Design Process
Crafting Solutions Through Empathy: My Product/UX Design Process
Welcome to a glimpse into my creative process as a product designer, UX designer, and sometimes, a self-proclaimed UX unicorn! While I generally follow the established design thinking approach, my journey is unique, shaped by diverse experiences and tools. Whether developing comprehensive strategies and roadmaps, or diving into building applications and prototypes, empathy remains the cornerstone of my work.
Design Thinking Process
T-Mobile Frontline UX Process
Beyond Data: Embracing the Power of User Empathy
Gaining a deep understanding of your users, their motivations, and their frustrations is a key step at the start of any project. Methods I have used include user interviews, surveys, contextual inquiry, observations, and stakeholder insights. Once getting a better understanding of users, and crafting a problem statement, empathy maps and personas are sometimes used to bring human faces to the target audience. These tools can be referred to again throught the entire design process and act as a guide, ensuring decisions are rooted in user needs, and keeping the process from veering too far afield as we move through the process.
In my various roles in both startups and enterprise organizations, I had many opportunities to immerse myself in the user experience. From shadowing customers in busy stores to conducting in-depth interviews, I strived to understand what truly motivated and challenged them. I have used a variety of methods from empathy maps to personas to help bring these insights to life, ensuring they guided our design decisions.
Empathy as a foundation for growth
Recognizing the vital role our Spanish-speaking store employees play, I partnered with a senior researcher to create a persona named Milena. This fictional character embodies the experiences and challenges we observed through in-depth interviews and observations with five Spanish-speaking customer service employees. Understanding Milena's needs, such as feeling frustrated by limited bilingual resources, and spending valuable time translating for her English-only-speaking colleagues, is about laying the groundwork for building even better tools, signage and processes.
By considering her perspective, we identified specific areas where we could improve communication, streamline processes, and create a more supportive environment.
While specific metrics are unavailable, sometimes the most telling outcomes reveal themselves in smiles, positive feedback, and strengthened connections. User-centered design, built on empathy and understanding, isn't just the right thing to do, it's the foundation for creating successful products. By prioritizing the needs of every user, we empower individuals, foster inclusive experiences, and ultimately build products that resonate deeply with the communities they serve.
Moving forward, I remain committed to using empathy as a cornerstone of my design approach, creating products that truly resonate with the people who use them.
Spanish-speaking Persona for Bilingual Mobile Expert
Learning real user behavior in context through store visits.
Definition: From Insights to Actionable Objectives
Defining the problem to be solved can present a challenge, often times the requirement was to synthesize a wealth of user insights, data-driven findings coming from several groups including business, product, marketing, development and my own experience teams.
A cornerstone of my design approach is a deep dive into the problem using collaborative methods. Affinity diagrams and affinity mapping have become central tools for unlocking core needs, opportunities, or concepts. These activities, have been helpful to collectively synthesize complex data and user insights, ensuring everyone aligns on the true challenges we're tackling.
Drawing from my diverse experience across roles, companies, and projects, I've learned that meticulously defining the problem using methods like user interviews, data analysis, and affinity mapping or simply asking why is crucial for successful outcomes.
Taking the time to truly understand the core challenge, is key to avoid wasted resources and develop impactful solutions that resonate with users and deliver real value.
Affinity Diagraming
Affinity Mapping
By clearly defining the problem, we lay the foundation for impactful solutions that truly address user challenges. This clarity has empowered my teams and I to move forward with confidence, knowing we're tackling the right challenge with the right solution in mind.
Data synthesis
Journey Mapping
From Sketch to Structure: My Wireframing Process
Wireframes are the invisible foundation stones of user-centered design. For me, they're not just static mockups, but the dynamic starting point for crafting intuitive interactions, interfaces, and visual experiences.
Building the Base:
I begin with Illustrator to lay the conceptual groundwork, ensuring a solid structure for the project. The focus here is on defining layouts, hierarchies, and core functionalities.
For the past decade, I've embraced the power of interactive wireframing tools. These tools bridge the gap between static outlines and clickable prototypes, allowing for early user testing and feedback integration.
Beyond Static Lines:
Wireframes serve as essential documentation, but their true value lies in their flexibility and evolution. They aren't static deliverables, but rather living documents that adapt and improve throughout the design process.
This iterative approach allows me to chunk out work, focusing on specific tasks and workflows within the larger project context. It also facilitates testing and feedback at various stages, ensuring the design evolves collaboratively.
The Power of Early Feedback:
Wireframes act as a common language, enabling clear communication and collaboration between designers, developers, and stakeholders. They provide a tangible starting point for discussion and feedback, helping to identify and address potential issues early on.
In essence, my wireframing process is a journey, not a destination. It's a commitment to continuous improvement, user-centricity, and leveraging the power of technology to shape exceptional digital experiences.
Possible Enhancements:
Mention specific wireframing tools you use.
Briefly showcase a project where your wireframing process led to a successful outcome.
Emphasize your unique approach to wireframing (e.g., focusing on information architecture, accessibility, etc.).
OUR STORY
Quality, not quantity
We have made quality our habit. It’s not something that we just strive for – we live by this principle every day.
