At TechFabric, our "User-centric" approach emphasizes early incorporation of UX Research in our development process. Let's look at why and how we do this.
Research is crucial to the process as it reveals unforeseen obstacles, overlooked pain-points, and pitfalls that may arise during development and after launch. UX practitioners often discover more challenges than organizations anticipate, which can be mitigated by implementing research methods upfront before a project begins. UX Research has other benefits including:
We follow a concept and methodology called "Design Thinking" to help our clients solve user problems and develop solutions for digital products. Design Thinking has 5 major steps including:
This methodology is effective but potentially confusing for clients, can be loosely applied without alignment among team members and stakeholders. TechFabric's diverse clientele makes full implementation challenging. To simplify, our product teams adopt the "Double Diamond Model" from the UK Design Council.
The Double Diamond Model is broken into two phases or "spaces" as we call them. The first being the "Problem" space where we conduct research to identify the criteria needed to form a "Problem Statement". This problem statement is based off research findings and unexpected signals that become the "right" problem to solve. The Problem space has two distinct steps, the "Discover" and "Define" phase.
In the UX community we often hear about the ketchup bottle example where the glass bottle is often regarded as "UI Design" and the new innovative upside-down bottle is "UX Design". We'll use this example to help illustrate why UX Research is important.
The classic ketchup bottle, a timeless design on the left, served its purpose for years. However, the common struggle of slapping the bottom for ketchup led to a new design that addressed this symptom. Yet, the middle design skipped identifying the real problem and only solved one symptom without addressing systemic issues around the glass ketchup bottle.
In the Problem space's Discover phase, we use exploratory research to identify user needs. Project stakeholders, including TechFabric UX researchers, diverge to explore all potential problems or pain-points.. The research methods include:
In the Define phase, stakeholders converge to create a problem statement—a narrative addressing key issues to solve. This can involve features, technical debt refactoring, or even a concept for a new product offering. The analysis produces the following:
Following the Double Diamond Method, researchers identified ketchup bottle issues like "ketchup juice" accumulation and unpredictable application. Considering all user pain-points helps product teams address the actual problem—the bottle itself. The old glass bottle's rigidity and vacuum effect caused these symptoms.
In the "Develop" phase of the Solution Space, we use "Evaluative" research methods to test potential solutions based on signals from our exploratory research. As a team, we "Diverge" to conceptualize ideas for solving the problem, testing various approaches with users using simple methods like:
In the "Deliver" phase, the team converges on the right solution by analyzing test results for intuitiveness and stakeholder input. TechFabric collaborates with clients to define post-launch metrics, focusing on "Usefulness" (Utility + Usability) Nielson Norman Group. We prioritize providing the right functions and ensuring they are intuitive and pleasant for modern users, making the solution truly useful.
In the ketchup analogy, by exploring multiple ideas, a product team provides varied solutions for user testing. Tests like "usability" and often "tree" tests reveal patterns in user feedback, guiding the definition of the right solution. Taking time in the "Problem" space, instead of rushing into "solutioneering" or the "Solution" space, yields different outcomes. Using UX Research with the "Double Diamond Method" results in better adoption, global system optimization, and significant efficiency gains, providing a comprehensive solution.
Through the Double Diamond Method, we often uncover unexpected problem statements, diverging from initial assumptions. Addressing this requires buy-in and alignment from stakeholders who tend to rush into the Solution Space, a practice known as "solutioneering" in UX. Incorporating UX research in project timelines and budgets helps avoid roadmap pitfalls, technical debt, and strategy pivots, ensuring we identify the right problem to solve.
Design systems have been increasingly growing in popularity within organizations, namely due to their ability to help companies achieve scale and enable front-end developers while maintaining consistent styling across an application or suite of applications.
The modern web is a vast ocean of digital ecosystems, eCommerce solutions, and SaaS products. Competing in this digital arena requires precision code, well-developed content, and a best-in-class web presence.