Every once in a while, the conversation about Everyone being a designer is bound to happen. This conversation reboots in uncertain patterns of time, but it sure frequents the lively Slacks, Twitter feeds, Medium articles… You name it. Then the crusaders of both sides march with their spears to defend or burn Rome once again.
Yes this is an article on this subject.
No it is not an article supporting or bashing the motto “Everybody is a designer”.
Designers in 2017
As part of startups, people like me, designers get to influence products, and those products — in principle, and in practice fortunately, influence the lives of thousands and/or millions of users. The processes put in force are not limited to drawing boxes, although man do we love boxes (and thinking outside of them, yeah).
Designers become oftentimes tech savvy. They do feel the need to know code & code more. They do not do that to steal a developer’s job. Unless they want a career change. They do it to become more informed. And designers have to be more informed.
Designers have to be more code-friendly. They have to understand limitations, capabilities and opportunities. Inverting this statement the opposite holds also truth. Engineers should be design-informed. They should understand and translate the value of a specific design they are asked to implement. And they should realize the reasons why a user prefers red over orange.
– In the same respect, a CFO should understand the value of design.
– A CEO should know the reason why design deserves a seat at the C table.
A practical example
I like code. I learn how to code. I am confident with my HTML and CSS skills and I want to master better the elusive (for a visual person like me) JavaScript. I do not want to start building a project as an engineer. I want to use my skills to better communicate my designs.
If I can pick up a pen and a paper, and fiddle around ideas and come up with a feature, I have done already a good job. If I can design a pixel-perfect mockup out of that I am already a lot better at this. If I can understand the users opinion over that design, I have validated some value. And if I can prototype that design, with code and create an almost real-life example of that feature, I have gained loads of experience, I have saved tons of money to my company, and I have saved valuable time for an engineer.
Do I wanna call myself an engineer? No. Should I? It is not relevant.
Yes, everyone is a designer
And if an engineer, CEO, CMO or [Put a fancy title here] wants to do my job as a professional product designer they have to be prepared to:
– Lower their salary level (sic)
– Research
– Validate a feature
– Do design sprints
– Conduct Usability Testing
– Perform heuristic evaluations
– Do some app-screens mapping
– UI audits for cross-platform interfaces
– Identifying and meeting real users
– Create user personas
– User journeys
– User flows
– Learn how to use tools like Sketch, Invision, Principle, UXPin, etc
– Prototype (paper, sketch, UXPin, Invision w/e)
– Design pixel perfect mockups (Use your weapon of choice here as well)
– and then some
Now, if people are happy to pick up and learn to perform these skills of the trade well, I am happy to include them in my team. They will become a valuable resource for me, as we would both become for efficient.
2016 was the year where User Experience, and more generally Design, took a big fat seat at the C table. Yeah, of course it was not the first time this has happened ever, however this year everyone went crazy talking about design. Design thinking, user experience, startups, company culture, users, customer customer customer, CX,UX IxD, …you name it.
There is a good reason for that. The success of strong design-led-culture startups and design leadership left even the more stubborn and set back minds with a big awe over high performances, amazing key metrics and stunning products people WANT to talk about. So where does this really lead us, now stepping into 2017?
I would say, that this must be one of the most exciting eras in our times to be a designer. So lets try to identify some exciting trends that design could or will help shape up in 2017.
For the TL;DR version here’s a list of things that designers will have an impact on 2017:
– Virtual Reality/Mixed Reality/Augmented Reality
– Artificial Intelligence
– The real Web Design 2.0
– Connected world
Virtual Reality/Mixed Reality/Augmented Reality
The world is your canvas There are many exciting ways that Virtual & Mixed Reality will influence the ways we experience things. Claudio Guglieri, a product designer formed a hypothesis where he did a study of how such technologies will influence our surrounding in public but also private spaces.
Mixed reality will ease the cognitive load associated to informational and promotional signs in public and private spaces.
– Claudio Guglieri
In this study traditional ways of communication will be the first ones to be disrupted, followed by the public and private spaces. But where would designers contribute?
Designers would have to rethink how the users perceive information interacting with their real-world surroundings. What the user wants to see on a personal level, choosing the information, when and where it should be distributed to her. Also how this UI will be unobtrusive with the real world, providing at the same time a seamless experience.
A fresh premise here is that traditional UI patterns will indeed break and fall apart, therefore we would also need new studies on the subject of UI Design, and Interaction Design without a grid.
A digital playground If the previous topic left you with a dystopian fear let’s move along to a more fun subject. In 2017 we will see more immersive experiences, coming up from various fields. Edtech, leisure, travelling experiences, entertainment, gaming just to mention a few.
Designers need to identify the best graphic engines they are going to be creating with, and how those designs, or media will be interacting with the user.
Is there a limit to where the user can go? What kind of options and levels of customization can become available to people when using apps like Tilt Brush? How immersive can the experience of games like Eve Valkyrie can become? Could I even walk on another planet? I sure want to!
Artificial Intelligence
Intelligence; not strictly human trait Machines become more intelligent, and now they also start learning like humans do. At the same time we have to give them input so people can interact with them. From personal assistants and chatbots, to hands-free interaction with an app, conversational UI has become a hot topic in the design watercooler and some designers already work on such solutions.
It is pretty clear that as designers we have to think of a quite many unused solutions and patterns when it comes to such UIs. It is not only what color those chat bubbles are going to be, but also, are there going to be bubbles at all? How do you display something more than a simple text message? What about a link? Or even an application? Tomaž Štolfa explains the future of CUI in a thorough article and talks about such ideas like Rich Messages that each of them becomes an atomic application.
Waiting times Furthermore in CUI and chatbots, Interaction Design plays a huge role. More specifically the Perceived Performance is vital. If you have not heard this term before, it is rather simple. How fast the user thinks the website or app is interacting with him.
Jakob Nielsen in Usability Engineering, identifies three main response time limits:
– 0.1 seconds — Actions that take 100ms or fewer are instantaneous to the user. This is a golden standard aim for any interaction.
– 1 second — Actions that take 1 second to finish are generally OK, but the user can identify that there is some sort of pause. If all actions would take 1 second to complete, your website may feel a bit sluggish.
– 10 seconds — An action that takes 10 seconds or more to complete, there some kind of attention grabbing has to happen for that time spent on ‘waiting’. Depending on the action they are completing, users might navigate elsewhere, or simply leave your site.
Eli, a FrontEnd Developer has put a nice slideshow on the main aspects of Perceived Performance. As he puts it, it’s the only kind of performance that really matters. Take a look on the link below and use the left-right keys to navigate through.
The real Web 2.0
Remember when around 2012 or so, we were talking about web 2.0? Yeah, me neither. The thing is that nothing really felt as groundbreaking. Sure redesigns has revamped services that we use everyday, and sure we have come a long way, but that is only a natural progression.
Barebone apps In the recent years and I would dare to say more in 2016, we saw apps becoming less complex more and more (see what I did there), and reducing their UI to the very basics. Icons to interact with, lines and neutral backgrounds.
You might feel this could be a bad thing, but for such apps there is usually a reason for that. The content is indeed king, and these apps empower such content to be more prominent. A handful of examples are apps like Instagram, AirBnB, iTunes, Youtube, and our beloved Medium.
Yep, Michael Horton from Swarm has coined a term for it, because why not. We need a name for something that will likely be discussed in 2017. And that term is Complexion Reduction.
The art of storytelling In the same direction web designers start reimagining how websites can provide richer experiences. Storytelling, a really sexy subject around design and marketing, is indeed being pushed from articles, movies and ads to even websites. Storytelling, if done right, can convert users better than any crazy growth hack you can imagine. Maybe… because it is more sincere?
In this sense websites also become more fluid. Moving away from traditional grid systems. Designers think outside of the box, and many times, design also outside of the box. Should a website move only from top to bottom? Or just have pages?
Connected World
Connected cities Kinda everything becomes more intelligent around us and so our cities need to become more intelligent (and oh god indeed do they need to). If you think that this is a far fetched reality, you bet someone is already thinking about it anyway. And someone else is already doing it.
For example, Embers is providing open interfaces and SDKs for startups to create services for cities. The data they provide are around traffic, parking, routing, & environment. We need new studies, we need to understand user needs in connecting the physical world, how does traffic for example, become more intelligent, safe and maybe fun as well.
Connected Home On the subject of more fluid UIs or no UIs at all, conversational UIs and so on, we now move to a more human oriented interaction; voice. Devices like Alexa are entering homes and come with no UI at all, just voice activated commands.
At the same note, even your coffee maker is becoming smart and brews you some great coffee in the morning. Sure, I agree, it is not needed to many, but there those problems (or luxuries?) are being tackled by companies and startups.
Designers are needed to understand how to empathetically bring those devices close to users, so that they are not just machines but extentions of what we actually call home.
Connected Cars By 2017 there is a great increase of cars that come with internet connectivity, and it is expected that the number is going to be around 75% of total cars in 2020.
Generally a car has a great lot of data. It is just… not so shared. Most of that data is actually not even accessible by the consumer. However as we move towards more connected cars, much of that data will start being unlocked for the favor of the car owner. Regulations in regions like Europe push towards this direction as well.
We already see cars being shipped with touch screens, apps and autopilots! So designers need to design those experiences around the safety and delight of the person seated in the car. And with companies like Tesla we see how far beyond what we have now, the car industry could be.
Epilogue
We live in an ever-connected world. This is a scary but also exciting era to live in. And it is exciting if we get to shape just a tiny bit of that era as designers. Using trends, studies, conversation and a lot of empathy, we can influence that the products around us are made really for everyone to use. So where do we go from here?
Now, it is 2017. 3 resolutions for designers, plain and simple.Let’s start designing experiences.
For and with people.
Let’s start calling our users: people (maybe Human Experience?)
“Only two industries refer to their customers as ‘users’: computer design and drug dealing.”
User Experience is by far the best career choice I have made in my life. Sure, I am only 30 and sure, there is a big buzz around it, but is it all that bad? I mean, I see a lot of things around the digital product sphere that make me go meh(!) but there are some exceptional services out there. We could say that this could be the real web 2.0 huh?
With those thoughts in mind, I want to share a few skills that I like to use, and to me, is what makes my job enjoyable, and drives my motivation to get always better and learn more.
1. Using Whiteboards Getting handy with your design thinking is a great asset. It is a far more interactive process than just sitting on your computer using a software. It is also a cheap solution; you need a whiteboard marker and maybe some sticky notes.
Whiteboards provide 3 great advantages in my opinion. First, you can see macro details, a specific piece of information at hand and expand its characteristics. Second, you can zoom out, take a few steps back and see the big picture of the whole process you are drawing. And third, you can involve your team as it can be a fun way to get the ideas flowing.
2. Matchmaking Designers often head workshops. We test products with people. We get all the ideas around us from people. Interpersonal skills, empathy, leadership and business intelligence are skills that make us important members of every team.
Being a designer equals being a people’s person. Yes, I am not afraid to admit it! Being able to see the critical values of your team is invaluable and a rather acquired skill. The correct term here could be facilitation.
3. Documentation
Sometimes this is a dreaded tool. But for the love of whatever design god you are following, DOCUMENT your processes. I have learned this the hard way when I had to make my portfolio for the first times seriously. I have had projects that I did not have any evidence I have worked on them with any logical process in mind.
Nowadays, I design wireframes, I draw on whiteboards, I design on Sketch and I create lists of tasks to do. All of those things are documented, with pictures and words, written down in case studies or small articles. The value for my future projects and my own sanity, and the ability to revisit my steps, see my mistakes etc, are tools that I see as must-have.
We need to stop worrying about proving the value of design and just focus on outcomes that provide value.
We can all agree that by definition and principle -at least theoretically, design is about solving problems. Specifically, User Experience strives for that human touch in complex technological advances. It is the extra detail that makes a product a bit more fun for everyone, especially for the less savvy crowd.
There are many practices that can achieve a good user experience. Those practices differ based on the complexity of your project. As an example, for a personal website/portfolio you can use a very simple approach by asking Jane Doe what she wants to show and accomplish on her website. Then design something with up-to-date trends in mind and iterate to fine-tune her website to her liking. For a redesign of a SaaS platform, you might use field practices, by going to customers of that platform, listening to their frustrations, then redesigning some new solutions and observe on their reactions/feelings in the A/B testing process.
In this article we will strive to find a joint force of using data (online and offline), together with human input, user feedback, and designing for the user. Below are the two approaches we are going to be combining in a new super-approach with a simple outcome; Design with empathy kick-ass experiences.
Human-centered Design (or HCD)
HCD is a creative approach to problem solving popularised by the design firm IDEO. It is the empathetic approach to design; Brainstorming for the best solution, creating prototypes for the best experiences, testing the more sound ideas with the people you are designing for, and releasing an experience/solution to the world.
Data-driven Design
Data complements design
DDD is a systematic approach to the development and evolution of digital (and not only) services. As data becomes more accessible, decisions for design can be based on that data. To put it more simply; data complements design.
Quantitative Data-driven Design – Who are the users?
– What are the user’s problems?
– When are the users most active or inactive?
– Where are the users currently using their solutions?
Qualitative Data-driven Design – How do users behave?
– Why do they behave that way?
Fusing the elements
Human Input & Data Information transcend experiences.
I am going to refer to this immersive approach as a Data-informed User Experience. Let’s dig into the logical steps that we should take for a Data-Informed User Experience.
Forming a process
Take 1 minute to think of a specific website with a specific product to sell. While keeping this in mind we will continue into the process, and use the elements we have defined in a combination to think of how we could redesign the landing page.
For this we need data. The quantitative data we will use, is the bounce rate. For qualitative data we will ask how and why, and then we will brainstorm for better solutions with an A/B testing feedback loop.
The empirical data is a good base for drafting our new combined approach. We need analytics that tells us what happens when a user comes to this page directly. We also need analytics of what happens when a user comes to that page through other pages, and what happens after he takes an action.
– Does he come back after to check more?
– Does he come to the page only for freebies and not the product?
– Does he come by accident and takes no action?
Additionally we need qualitative data to our process. This process often gets frowned upon as some people cannot visualise observation as data, but it is a pretty crucial data process.
– How do the users get to this page?
– How do they use it?
– Why do some stay for more, and why do others leave right after they completed an action?
– Do returning users use the page differently than first timers?
After we have gathered this information, it is time to dive into practicing the second part of our new approach, and a bit more practical (maybe fun too!).
We have to create personas based on the analytics and observations we have done. For those we are going to brainstorm possible ways of answering the questions raised, and solving the problems that rose from those questions.
The best of those ideas will become prototypes for A/B testing, and in the end, after choosing the most logical designs, we are going back to users and test the new solutions.
After this, naturally there’s more qualitative data to be collected. More observational data and feedback from the users that helps us finalise our solution and put it finally out to the world (note: iterations are always part of the process even after ‘finalizing’ your design).
Key Findings
By combining the empathetic HCD approach with the structured DDD approach, we create a holistic design strategy that generates a fulfilling result.
We are designers. We are makers. We want to believe we are inventors. Most of all, we are people. Designing a great experience is all about that. Or as Christopher Murphy puts it:
The secret to success in our fast-paced industry is, I believe, straightforward: make things, share things and — last, but by no means least — be nice to people. That’s it, really.
Design Disruption We are finally to a point where we can use data & design thinking. We can afford then to create solutions, that do not just look attractive. We can create solutions that help us understand user experience, product development, services & processes and of course most importantly; People. We are rather fueling our creativity through empowerment, empathy & innovation.
Finding the right balance between data, empathy & experimentation is the distilled result.
Design [that] matters
At the end it is all about meaningful experiences. Designing with people, for people is what makes what we are talking about worthwhile and it is a good reason to continue trying to make sense of it.
The web has evolved exponentially since the ugly pages of the 90s. A website at a time, companies and designers figured out that hey, I can do this differently. Let’s try. We did try a lot, we still do. UX has not come into any final stage. Nor will it ever. It is a craft that will keep evolving. And this is pretty damn awesome.
Users are becoming more intuitive.Internet has become part of our lives in such an extent, that one way or another, sometime somehow, you will have to use it at least once per day. Be it a transaction, seeking information, stalk your soulmate or just listen to music. And users are becoming more intuitive to it. Of course there are demographics of older people who are less competent than a today’s 20 year old, but even in those ages people are getting the hang of it.
As human beings we are always trying to recognise patterns. Our brains work just like that. So remember some people complaining that all websites now look the same? Well… is it too bad? Not for my uncle John Doe.
2 major disruptions
Mobile is the new norm Okay so this premise is fairly simple. In my opinion mobile is one of the strongest factors of UX becoming a thing. In order to differentiate apps from a plain website, or to give to a user something more, designers really pushed the boundaries of UX in the field. And after a lot of research and thinking the UX of apps became sophisticated in a great level. Then it was only natural to try something that works on websites too.
Content is king
Before this bloated term drive you away give me one minute here to explain myself. UX is the simple and sophisticated representation of content. And content is on the basis of UX. This is a simple formula that leads us to a fine result. Great design is transparent.
A successful interaction leaves you with a great experience of a service, app or website. Your thoughts afterwards can be “wow, that was a great UX design right there”, but the immediate connections should always be the subject; the reason you are using this service, app, or website right now.
Human Computer Interaction is getting more intricate
A great website with one-page scroll storytelling. An app with beautiful microinteractions that gamify your experience. A minimal form that does not even require you to click. Gestures and hotkeys that boost your experience with a service.
UX is disruptive Well not the craft itself, but people who dare. A quick example is how software slowly revolutionises the car industry. Tesla being a pioneer in that, we observe that there is still so much room for improvement. Data is penetrating every aspect of our lives, and so UX is needed to keep frustration away (or too close).
Data shows us the way – 88% of consumers go away after a bad experience
– 9 out of 10 customers say personalisation has some impact on their purchasing decision
– 94% of first impressions are design related.
– Flash becomes obsolete (bye bye ugly banners)
Why is it a good thing?
Of course there are bad aspects to this popularity boost, however it is only natural to be part of a craft that is evolving. And with more people getting their mindset UX-wise, we expect to gain more educated knowledge on the craft. If you know what you are doing, you should be able to identify bad from good examples and filter your information flow.
Websites and apps that make sense.
More innovations in the field
Everyone is a designer (Digital Telepathy might be onto something around here)
