It is a challenge to combine high levels of creative solutions into a simple and clear product. Although these methodologies may seem trivial at times, the clarity of thought that they provide eases the challenge for designers of bridging the gap between creativity and simplicity.
“Rather than waiting for “inspiration to strike,” UX designers need a systematic way to approach everyday design activities so that they produce high-quality designs and solve usability problems.”
The three applications we are examining are categorized as music streaming, gaming, and travel. Although there is a large range of what these apps are intended for, it serves as a positive example that ideation techniques have a strong impact on understanding regardless of the subject of the product.
Ideation Techniques Applied:
Challenge Assumptions
Bodystorm
Analogies
Worst Idea Possible
This process is all about gaining a new perspective through utilizing the POV statements and adding another level of depth to that perspective through ideation techniques. Thus, increasing our ability to find new solutions or approaches for the design of the product.
Insights & Perspectives Gained:
Soundcloud:
Can consider adding an element of personalized search based on listening history. Rather than results being directly based on the language of search, perhaps something like genre-listening history can be an influence on search results.
Users with large music libraries are seeking alternate organization methods for their music outside of their playlists and ‘liked’ music. A counter-argument to this could be that due to disorganization users listen to a wider range of artists and it also leads to longer time spent within the application.
Clash of Clans:
The length of commitment to this game is a pain point for some players. Rather than feeling like an ‘achievement’ by collecting enough resources for an upgrade, players get frustrated by having to wait for upgrades to be complete.
This game has a unique relationship with time. It is designed for years and years of play while some users may be used to games that involve quick successes. Those who enjoy this game and value it most have to ability to play it in a more passive manner which would make their passion appear to not be aligned with their play-time.
It is essential for player happiness and enjoyment that the playing field is even for paying and non-paying players. Paying players certainly should have access to more exciting features in the game. However, this should never involve giving them an advantage in player-to-player interactions.
Airbnb:
Through reading the customer reviews, it became clear that the largest pain point for airbnb customers is the customer service they receive. Based on their experiences, there appears to be a lack of speed and seriousness taken by the customer service team. I think some of this stems from users not fully understanding the product and the role of importance for hosts. In a lot of cases, airbnb is not in a position to provide assistance because the hosts assume a lot of responsibility.
The hosts themselves desire more freedom to market their properties the way they see most fit. They have deeper insights into the value of their properties. In a similar vein, guests who have already experienced the property have insights into the value of the property. Perhaps giving some more influence to both hosts and guests on how the properties are displayed will lead to more rentals.
As well documented as the power of empathy is, the ability of people to execute and consistently practice empathy is a challenge. This goes for any avenue of life, but especially in professional settings. In the age of social media, consumers are much more used to products that are designed to take advantage of our humanness rather than products designed with our wants, needs, and experiences in mind.
To execute empathy in product design, a large amount of focus and detail has to go into the whole process. It starts with implementing empathy into research methods. According to Ale Wiecek, an empathy expert, the goal of empathetic research methods is “to gather enough information on the problems they are exploring, before making assumptions. It reinforces the importance of understanding a problem or experience from the customer/user’s perspective, rather than our own.” For designers, aligning your own understanding of the problem you are seeking to solve from the perspective of others and without assumption leads to great solutions
Empathy Research Methods
Personas:
This is a great methodology for a starting place or if designers do not have direct access to customers. A persona is a fictional character that is created to represent the different types of consumers who may use a particular product. Psychologist Jonathan Gruden on why personas are effective writes, “Data from psychological studies and artistic experience indicate that one naturally and generatively creates and engages with detailed representations of people. Personas bind into this powerful human capability. Most of the people do not naturally reason about extensive statistical summaries, but they do reason effortlessly about people, real or fictional.” (researchgate). It is critical that the personas are based on research for the design, however, outside of that, the development of these personas are up to the intuition of the designers. According to the Interaction Design Foundations, personas “make the design task at hand less complex, they will guide your ideation processes, and they will help you to achieve the goal of creating a good user experience for your target user group.” Although this isn’t necessarily as valuable as working directly with a customer, it requires very little resources, and still can provide strong insights.
Journey Mapping:
According to Harry Brignull, “journey mapping is a way to deconstruct a user’s experience with a product or service.” (marvel app) This method is all about getting a detailed firsthand customer experience. Through this experience, designers can more easily identify pain points, validate assumptions about the customer or their experience, and predict future opportunities to improve the design. Typically, a journey map is recorded on a table. The horizontal axis will detail the experience through time. For example, if the product was soda, the horizontal axis would include everything from purchasing the soda, to how it opens, tasting it, and disposing of it. The vertical axis details analysis themes designers want to focus on. For example, these categories could be actions, questions, opportunities, pain points, enjoyable moments, etc.
Love Letter/Breakup:
This is a great methodology to uncover the deep reasons why people connect or don’t connect with your design. This can be done by designers, stakeholders, or the customers themselves. It is a personal letter written directly to the product. Taking the time to reflect, write, and personify the product, can lead the writer the discover new things about their relationship with the product and reinforce what they already knew.
Through implementing these empathy centric research methods, designers can help ensure that they are creating a product that is focused on directly addressing the needs, wants, and desires of customers.
The condensed nature of a design sprint can be confusing for those new to design sprints. How can you possibly develop a legitimate solution to a problem and a legitimate product in such a small window of time? Well, sprint experts tell us we are supposed to fake it. Prototyping the product is all about creating a facade. So how could this be more effective than developing the real thing?
A typical project requires a lot of time, energy, and resources to get to a point where the product is ‘ready to test’. For a design sprint, by creating a prototype that is a facade in just one day, you reach a point where the product is ready to test. By doing this opposed to more traditional routes, the risk of time, energy, and resources is significantly decreased. In addition, it keeps the development of the product more user-centric. Reaching the point of testing the prototype, sprint or not, is a key point in development because it is an opportunity for learning the user’s perspective. If designers spend months developing a testable prototype, it slows down the learning process. Sprint expert Jake Knapp writes, “the longer you spend working on something—whether it’s a prototype or a real product—the more attached you’ll become, and the less likely you’ll be to take negative test results to heart.” (173). It is much easier to be accepting of criticism after one day than after months of work. In other words, sprinters will know more about their users and have a more open mindset for the direction of the product than in comparison to other design processes.
It is an unrealistic expectation that first-time sprinters will be comfortable with creating a facade. People aren’t used to doing things in an incomplete fashion. Sprinters will need to adjust their perspective for this stage in the sprint. Knapp writes that the philosophy needs to change, “from perfect to just enough, from long-term quality to temporary simulation.” (175). Simulation is the keyword here. It isn’t our goal to create the true product, it is to simulate it. Through simulation, we will be able to generate reactions from testing. While feedback during this time can be useful, Knapp refers to reactions as “solid gold” and feedback as “pennies on the dollar”. For continuing to develop the product, there is a major difference between the tester having an experience of something missing within the app and suggesting a new element. In other words, it is more valuable information for there to be a reaction that there is an element missing compared to feedback that a tester would like something else to be added. The testing stage is after the prototyping stage, but going into prototyping, it is helpful to know what type of responses you are looking to generate from the prototype. Receiving feedback is helpful, but how different would those new ideas be from the ones generated during the previous days of the sprint? Being able to differentiate what aspects of the interview are reaction versus feedback will best help the continued development of the product.
Getting to Know Stolen Focus 