Ross Holloway Web Consultant | UX web designer | business analyst | web content

Planning a UX design project

There are many variations

Below, the stages, and the techniques that can be employed in each stage, are outlined:

Study it: This is the requirements gathering stage. We begin by researching the business' goals, using techniques such workshops, card sorting, and competitor benchmarking. At the same time we can research user requirements through focus groups, ethnographic field study, competitor analysis and use any existing source material such as web analytics and user feedback. The study stage provides material for personas, user stories, and early intelligence for SEO.
Understand it: We develop personas to test the requirements, and gain insight into the user journeys and task flows. We use task analysis to assign tasks either to the user or the system, and to balance benefits with monetary costs, to ensure requirements are achievable, realistic and eventual outcomes optimal.
Design it: We begin with paper prototypes, advancing to working models as the project progresses. Card sorting is used to develop the information architecture and interaction design. Also, accessibility is built into the prototypes from the design stage, as is its twin, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The prototypes are tested with business stakeholders, personas and users to validate requirements and eliminate errors early.
Optimise it: The value of good aesthetic design should not be underestimated; usability is about creating products that are pleasing to use. Useable copywriting makes for websites that are quick to understand, and along with SEO, websites that are easily discovered.
Test it: We test at each stage beginning with personas, advancing to 1:1 usability testing in the lab, and multivariate testing / A-B testing in the live environment. We can also test in the field. Testing begins as soon as requirements are defined and ends with final verification and project launch.

The UX design method is founded upon gaining a thorough understanding whys – this is the 'study it' stages. At the end of this stage there will be a base set of business requirement and a base set of user requirements.

Once the whys have been understood, it's onto the 'hows'. This is the 'understand it' stage. How can the requirements be fulfilled, and crucially what are the priority requirements.

Only when the requirements are sufficiently developed do we begin to 'design it'. From testing potential information architecture by card sorting, to interrogating early designs with personas and user journeys to 1:1 usability testing, we cycle through 'optimise it', and 'test it'.

UX design requires agile project management, but each stage cycles rapidly, so requirements are refined, and mistakes discarded quickly before costly development is committed to

Agile project management

It is essential to employ agile project management in any UX project. Because each of the stages outlined above are iterative, multiple cycles will usually be required before acheiving sign-off.

Employing agile project management can be a challenge for organisations. A Prince 2 waterfall project promises to deliver project stages at set times leading to an orderly final delivery. However experience shows that waterfall projections often miss stage targets, as estimating time required to deliver on each stage is at best an art and rarely a science. Waterfall projects have the distinct disadvantage of building in requirements and assumptions without fully testing them. In waterfall projects too often usability testing is built in at too late a stage to allow any remedial action to be taken. Projects are then delivered with too many known flaws.

Methodologies such as Scrum place emphasis on rapid project stages and feedback loops. Wireframes and prototypes are user tested quickly, flaws and eliminated and virtues amplified.

The process is beneficial because decisions can be made on evidence. Being better informed and better prepared not only helps build better products, it reduces time spent less optimal activities and mitigates against project drift.