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Design Process

Definitions

A Designer determines what the product looks like, what it does , what is important. It can be job description. However, developers are often required to do some Design.

Interaction Design (ID) is about shaping the digital things people use.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) aggregates a collection of semi-autonomous fields of research and practice in human-centered informatics.

HCI is the overall umbrella term for anything to do with people interacting with machines.

Most companies cannot afford Designers. Every developer should be at least a C-level Designer.

Process

  1. Research your domain/client.
    1. How does the business work?
    2. Who are the different stakeholders? (not just immediate users)
    3. What are their expectations? goals? problems? pain points?
  2. Use interviews, questionnaires, and observation.
  3. Create Personas, User Stories
  4. Create design mockups, give to developers
  5. Get feedback from developers and users, goto 4.

Personas

Personas are archetypes that describe the various goals and behavior *patterns among your users/customers.

They let us use storytelling, which helps us remember people's needs and sympathise with them.

A persona should encapsulate critical behavior data. For example, for a restaurant app you might have:

  • Student looking for cheap food

  • Mom looking for fast healthy food

  • Gourmand, takes photos of all his meals

  • Business woman, company pays

Example: Katie Bennet

Fifty-one year old Katie enjoys taking pictures of her kids and her new grandson. She was a stay-at-home mom until the last of her 3 kids left for College. Now she is helping her husband with their auto repair shop.

She enjoys taking photographs of her kids. Lately she has been buying more expensive camera equipment hoping to take photos for the shop's print and web advertisements.

GOALS:

Learn to make her photos of cars and car parts look like those she sees in advertisements.

Why Use Personas?

  1. To communicate user needs to each other:
    • Bobby might be confused with that button
    • Katie does not have time to read all that
    • Bill would use that feature a lot
  2. Stop focusing on what you think is best
  3. Explain to your customers why you have feature C
  4. Remind you that users are individuals.
    • the "average person" does not exists

User Stories

A user story captures a description of a software feature from a user's perspective.

They have the form "As <the name of one of your personas> I want a <feature> so that I can <satisfy a need>".

Examples:

  • As Peter, I want a menu so that I can easily get to the Music section.

  • As Alice, I want to receive an email whenever someone comments on my post so that I can reply to them quickly.

  • As Rosa (a manager), I want to view a list of all comments for the last X days so I can make sure my online store is not being abused.

The goal is

  • for each feature in your app to exist because it brings value to someone
  • identify the most valuable features of your app

Resources