WHERE TO START?

Designing the best digital products and services starts with a good understanding of the audiences they serve. Identifying the "problems" that a product should solve first leads to more informed design solutions later. Here are some of the activities I like to use to get started.

User Research

What your users want, in their own words

If you want to know more about an audience or stakeholder, the best place to start is by talking to them. I like to use surveys to get the basics on who they are, interviews to find out what they think, and contextual research to see how they act. Taken altogether, these can form a mental model for users' contexts, needs, and motivations.

Competitive Analysis

What they're doing right, what they're doing wrong.

Sometimes the best way to understand a market is to see what the competitors are doing. By looking at other companies' websites or digital products you can learn a lot about what works and what doesn't work, and even start to identify new strategic offerings.

Web Analytics

By the numbers.

Analytics can say a lot about how people use a digital product, and can be used iteratively throughout the life of a product to continually improve content and usability over time. Unfortunately, it's more often the case that they are set up at a product launch, then politely ignored.

User Testing

Test early. Test often.

Even before a product has been designed, it's time to start testing. Whether it's a wireframe, mockup, a fully functioning site, or even a competitor's site, watching real people use something will uncovers problems nobody knew existed.

BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Wading through research findings can be daunting without a way to process it all. Whether the goal is a redesign, an alpha launch, a roadmap or a business plan, developing a clear strategy is crucial to whatever comes next. There are a lot of ways to do it, but here are a few of the methods I use.

User Experience Briefs

Turning findings into clear direction.

"Brief" is an intentionally vague term. This deliverable can be a lot of things for a lot of projects, but what it means is a way to synthesize all of the research and findings into actionable goals and a clear vision of the user experience of a product.

Content Strategy and Planning

Better content for the life of your product.

A well-designed product is nothing without great content. It's important to identify the kinds of content that will get a message across and keep users coming back, and understand what you have, what you need, and what you need to do to get there, beginning before design and extending beyond launch.

Feature Prioritization

(Or, How to Kill Your Darlings)

If there's one thing there's never a shortage of, it's great ideas. But how do you know which ones will really help you serve your users and reach your goals, and which ones are just nice distractions? I love products and services that remain clear and true to their purpose, which is why I love prioritizing.

Product Roadmapping

To launch and beyond.

Great products and services also grow with their users over time. It's important that new features and offerings be released in a way that both makes good strategic sense for your business and adds value for your users.

Presentations and Worksessions

Communicating and sharing ideas.

Not all designers like to work in isolation. Sometimes projects call for a strategy to "pitched", or for everyone to get into a room and hash it out together. Gaining feedback and consensus, or working through ideas as a group means that everyone gets to participate in building a strategy.

SO WHEN DO WE START DESIGNING?

Now! Good Information Architecture solidifies your user experience vision in a more actionable way, provides low-fidelity design solutions, and can help identify potential content, programming, and visual design pitfalls. Here are a few of the tools that I like to use.

Wireframing

The granddaddy of IA deliverables.

When most people think of information architecture, they think of wireframes. These are the most common, and argueably the most useful of IA deliverables. But, more important than the documentation itself, is what they communicate - a clear idea of how your product works.

Storyboarding

Letting your product tell its story.

Storyboarding can help you define what a product or service does. Whether it's a broad, conceptual idea, or the gritty details of a specific interaction, the visual and narrative nature of storyboarding can make the seemingly complex suddenly easy to explain.

Sketches

The back of the napkin.

Most people don't think of sketching as a particularly important service or skill, but I do. Whether I'm working through ideas on my own, with a partner, or with a client, sketching can be the easiest way to communicate, generate, or distill ideas fast.

Workflow Diagramming

Defining processes and interactions.

When things start to get complicated, it can be a good idea to get out of the wireframes for a little while. Workflow diagrams abstract a process out to it's most basic sequence of steps to better define the logic and dependencies behind an interaction.

Card Sorting

When one of these things is not like the other.

IA doesn't just help define what your product does, it defines how it's organized. Sometimes a taxonomy can seem obvious, but other times it helps to get an idea of how people group and associate content and topics, whether through analog card sorting exercises or other means.

Data Visualization

It's better to show than tell.

Sometimes a story is just too complex to tell with words alone. But while we all know that infographics and data visualizations can go a long way in quickly and clearly communicating an idea, it's often identifying the idea that needs to be communicated that can be the hardest part.

Content Modeling

Taking wireframes to the next level.

While wireframes are good for defining what users can do, sometimes to build it you need a better idea of what's "under the hood." I find content models are a great supplement for when content structure, metadata, taxonomies and relationships need to be more clearly defined.

User Testing

Nobody gets it right the first try.

User testing again? Yes, again. I'm a big believer in iterative design. Just because something has launched, doesn't make it 100% finished. (At best, it's probably more like 90%.) This may be "good enough" for some, but it's the last 10% that can take a product from "good enough" to "great."