Collaborative UX Design

Requirements & Concepts

This review is designed to showcase the knowledge and understanding of the Collaborative UX Design process model learned during university lessons. To provide a deeper insight into this model, we have referenced the book by Steimle and Wallach [2018]. This portfolio focuses on the key process steps involved in Collaborative UX Design, excluding the phases of Validation and Prototyping for a concise and easy-to-follow presentation.

The process model

At the core of the Collaborative UX Design process model by Steimle and Wallach [2018] lies a focus on people. This approach is divided into seven phases, all of which are facilitated through workshops. The key to a successful implementation lies in the following four pillars:

‍Human-centred

‍Both users and stakeholders are placed at the forefront, ensuring that the project team takes into consideration both technical limitations and business goals for a product that lasts.

Collaborative

‍This UX design method emphasizes teamwork and invites experts from different departments to contribute to the overall product development.

Hypothesis-based

‍The use of fact-based conclusions leads to a successful resolution process, with continuous hypothesis creation and validation.

Agile

The Collaborative UX Design process is carried out in an agile manner, enabling the project team to break down a large project into smaller, manageable iterations.

Scoping

To ensure the success of the project, it's essential to clearly define the scope and establish how success will be measured. This process involves working closely with the client and all stakeholders to understand their needs and align on project goals. To support this collaboration, the team may use a variety of tools and techniques such as:

1. Problem Statement Map: Clearly articulating the problem the project aims to solve.
2. Proto-Personas: Creating user profiles to better understand the target audience and their needs.
3. Benchmarking Map: Identifying and comparing existing solutions to inform project decisions.
4. Stakeholder Map: Understanding the interests and priorities of all parties involved.
5. Assumptions Map: Examining and validating key assumptions that inform project decisions.
6. Research Planning Map: Planning and organizing research activities to gain a deeper understanding of user needs.
7. Questionnaire: Gathering feedback and insights from stakeholders and users through structured questions.

By using these methods and artefacts, the team can make informed decisions and deliver a successful project that meets the needs of all stakeholders.

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Synthesis

The aim of the synthesis workshop is to provide a user-centered perspective to the evaluation of insights gathered from user research. We aim to distill the proto-artifacts into actionable and data-driven insights. Through the synthesis process, we will create personas that are grounded in empirical evidence, journey maps that outline user experiences, storyboards that illustrate key moments in the user journey, and insight statements that capture the essence of our findings. This approach allows us to ensure that the insights are accurate, relevant, and usable in design and development.

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Ideation

At the ideation workshop, we facilitate a collaborative process to generate solution-focused ideas and visually map them out. This builds on the insights gathered from the previous workshop, where we identified opportunities for improvement. Together, we evaluate these opportunities and develop potential solutions that could address the identified challenges.

Concept

To create a final concept and vision for our ideation workshop solutions, we utilized a user story map to present ideas in a user-centric way. This helped us identify key functions and prioritize them based on user scenarios. From here, we created conceptual designs for user interfaces by sketching out visual representations, ensuring a user-friendly and intuitive experience.

MVP

A user-centric Minimal Viable Product (MVP) focuses on delivering the most valuable features to users with a feasible amount of development effort. This approach allows for a continuous product roadmap, enabling the team to introduce new features efficiently and assess their impact in a controlled environment. This approach minimizes risks and prevents overwhelming users with sudden product changes. To ensure that the MVP includes essential features, a priority matrix can be utilized to prioritize user needs.

A comparison to Lean UX

Collaborative UX Design adopts the Lean UX model approach [Steimle & Wallach 2018], which emphasizes an iterative, hypothesis-driven, and agile methodology. This methodology is similar to the Lean UX model described by Gothelf and Seiden [2016]. In Lean UX, the focus is on creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) by validating hypotheses and assumptions through user feedback. The design process involves collaboration between interdisciplinary teams and stakeholders, however, the lack of user story maps or journey maps may hinder the verifiability of the user experience. It can be concluded that Lean UX is a suitable approach for implementing minor features that do not require prioritization based on user story maps. The user experience is validated post-product launch through direct market feedback.