UX Design Steps

User Experience Design Process
Overview of Stakeholders and Activities involved in each stage
Saad… Minhas Follow

Minhas
Apr 23, 2018 · 7 min read
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What is User Experience Design?

User Experience is the value that you provide to your user when he is using your
product.
“User Experience Design (UXD or UED) is the

process of enhancing user satisfaction with a
product by improving the usability, accessibility,
and pleasure provided in the interaction with the
product.” — Wikipedia
Developing a user experience to the level of customer satisfaction is not a
single person or team’s responsibility, instead it is a company’s vision.
Why User Experience Matters?
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like.

Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs.
Great user experience design not only highlights and promotes your product, it has
become a key part of building and growing customer con dence.
A great product or compelling content without an appealing user experience

may a ect the ability of an organization to achieve its business goals.
Best Approach to User Experience Design

Good user experience design is always part of product development process.
You interact with your users to build the unique combination of structure, content
and user experience that will accomplish required goals in e cient ways.
“The primary factor of your success lies in the fact
that you keep your user in center of your design
process.”
This approach allows you to create designs that are clean, simple, intuitive, exible
and engaging, and provide a WOW experience to your users and thus di erentiate
you from your competitors.
User Experience Design Process

User experience design process is an iterative method that helps you continuously
improve and polish your designs.
In the process, you go through di erent stages repeatedly while evaluating your
designs on each stage.
Each stage involves relevant stakeholders in your organization that take part in the
process to make your products highly e cient and usable.
The design process involves following six stages.

Stages of UX Design Process
Below is the detail that highlights stakeholders involved, activities being done and
outcomes produced during each stage of the process.
1. Understand
Design solves a problem. In order to provide a solution, you rst need to understand
the problem.
“Before beginning the design work, let your

Design team understand the requirements
clearly.”
To analyze requirements, follow industry standard user research methods including
contextual and individual interviews, while observing the users in real
environment.
Conduct brainstorming sessions with clients and show them your existing products
(if any) to get their feedback.
Business Manager is the role in an organization that works directly with clients and
gets requirements from them. Design team can work closely with Business Manager
to understand users and their needs.
This knowledge about user and his environment helps you to provide a clear
direction to your design.
“To be a great designer, you need to look a little

deeper into how people think and act.” — Paul
Boag
Stakeholders
Design Team
Business Manager
Product Manager
Activities
Meet, talk, observe and understand users in their environment
Analyze requirements to understand and clarify them
De ne user personas and use-cases

Outcomes
User Personas
User Stories
Use Cases, User Flows
Create User Personas

De ne Use-cases and User Flow
2. Research
Research is the basic key step to design user experience.
“It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took

me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few
seconds” — Paula Scher
Design team does their research work to explore how the outer world is working on
such features.
Sherif Amin, Product Designer called it as UX Competitive Analysis. He listed three

purposes of this analysis:
“(i) Understand market competition
(ii) Learn about your domain
(iii) Get inspirations and ideas from your

competitors”
Keep an eye on the latest UI trends, design principles and your existing user
experience guidelines.
While doing research, start thinking about possible layouts and options to provide
the desired experience.
Stakeholders
Design Team
Activities
Study of competitors’ approaches
Research on similar features in the world
Analysis of latest UI/UX trends, design principles and rules
Keep an eye on your own UX guidelines
Outcomes
A bunch of ideas and material on which you can build your actual design work
Collect Ideas Related to Required Feature
3. Sketch
This stage involves UI de nition of required feature. Design team drives this activity
which is based on the last two stages of the process.
Draw paper sketches, white board ows and wireframes to share your ideas with
stakeholders.
This stage itself is an iterative process.
“Designing is not something that you just create

and start using it. Draw and draft and redraw and
redraft, thus creating an unmatched experience.”
Testing and evaluation of wireframes is part of this stage. Design team builds initial
mockups and share with stakeholders to get their input.
Throughout the process, it is important to keep your goal in mind — make a usable
design to achieve end user satisfaction.
Stakeholders
Design Team
Product Managers
Technical Experts
Activities
Generate ideas and work on basic sketches
Brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to get their feedback from technical

perspective
Re-draw sketches and re-test them with stakeholders

Outcomes
Sketches
Wireframes, Mockups
User ows
Create Wireframes
4. Design
Now you have nalized layout and ow of the required interface with you, the next
step is to work on nal graphics.
Turn the initial mockups and wireframes to great-looking images with theme and
styles applied to them.
Preparing and sharing of design speci cations (principles, guidelines, colors,

typography, iconography) to Development team is also part of this stage.
Stakeholders
Design Team
Product Managers
Business Manager
Technical Experts
Activities
Design UI images
De ne nal theme, specs, and guidelines required for implementation
Design icons to display on screens
Sessions with stakeholders to get their feedback from business and technical
perspective
Outcomes
Design images
Detailed design specs like colors, theme, styles, guidelines
Icons
Design Images Followed by Theme and Style — Windows 8 Box app
5. Implement
Since technical people participate in early stages of the process, they can start
implementation while Design phase is in progress.
Development team builds back end functionality rst and connects it with UI when
they get design artifacts.
It is better that Design team involves in this step to help development phase. While
implementing, it is possible to raise the need of minor changes in design.
Stakeholders
Development team
Design Team
Activities
Implement back-end functionality and front interface
Outcomes
Developed UI with complete functionality and experience following the

designed theme and style
Code and Implement Functionality
6. Evaluate
When product features are implemented, the end product is evaluated based on few
factors:
Whether the system is usable?
Is it easy to use for end user?
Is it exible and easy to change?
Does it provide the desired solution to user’s problems?
Does the product have the credibility that makes someone want to use it
because of the experience it provides?
“Design team validates the product in terms of

user ow and experience and identify areas where
improvements are needed.”
Stakeholders
Design Team
Product Manager
Activities
Go through the ow and feel the experience
Perform a comparison of implementation and de ned interface
Outcomes
User feedback
UI audit reports
Areas marked where improvement is required
Perform User Testing
After this last stage, the process will iterate itself and depending on the required
changes, you may go to stage 2, 3 or 4.
The process goes on until the desired experience and customer satisfaction is
achieved.
Get more understanding of UX design process and other related topics:
What is User Experience (UX) Design?

If there's an occupation that is 100% linked with the public's idea of what design
is all about, it's graphic design…
www.interaction-design.org
Conclusion
An amazing user experience can only be provided by following an iterative Design
process.
All major stakeholders in your company contribute in the process by performing

their tasks and duties. This is the only way you can retain your existing users and
attract the new ones in this competitive world.
Thanks for reading. You can also read other related essays at uxdworld.com.
. . .
1. Why You Need UI Guidelines?
2. How to Standout at Start of your UX Career?
3. 16 Quotes You Need to Read as UX Designer
4. What Makes UX Design Your Passion?
5. All Caps on UI: Good or Bad?
6. UX Designer As Software Tester — Enhanced Product Quality

. . .
Thanks for reading. Find more related articles at uxdworld.com. If you have any
questions, contact me and I will write about it: Linkedin | Twitter|Facebook
FREE E-Book: UX Design Fundamentals

This e-book discusses the importance of UX design and career advice from expert
designers. It contains awesome and…
uxdworld.com
. . .
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User Experience Design Process

Overview of Stakeholders and Activities involved in each stage

Saad… Minhas Follow

What is User Experience Design?

“User Experience Design (UXD or UED) is the

Why User Experience Matters?

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like.

A great product or compelling content without an appealing user experience

Best Approach to User Experience Design

User Experience Design Process

The design process involves following six stages.

“Before beginning the design work, let your

“To be a great designer, you need to look a little

Meet, talk, observe and understand users in their environment

Analyze requirements to understand and clarify them

De ne user personas and use-cases

Use Cases, User Flows

Create User Personas

“It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took

Sherif Amin, Product Designer called it as UX Competitive Analysis. He listed three

“(i) Understand market competition

(ii) Learn about your domain

(iii) Get inspirations and ideas from your

Study of competitors’ approaches

Research on similar features in the world

Analysis of latest UI/UX trends, design principles and rules

Keep an eye on your own UX guidelines

Collect Ideas Related to Required Feature

This stage itself is an iterative process.

“Designing is not something that you just create

Generate ideas and work on basic sketches

Brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to get their feedback from technical

Re-draw sketches and re-test them with stakeholders

Preparing and sharing of design speci cations (principles, guidelines, colors,

De ne nal theme, specs, and guidelines required for implementation

Design icons to display on screens

Detailed design specs like colors, theme, styles, guidelines

Implement back-end functionality and front interface

Developed UI with complete functionality and experience following the

Whether the system is usable?

Is it easy to use for end user?

Is it exible and easy to change?

Does it provide the desired solution to user’s problems?

“Design team validates the product in terms of

Go through the ow and feel the experience

Perform a comparison of implementation and de ned interface

Areas marked where improvement is required

Perform User Testing

Get more understanding of UX design process and other related topics:

What is User Experience (UX) Design?

All major stakeholders in your company contribute in the process by performing

1. Why You Need UI Guidelines?

2. How to Standout at Start of your UX Career?

3. 16 Quotes You Need to Read as UX Designer

4. What Makes UX Design Your Passion?

5. All Caps on UI: Good or Bad?

6. UX Designer As Software Tester — Enhanced Product Quality

FREE E-Book: UX Design Fundamentals

Get the Medium