We hear a lot about innovation, but let’s face the fact that human-centered design is the most important thing if you want to have an innovative approach. Agree? And this reminds us of Design Thinking that is focused on usability and the creation of human-centered products.
Before starting a new UX project we should keep in mind the Design Thinking process that consists of six phases, according to Nielsen Norman Group:
1) Know People, have empathy; Conduct research to understand users
2) Define the goal and the scope by discovering user opportunities, problems and needs. Gather research
3) Ideate, raise ideas in squads. Every idea is welcome. Do a Brainstorming
4) Map the processes, start a prototype, make adjustments until you come up with a viable idea
5) Usability test: show your prototype to the user to see if it can solve his problem
6) Implement: After testing an idea that is feasible, it’s time to materialize it and see the result.
The great thing is that we can repeat phases until everything is ok to be implemented. In the usability test we can iterate several times until we validate.
What is Lean UX?
It is a constant cycle of an iterative process of building something in which the product matures with each round of ideas, feedbacks and improvements.
Click to see the Lean UX Steps:
In this step, you start MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to solve user needs and/or problems;
Create prototypes quickly;
Validate with people (users) to see if the prototype really works;
Define metrics and insights so that you can make data-based improvements.
Lean UX thinks about the product as a whole and it is inspired by the Lean Startup Methodology.
Agile UX
it’s a mix of Agile and UX methods, inspired by Agile manifesto. Highlights:
- Team: It’s the united work between UX designers and Dev team focused on how to make things happen;
- Prioritize the product in collaboration to be able to develop and test is more important than documenting everything;
- Involve the user in the process is important to gather feedback and make improvements in usability;
- Flexibility: everyone needs to remember that the project does not follow a rigid plan because it must be flexible and adaptable.
Team Collaboration, Agile + ux
Develop & Test, short product cycle
User feedback, improvements
Flexible, adaptable, incremental
Both prioritize collaboration over documentation and both use prototypes as early as possible in Design processes.
The Design Sprint overview
Founded by Google Venture, the Design Sprint is a five-day process to answer critical business questions through innovation, design ideas, prototyping and testing with customers.
The Design Sprint methodology follows six phases: Understand, Define, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Validate. In some cases you can run a shorter workshop using these methods. The main thing is to pick the method that works best to meet your goals. In another words, you can build your own Design Spring method.
It brings innovation to the business more quickly (one week) and is strongly based on the idea of prototype validation. Focused on user feedback and reactions before making expensive investments in building and launching.
Five days devoted to creativity, collaboration, problem-solving. Seems pretty amazing, huh?
So if you want to solve a problem or a challenge and you need a fast solution, this is a great process to getting things done.
Hope you liked this reading. And what about you? What do you do to bring innovation in a fast-paced way? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Sources:
BAKER, Rebecca (2017) Agile UX Storytelling: Crafting Stories for Better Software Development: New York: 1 ed, Apress.
KNAPP, Jake. John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz (2016). Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days: Simon & Schuster.
YAYICI, Emrah (2016). Design Thinking methodology book: Emrah Yayici.
