thinking.

  • Problem Statements in UX Discovery

    In the discovery phase of a UX project, a problem statement is used to identify and frame the problem to be explored and solved, as well as to communicate the discovery’s scope and focus.

  • UX vs. Service Design

    User experience is focused on what the end user encounters, whereas service design is focused on how that user experience is internally created.

  • Four Factors in UX Maturity

    Improving UX maturity requires growth and evolution across 4 high-level factors: strategy, culture, process, and outcomes.

  • Design Thinking in Practice

    Teams who don't know much about UX, often ask you "so when will you give us the design?" during the early design-thinking stages. Areej Aljarba used design thinking itself to overcome this misconception. (Video from 'Back in the Real World' panel with past UX Conference participants.)

  • How to Draw a Wireframe (Even if You Can’t Draw)

    Even people with limited drawing abilities can learn to sketch a wireframe if they learn a few common conventions used to represent various design elements.

  • Derailed Design Critiques: Tactics for Getting Back on Track

    Feedback during design critiques can be filled with hypothetical scenarios and unactionable suggestions. The right facilitation techniques help stakeholders and team members stay on track while still feeling heard.

  • UX Workshops vs. Meetings: What's the Difference?

    How do you decide whether to have a meeting or a workshop for a given problem or stage of your UX design process? Both involve a group of people, but there are 5 big differences, and the two formats work for different situations.

  • UX-Roadmapping Workshops: Agenda + Activities

    Collaboratively create a UX roadmap in a workshop setting by guiding participants through activities that familiarize them with the project goals, context, and inputs and that identify key roadmap themes and priorities.

  • Three Levels of Pain Points in Customer Experience

    Pain points are problems that occur at the different levels of the customer experience: interaction level, customer-journey level, or relationship level.

  • Discovery Mapping Methods

    Mapping can help UX practitioners synthesize insight into one place and visualize the problem space. This video covers 3 maps that are often utilized during the discovery phase of a UX design project: ecosystem maps, experience maps, and process maps.

  • Overcoming Service Blueprinting Frustrations

    Our research with UX practitioners found 3 main areas of frustrations with service-blueprint projects. Here are recommendations for overcoming or alleviating these problems.

  • Sympathy vs. Empathy in UX

    Sympathy acknowledges that users are having difficulties, but empathy goes further by understanding the users' needs and motivations.

  • Context Adds Value to UX Artifacts

    In a museum, knowing the backstory of an artifact makes it more interesting. Similarly, in a UX project, you can make better decisions when you know the context of your UX artifacts like journey maps and wireframes.

  • Separate UX Backlogs in Agile

    Agile development teams that struggle to keep track of UX work in the product backlog can utilize a separate backlog for UX. This method can help siloed teams where UX and development aren't in direct communication. Separate UX backlogs do have pros and cons, which are discussed here.

  • A Designer's Identity

    What does it mean to be a "designer?" Let's broaden the definition, based on the purpose, not the discipline. (Keynote by our Chief Designer, Sarah Gibbons)

  • Translating UX Concepts into Design Practice

    Edgar Anzaldua presents a 6-year case study of learning and applying ever-more subtle UX concepts and growing his influence. Always something new to learn, from junior to senior professional level.

  • Design Thinking in Practice

    Teams who don't know much about UX, often ask you "so when will you give us the design?" during the early design-thinking stages. Areej Aljarba used design thinking itself to overcome this misconception. (Video from 'Back in the Real World' panel with past UX Conference participants.)

  • UX Workshops vs. Meetings: What's the Difference?

    How do you decide whether to have a meeting or a workshop for a given problem or stage of your UX design process? Both involve a group of people, but there are 5 big differences, and the two formats work for different situations.

  • 3 Principles of Design Thinking

    User-centered problem solving creates innovative products, based on observational research with real users, visual sense-making, and iterative design.

  • Collaborating With Stakeholders

    An 8-step process for UX designers and researchers to collaborate better with their stakeholders, for increased collaboration, to help stakeholders meet their goals, and to ensure the impact of your work.

  • Planning Will Save Your UX Workshop

    Advance planning and having thought through alternatives can save you when facilitating a UX workshop and the unexpected happens (as it always does). Jan Haaland shares his experience during a panel with past participants in the UX Conference.

  • 7 Fundamental Activities for UX Workshops

    At the core of all the myriad of exercises and activity types in UX workshops are a simpler set of 7 foundational activities that can be blended to achieve the desired result.

  • Tips for Remote UX Design Collaboration

    With experience, UX teams have evolved techniques for better collaboration and design practices to involve and engage remote and distributed team members. With participants at the Virtual UX Conference.

  • Product Redesigns: Incremental or Overhaul

    Redesigning a user interface can be done in many smaller incremental releases, or as one big complete redo. Big change is risky, but necessary in 3 cases.

  • First Diverge, Then Converge During UX Workshops

    A general technique that's helpful in many kinds of UX workshops and design ideation is to first have team members work independently to create diverging ideas and solutions. Then, as a separate step, everybody works together to converge on the final outcome.

  • Intranet Vision

    A clear vision gives the team something to aim for, and this is especially important for intranet projects, which often involve contributors from many different departments or functions.

  • Dot Voting in the UX Design Process

    In UX design, you always have to prioritize. Features, personas, usability problems, and the list goes on. Dot votes are a simple way to find the group sense of what's the most important.

  • Facilitation 101

    The facilitator of a UX workshop, meeting, or other team activity anywhere in the design process has the job of enhancing the group's performance by optimizing the process through structure, activity, and guidance.

  • 4 Steps to Getting Started with DesignOps

    To launch a new design operations practice in a company, prioritize and aim for manageable and achievable first steps. Preferably measurable ones that can prove value and form the basis for subsequent steps.

  • Journey Mapping 101

    A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal.

  • What Is Design Thinking, Really? (What Practitioners Say)

    The majority of UX and design professionals define design thinking roughly the same, regardless of industry and experience, but there’s no agreement on the specifics.

  • UX Debt: How to Identify, Prioritize, and Resolve

    Like tech debt, UX debt piles up over time and, if left unaddressed, leads to compounding user problems and costly cleanup efforts. Agile teams can modify their processes to track and resolve UX debt.

  • Case Study: Iterative Design and Prototype Testing of the NN/g Homepage

    The NN/g homepage redesign relied on rapid iterative prototyping, and usability testing, to balance multiple design objectives.

  • A Model for Conducting UX Workshops and Exercises

    To ensure activity participants get the most out of UX activities, use a three-step process to conduct them: explain, execute, and examine.

  • Storyboards Help Visualize UX Ideas

    Storyboards are visual representations of UX stories, which capture attention, provide clarity, and inspire us to take action.

  • Using Prioritization Matrices to Inform UX Decisions

    Visuals such as charts and matrices can help practitioners base important decisions on objective, relevant criteria instead of subjective opinions.

  • In Defense of Post-its

    Sticky notes strengthen team dynamics and represent an egalitarian, concise means for expressing ideas in UX design projects.

  • UX Expert Reviews

    Expert reviews involve the analysis of a design by a UX expert with the goal of identifying usability problems and strengths.

  • The 5 Steps to Service Blueprinting

    Five key steps comprise a framework for service blueprinting that can be scaled to any scope or timeline.

  • Why Personas Fail

    Personas are useful tools for UX work, so why do they often fail? Find out what pitfalls cause personas to fail, and how to avoid and overcome them.

  • Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking

    Visualizing user attitudes and behaviors in an empathy map helps UX teams align on a deep understanding of end users. The mapping process also reveals any holes in existing user data.

  • How to Deal With Bad Design Suggestions

    Gracefully respond to unsolicited design ideas, and prevent them from derailing good design. Turn them into UX learning experiences.

  • UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet

    Empathy maps, customer journey maps, experience maps, and service blueprints depict different processes and have different goals, yet they all build common ground within an organization.

  • Ideation in Practice: How Effective UX Teams Generate Ideas

    Data from 257 UX professionals shows that quality UX ideas come from ideating early in the design cycle, drawing inspiration from user research, and working with a group. Many struggle with generating ideas because they lack time, managerial support, and a methodology for conducting effective ideation sessions.

  • 5 Strategies for Presenting UX Remotely

    Master remote presentations by creating the right environment, being human, reducing distractions, taking control, and telling a story.

  • Service Blueprints: Definition

    Service blueprints visualize organizational processes in order to optimize how a business delivers a user experience.

  • Troubleshooting Group Ideation: 10 Fixes for More and Better UX Ideas

    Groups can bias individuals and impact collaborative ideation. A focus on getting as many ideas as possible can mitigate some of the negative group effects.

  • Personas vs. Jobs-to-Be-Done

    Jobs-to-be-done focus on user problems and needs, while well-executed personas include the same information and also add behavioral and attitudinal details.

  • Service Design 101

    Service design improves the experiences of both the user and employee by designing, aligning, and optimizing an organization’s operations to better support customer journeys.