There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment, within developmental circles to just add a  few wireframes and develop a prototype or two, and then you can declare you are across the user experience design process.

The thing is User Experience is a lot more than just a few simple techniques, it’s an entire collaborative design process, in a way it’s not just a single methodology at all.

This lack of being a single methodology may be part of the issue.

For too long in developmental circles,  the promise of the perfect project was always dangled as the golden prize for simply following a given methodology step by step.  UX does in a way, pull the rug out from under that old school attitude.

Limiting the Scope

It is easy to understand that the adoption of wireframes can aid in design,  and that prototypes assist in the development process and  can act as an additional communication tool.   This is true.

However  when theses techniques are only applied to staged design approach they just capturing the design alternatives, by an iterative  prototyping process.  This is all they do, they don’t provide anything more.

To consider that these techniques alone take into account the entire User Experience design process is just flawed.

If one just applied these two design techniques, then the entire aspect of the “user” can still be very easily  forgotten.

The adding in of new software tool that allows for wireframes and collaborative client signoff  is providing a greater scope than before, but it’s still not UX design.

Wireframes should be tested with the users, as should the prototype. However in reality it’s just too easy to only reference the client and their response to your design.

Remember the Users

One must remember that User Experience is about the experience of the users.

Not the designers, developers or the client.

Yes I know it’s an obvious thing, but sometimes we  forget this in an effort to find a single methodical solution we can trust.

The core of any user experience process is the design with the users, for the users. It’s about the conversation with the users:

• The collection of the user research.
• The non bias user testing, with users, without leading scenario presentation and questioning.
• The interviewing of users, and the collecting of their user stories.
• The analysis of their previous trails through a web site and general web analytics.
• The previous experiences and expectations of the users, the mapping of their mental models.

I can understand that championing of the user and business goals, wants, and previous experiences can be  difficult to comes to terms with.

This is especially  true when you are used to the straight forward cycle of business requirements and client input, and a few intrative cycles.

Also the direct involvement with selected users, for a development team maybe difficult. However this is where User Experience professionals can help, as they can bridge that User, Business and Developer gap.

Still the application of the user research and it’s confirmation via user testing is the critical aspect of the entire user experience process. It has to be done.

It’s not a simple matter of plugging in a few new techniques.  You have to consider the user, talk to the user, “be the user”, develop and design with the user in a collaborative effort.  This is the user experience process.

No matter how much we want to avoid it, we have to engage with the users, anything else is not working with the UX design process.

Some of you may not know this, I come from a formal science background, I trained as a scientist.  However, I don’t consider myself to be one, by any stretch of the imagination. I feel more at home in the design space.

Still all that background in the science arena has allowed me to apply it to the area of User Experience design. A guess it’s like a Science of UX Design.

To often we say that the area of User Experience is not so much a science but an art. Yes this is true. However it’s also a little wrong. UX Design is very much a science, or should be. As we are applying the basis of the scientific method to it.

To understand this you have to understand a little about backbone of science (science peeps you can go make a coffee now) and the scientific method.

Science and the Art of Observation

In science you are taught from day one to question. Yes question everything. This questioning helps you think creativity, build on previous ideas, observe, experiment and document. The key is to take nothing on face value. You are always asking , “nice, but show me the evidence..”.

Everything, you see, must come with evidence to support it. Any hypothesis has to have some evidence. And even then it’s going to have to be collaborated evidence so it can graduate to a theory.

You see a theory is the best you can get, its the ultimate statement.  Still you have to remember that a theory is not written in stone, it’s still open to change.  It should still be questioned, if the evidence stacks up against it.

A theory is just in a holding status, as the series of rules or an explanation of how something works as far as we know. The key here is the bit “as far as we know”.   At any time it can to shot down and a new theory can replace it.  Often the new theory is build upon the bones of the old theory, but not all the time, something a complete change of viewpoint is required.

Scientific Method

The important part in science in the use of the Scientific Method. The basis of the scientific method is a way to use the principles of scientific inquiry.  It’s the cycle of taking a hypotheses, testing it , analysing the results and then iterating,

The key to the scientific method is the use of the researchers intelligence, imagination, and creativity; its not like baking a cake,  there is no quick recipe to follow.  A bit like UX design in a way.

If we compare the two, the scientific method and UX design

UX Design verses Scientific Method

• Scientific Method:

  1. Define a question or problem,
  2. Gather information or observe,
  3. Form a hypothesis,
  4. Experiment and test,
  5. Analyse output,
  6. Interpret results (form new hypothesis),
  7. Document and publish,
  8. Peer review

• UX Design:

  1. Define a question or problem,
  2. Observe and research,
  3. Develop a design,
  4. User test and prototype,
  5. Analyse and interpret results,
  6. Document,
  7. Implement

As you can see they are very similar. All we are lacking is the formation of the initial hypothesis.

Science isn’t Creative?

Okay I can guess you are nodding your heads now as you see the comparison. However it’s not that simple is it?

Yes true design has all these principles and rules that can be applied. Same with UX design there are a number of for an interface design and psychological based principle that we can apply.   These rules are like the foundation theorems in science.

However design has that creative element. The innovative spark, the creation of something based on previous experience and the environment around us. Something that is gauged as being outstanding by our community. The process of that creativity and what it is can be always up for debate. However the key here is that design is a creative process not an analytical one.

And science isn’t!? …  Hang on let’s stop and think for a moment.

Okay design stimulates the senses and it’s this stimulation that we often use to measure creativity by.

However in science you still get that moment of innovation, the moment of thinking outside the square, the  moment of creativity, it’s just it’s not applied often to something that is traditionally thought of being creative. 

Looking at a physics equation a new way, or experimenting with a variations in compounds are the sexy creative elements but they can be creative in there approaches.

So yes science is creative.  Just not sexy creative, as is commonly known.

Science is Design

In UX design we prototype and experiment, observe the results, iterate and modify the prototypes using the test results and previous designs to find the new killer design. As you can see above, this is so close to the iterative experimental process of scientific method  it’s a little frightening. 

Mind you lets just stop for moment again.  If you think about it, it’s not surprising,  given that many of the principles of UX design are stolen from engineering which in turn stole them from basis of the scientific method.

So in reality UX design is a Science.  And maybe even Science is just Design.

Now tell me do you think UX design is more a science or do you still think its going with the gut and is an art form?

Being challenged to find the design, to produce a professional product within the bounds of the clients specifications. However moving through the process rapidly does allow you to focus on how you achieve your final outcome.

One thing I have learn over the years is to never jump right into photoshop. Regardless as to whether you have used mood boards or not, generally I don’t start the design process in photoshop or the like. I take it back old school, get out the sketch pad and paper. Walk away from the workstation, often outside and go design the site with pencils and paper.

So how do I move from paper to photoshop:

1. Leveraging off the base wireframe (if I have one), I set about drawing about ten or so different design thumbnails of the pages. I use these to generate ideas very quickly, to just to see if they balance and work generally on the grid and in terms of spacial placement.
2. From here I select the designs that are going to work. These are then expanded into half page lead pencil sketches, again nothing intense, just seeing if the design works in this low-fi version.
3. Finally a few designs are drawn up in detail with aqualia coloured pencils. Again not in fine detail, just concepts, and block of colour to see if the design works.
4. After all this the design is manually rebuild for client sign off in photoshop. In some cases I do this via a rough tablet trace or a simple scan, or just by eye, all depends on the design.

There is something freeing about working with paper. Don’t get me wrong I don’t work in a vacuum of ideas, I have my reference books and library at hand and will often go looking for inspiration. But of late the inspiration has not come from the online world, but the offline.

So what is your design process? How do you start the process? Straight onto the computer or do you go old school?

During last week I got to see Jared Spool keynote at IAsummit via a streaming into Second Life. Okay its wasn’t that great, the streaming not the presentation. After reviewing the presentation later. It’s apparent to me that some people maybe missing the point of methodologies.

Jared’s core comments are summed up well by Mia Northrop and Molly from NLC Internet Marketing Blog, basically he proposes that we should be moving away from UCD and start to own up to the point that we haven’t really been practicing it anyway. Thumps up Jared.

But if you think about it, does it matter. In reality a practical modern methodology should not be a collection of reliant steps with supplementary techniques and tools that are all interdependent.

Screw the Users

Shouldn’t any design approach be aligned to the bottom line. The business direction or vision of the organisation, this in turn should be reflected in the website. Generally you’re not going to get the project surviving if it’s not inline with the goals of the organisation.

After all, to be honest, does it really matter what the user wants. Yes and no. Sure improve the process for the user, but if the user requirements are too far removed from the organisational vision is there any point. We have either the wrong audience or an organisation morphing its direction. Which if you think about it is the same thing.

Before you get all UX zealot on me. Yes, sure the user experience is important, but only at the micro level of the process, products and procedures. But on the macro level it has to come down to the organisation goal. After we have provided the goal we can then look at supplementary services for providing the user requirements.

The Process

From my experience the process in which this is done is not a standardised traditional approach. This type of methodology died with the mainframe and the old 25 volume developmental methodologies.

Now it’s just the application of a holistic toolbox of techniques, tools and short course methods or defined micro processes. Any good team will apply them as require, mixing them in and out as required, iterating the process as required.

As expect this toolbox is applied depending on the budget and scope of the project. There is a distinct difference in the delivery of a UX for a $3000 site verses a $30,000 one. But that said still very core of the UX should be presented and implemented no matter what the budget. How you do this is a topic for a future post.

Jared’s comments are amusing from my localised view point. For many organisations UCD is an unknown so it’s a little amusing to hear UCD being retired, when some aren’t even there yet.

So is Jared just stating what we have all really been doing for years or is it a little more. Is this just UX and UCD spun into one package?

The slideshare presentation is below.

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We have all had it. You know the scenario, the base concept design is due today, you have just started. Nothing is inspiring you, it’s all the old same old thing. The blank page looks back at you mockingly, laughing.

You sit there trying to visual something, anything new, all you get is nothing, an emptiness that is as vast as the canvas you are working on. The clock numbers slip by endlessly, click click. it too is laughing at you, it knows about the deadline.

There is a feeling of dread that is knotting up deep within the pit of your stomach. A spike of panic and urgency, your heart is racing, you are sweating, you must get the design done today!

The waking nightmare begins. A fifty foot wall is enclosing around you, blocking out the creativity, sapping your light, your muse. The world has become just a mundane darkening grey uncreative void. Panic!

So what do I do when the web designers block comes down:

• Stop.

  First off stop. put the blank paper, Photoshop canvas, or page aside, close it even. Review what you have in terms of input (logos, colours etc). Rotate them, invert them, flip them, color inverse them, zoom in. Look for themes, patterns or make up a colour pallet if one is not supplied.

• Getup, walk away.

  This is a simple solution. Calm down, to do this get up walk away from your desk, go outside, get a drink. go for walk down the street. Take in the sights, smells, the sounds away from your work environment. Try to mentally reset yourself, clear your head. Some of my best ideas come in checkout queues or just driving around. However, not a good solution if time is extremely short.

• Visit other web sites.

  Go have a look at some inspirational designs, maybe go look at the work of you favourite designer. Or visit some CSS galleries. Good ideas sure, but remember take only inspiration, no one likes a thief.

• Start. Just do it.

  If you have the wireframe, fine you have a starting point. Even if you don’t, start with a rough sketch. Doodle, throw a series of thumbnails together. Just get in there and put pencil to paper, draw, play. You may see something in the mess on your page that will leap frog you into the design process. It maybe a curve, a colour, an outline, a font, I don’t have a magic bullet on this one, but you will often see a way forward if you have something to look at and mentally churn over.

• Set a deadline.

  Sometimes it’s not “designer block, it’s just procrastination. So putting a deadline in place, this does help you kick start yourself. Not much good if you are already on a deadline, eh.

• Change media

  Go watch a movie, music video or play some console games. Often you will get inspiration from a different media. But my personal mega block breaker is music. Turn on any music. I find it best to try and find some music for the theme you are looking for, let the music entrance you and feel the vibe, let your imagination be inspired by the music. Different people design various themes to certain music types. This is such a detailed topic that I’m not going to cover it all here. Mind you some people tell me music only helps them work and does not inspire them.

• Mood Boards

  You are using mood boards? Well maybe not on the small jobs. But they do help on the larger ones to set the tone of the design. To set the theme, the colours, fonts and style of the visualisation. They are quick, they are dirty and they are great starting leverage point in the design process.

• Word play

  Take random words and content themes from the site, mix these up, select a few randomly, look at the emotion and design these words reflect and start from there.

• Take it to the extreme

  Okay you have a design, but it’s just lame, and boring, it just says that you have no creativity at all. Well why don’t you try and go for the extreme opposite of what you want. Make it even more boring and dull. Break the rules on the colour pallet. Make some of the elements way too big, break out of the design mold, go crazy. It may just lead you to a new concept away from the every day mundane design you already have.

• Build a Reference library

  I know these are out of favour, and so old school. But a physical collection of design inspirational books, magazines, photos can be a really godsend when you have a creative block. It gets you away from the computer, and you start to look a things on different level. Allowing your subconscious to take hold and wander aimlessly. I’ll often find just one picture or drawing that will inspire a complete web site design.

Besides the resulting burnout aspect what do you do to overcome designer block.