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.
Our research with UX practitioners found 3 main areas of frustrations with service-blueprint projects. Here are recommendations for overcoming or alleviating these problems.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pain points are problems that occur at the different levels of the customer experience: interaction level, customer-journey level, or relationship level.
We conducted research with UX professionals and designers to find out what they think Design Thinking actually is. What attributes do practitioners assign to Design Thinking, as used in practice? And how does this understanding evolve as practitioners get more experience?
When you are in the early stages of designing a user experience flow, use scenario mapping to work out how different personas will use the proposed design to solve their tasks.
The best user experiences are backed by research, but sometimes we move more quickly than our research does. How can we best use and track assumptions as we go through design iterations?
"I can't draw," is a common phrase heard in ideation. But ideation happens in early stages of design and is meant to be messy. This video shows how to use basic shapes to convey UI elements.
Using paper prototypes is a great way to test a design idea and get usability feedback quickly. You can test whether a layout makes sense to users and make immediate changes if they run into issues.
The 5 components of a journey map and the benefits of using this qualitative method as part of a UX design process to discover, document, and share the bigger picture of what users want.
Retrospectives are a dedicated time to come together, reflect, and collaboratively improve your design team’s process. In this video, we'll walk through the four components of a retrospective and how to use this meeting effectively.
How storyboards fit within the UX design process, and the steps needed to make a successful storyboard to visualize a workflow, customer journey, or user story.
As a facilitator, it’s your responsibility to make sure the time spent in workshops is as productive as possible for attendees, while at the same time ensuring that you get the insights you need in order to move your project forward.
Formative usability testing is best done with a small number of study participants, so that you have time and budget to test more design iterations of the user interface.
Content frames are a tool that can help us make sure we’re not waiting until the end of the design process to incorporate real content into the experience.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pain points are problems that occur at the different levels of the customer experience: interaction level, customer-journey level, or relationship level.
A survey of people in user experience and product management shows that these professionals disagree on who should be responsible for many key tasks, like doing discoveries and early design.
A design system is a set of standards to manage design at scale by reducing redundancy while creating a shared language and visual consistency across pages and channels.
We made the 10 heuristics’ posters easy to read and understand by iterating through multiple versions and improving each based on user-centered principles and methods.
Set yourself up for journey-mapping success by educating yourself on the basics, defining objectives, building a crossfunctional team, collaborating on the map, and optimizing your presentation.
Communication is the top challenge when designing remotely, according to 213 UX professionals. Receiving feedback, replicating informal conversations, and maintaining a clear direction on projects were the biggest communication concerns.
