Here’s my process

Disclaimer: There is not one process to rule them all. But the following might give you a rough outline of how I approach projects.

If we talk about processes, I think it makes sense to first define the goal of what we set out to do. Every project is different and therefore the approach I take to solve them is different as well.

Depending on the project we might face one of the following phases:

  1. Inspect
  2. Improve
  3. Innovate

If for example we take an UX expert review the goal is to find out what could be done to make a product better. So, the process would be to inspect the current state of a product or problem.

The outcome of the first phase usually is a good understanding of the current state of the product and a recommendation or roadmap to either improve (phase 2) or innovate (phase 3).

Innovation is not always the answer

A short note on innovation: "Users spend most of their time on other sites." This is Jakob's Law (from Jakob Nielsen). This law describes roughly your users' expectations towards your product: Their expectations are built from experiences they gained around other familiar products.

This means that for most projects the improvement phase is what one should focus on. Before you innovate try to meet your users' expectations towards a status quo from the industry. That's why it is so important to have a good understanding of the market.

That does not mean that innovation is not important, it sometimes just means that it is not necessary. This usually depends on your market sector, the product you offer and the current state of your product.

With the popularization of the design thinking process the focus shifts too often away from doing your due diligence of just doing your homework and delivering a product that just works and meets the expectation of your users.

My process step by step

My process usually goes something like this:

  1. Problem
    • Defining the problem
    • Collecting and specifying all requirements that need to be met
  2. Ideation
    • Research possible ideas, options and alternatives (market research, existing solutions, ...)
    • Be aware of the solution space and know what is possible
    • Think through the consequences and risks of the alternatives
    • Narrow down good approaches
  3. Solution
    • Finally decide what approach you want to take
    • Start working on the realization
    • Depending on what you are solving the deliverable might be a story map, wireframes, flows, mockups, prototypes, ...
  4. Feedback/Aftermath
    • Follow-up and follow-through with what you did before
    • Do some user testing to see if you are building the right thing
    • Do some usability testing to validate if you are doing the things right

Well, that’s the ideal process. But…

The process from above takes time and usually there's not enough time for all the steps.

To illustrate that there is the example of the missed alarm clock in the morning. Getting up in time leaves enough time for your typical routine. But if you miss the alarm and don't have any time you can only do the crucial steps in order to still be somewhat on time.