I use and teach a user focused and goal directed product design process that is equal parts structure and exploration
Designing experiences and products that people will use - and enjoy using - requires empathy, a deep understanding of the problems to be solved, ideation, and iteration. In each stage of the process, I have different goals, employ different modes of thinking, utilize different tools, and deliver different outcomes.
Planning
Every project starts with a short statement of the problem to be solved, generally under a page, which identifies the project's goals and known constraints. The goals of the planning phase are to set the expectations of the people involved, secure commitment for the hard work about to commence, and set the frame of the engagement.
Observation and Engagement
In order to design things that people can use, and enjoy using, you must have a very strong empathic connection with the people for whom you are designing. They can't just be random "users." Rather, you need to experience the situations or scenarios you are seeking to change – either directly or through stories and anecdotes – from the vantage point of the people to be impacted by the product or experience being designed.
To gain this empathic understanding, I utilize a variety of ethnographic research techniques including structured conversations, live observation, walkthroughs of existing experiences or applications, document reviews, and the story gathering skills I first developed while working as a photojournalist.
The following images were taken at Ess-A-Bagel in New York City during the Design Studio's – Day 1 "re-design a restaurant" exercise.
Definition
The definition phases encompasses two distinct activities:
Unpacking and synthesizing the insights you gathered during the Observation and Engagement phase into a coherent model in which you describe (visually and through words and stories) the people to be impacted, the scenarios they face, their goals in those scenarios, and the requirements that any successful solution must fulfill to enable the identified people to achieve their goals in the identified scenarios.
Creating actionable problem statements about the functionality or experiences to be designed.
During this phase, I use a variety of tools including sketchboards, workflow maps, swimlane diagrams, process flows, personas, and scenarios. I also draw heavily on the synthesis and conceptualization skills developed while working as a clinical psychologist.
Ideation
Armed with problem statements, the next step is to find or create the ideas that will be refined during the following prototyping and testing stages. The work of this stage involves gathering inspiration, identifying or extracting design patterns, brainstorming, storytelling, creating game spaces, and many, many sketches.
Designing successful experiences requires many failures as most often the best solutions are recombined from the fragments of earlier defeats. My goals during the ideation phase are to enable the adjacent possible, push past my initial attempts, and find a truly transformative solution.
Prototyping
Ideation naturally flows into model making and prototyping. Where as the goal of the previous phase is to develop ideas, the goal of prototyping is to refine the ideas, and make them tangible and experiential. Prototypes are generally not fully functional hi-fidelity representations of the final product. Rather, they contain the minimum functionality necessary to solicit feedback.
I utilize any and all of the following to develop prototypes: Pen and Paper, Sticky Notes, Balsamic Mockups, Omni Graffle, Photoshop, Fireworks, Keynote, Sketch, FileMaker Pro, Seneca XJS, HTML, CSS, Xcode, or any other tool that helps me express ideas in a form that can be tested.
Testing
The goal of testing is to solicit feedback about the proposed solutions, and later, to confirm the success and usability of the solution. I use a variety of testing methods that range from observing people using the solution to writing and administering usability test protocols.
Iteration and Refinement
Though I wish I could say otherwise, the best solutions are rarely discovered in the initial attempts. As a result, I cycle through several ideation, prototyping, and testing phases – with each cycle building on the learning gathered in the prior attempts. Fortunately, the process is orchestrated to ensure the failures occur early – while they are cheap and correctable – so that the learning inherent in those failures can be harvested and used to improve the final outcome.