My Approach

Identify the problem

Often in my past experience, the user or design problem hasn’t been clearly defined. Other times, teams disagreed about what problems actually exist. This is where a research discovery meeting can be extremely helpful at the beginning of the project, where all teams can have a voice, share data, understand each other, and come to an agreement.

• Are there notable trends from user research?

• What are people calling customer service about?

• Is the company losing customers because of specific issues?

• What problem needs to be solved now, and what problems can be solved later?

Ideate and collaborate

My favorite meetings involve bringing together cross-functional teams to brainstorm possible solutions. I’ve often noticed that some teams tend to be overlooked, and some aren’t even invited to these ideation and working sessions. Other times, it’s impossible to get everyone together so some teams eventually lose track of what’s happening in the design process.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen that engineering teams tend to be left out more than other teams. Front and back-end engineers can provide thoughtful and insightful design ideas, and they understand technical capabilities and constraints. If it’s impossible to get key stakeholders together, ideas should be shared in a centralized location (Jira, Confluence, Google Drive, etc.) where everyone has visibility, can contribute, ask questions, and add comments.

Prototype

Prototypes help communicate possible solutions. Through prototypes, I can find potential flaws in my messaging and identify potential issues with the overall UX. If a fully functional and interactive prototype can’t be completed, a low fidelity wireframe in Invision or a comparable tool can still communicate a concept, flow, or process.

Through prototypes, I can find out early if the overall UX and content are on the right track or need to be refined. After all, what is a design without user-friendly, functional, and transparent content?

Test

From a content design perspective, I’m very invested in this stage. I look forward to hearing what end-users say about content I’ve written and flows our design teams have completed. I value user feedback and I’ll refine messaging, especially when users say they’re confused by wording or hesitate when making decisions. I’d like to find out several answers during user testing:

• Do the steps make sense?

• Is the messaging user-friendly and functional?

• Were you able to complete tasks successfully? Did you have trouble along the way?

• How do the design and content make you feel?

Share knowledge

During all of these phases, it’s important that multi-disciplinary teams collaborate and make a concerted effort to share knowledge and data. I’ve seen knowledge-sharing completely diminish or be absent in many organizations, no matter the size.

How are customers supposed to get the best possible experience etc. without us designers, product managers, software developers, marketing, quality assurance teams, etc. sharing knowledge along the way? Each team offers its own set of unique expertise that end-users will ultimately benefit from.