Conceptualizing a UX Design
The design process can be a very exciting one. From the stage of getting your idea, to launching it for development/public view, the thrill that comes with creating something useful and beautiful is real. Learning easier methods of creating seemingly complex designs also give a kick. I remember when I found out about the Repeat Grid feature on Adobe XD. I almost cried 😅 (just kidding). But, I most definitely thought, “so what in the world have I been doing all this time???!!!”.
However, between wondering why you even started due to some blockers or asking yourself if your design is relevant and actually solves a problem, you could find yourself experiencing some discouragement many times. Because of this, it is important to have and document a good reason(s) for your design. That way, you can always go back to it to remind yourself that you are on the right track.
This is why I want to talk about the Conceptualization Process of UX Design. Here, I will give an insight into how you can approach complex or simple problems and create design solutions to them.
Goal
The goal of this article is to expose you to the initial stages of design thinking; which I will term as the Conceptualization Process. It includes:
- Framing the Problem
- Ideating
- Creating the User-centred Picture
At the end of this article, I want the readers to have a basic understanding of how to think up and structure viable user-centred solutions to real-world problems.
Target Audience
This article is for newbie designers, people who are thinking about starting a career in UX design, as well as those who are just interested in knowing more about UX design.
What is the Design Process
The UX design process is the unending actions of framing and refining a design.
User experience design process is an iterative method that helps you continuously improve and polish your designs. — UX Planet
CareerFoundry identifies four major stages in their breakdown of the design thinking process and I found them pretty enlightening. The first and second are Inspiration and Conceptualization. The third and fourth are Iteration and Exposition. From their explanation, Inspiration and Conceptualization (which I have roped under what I call the Conceptualization Process) are the initial steps in a UX design process where a UX designer seeks to understand, observe, research, and analyze problems and viable solutions to them. All of these can be vividly seen in reasons for ideation, conducting research, creating personas, crafting storyboards or scenarios, and so on.
Pause.
The above might sound like a lot of complex descriptions of something that could be simple.
So, put simply,
The Conceptualization Process in UX Design involves identifying a problem and creating the structure for a user-centered solution. — Olamide Williams
I should mention that the CP isn’t a strict process at all. So, you can find yourself going back to the starting point or revisiting your entire concept many times. It’s fine.
Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries. — Neville Brody
The Conceptualization Process of a UX Design
Framing the Problem
As the names suggest, this is the stage where you, well, frame a problem 😅 . At this stage of the CP, you are just generally thinking about problems that can be solved with a web product. The extra step you take here is that through user research, you zero in on specific real problems that real people face in the real world. Needless to say, this stage is essential to start creating a UX design.
So, how do you frame a problem?
You can do this by collecting information about and defining a problem(s) directly from the affected people or personal observation.
Through formal methods like surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc., you can identify target users and their needs, as well as possible solutions that also exist. This would help a great deal not only in zeroing in on a problem but also in creating new approaches to creating a solution. Formal research methods are great because they provide accurate data, facts, and figures. However, they could come at a cost.
This is why you can also do informal research. This would involve personal observations and thoughts.
Another great way is to ask people; by word of mouth, on social media, etc. If you are thinking about a problem and don’t know how to approach it, ask on social media. In a way, it could pass for formal research.
Finally, you can also read about the possibilities around that problem. Get inspiration online, see what others have don’t about it, generally get as much information as you can. You can also download apps or surf websites that solve problems similar to the one you’ve thought of and try to see what they have not thought of.
Remember
- After realizing a problem, user research help you zone in on specific problems
- Your formative research can be formal or informal
- The Internet will provide an infinite wealth of information for you.
Ideating
With the problems identified, ideation comes next in the CP. It involves thinking up ways to solve a problem. I like how the Interaction Design Foundation puts it: to ideate it to “challenge assumptions”. This is why it is important to be crazy during your ideation stage. Don’t filter anything out because you don’t know yet that it is not useful, even though it seems ridiculous. The goal of ideation is “to use creativity and innovation in order to develop solutions”.
How can you ideate?
A great method I learnt and applied from a UX course I took on Coursera is to Come up with a lot of ideas under a time frame and then pick the ones that seem best. This works like during a test when you become extra focused and more productive.
For example, set a 10 mins timer, devoid yourself of all distractions and write down a minimum of 20 ideas to a problem you’ve identified; no filters, no questions, no worries about whether they are good ideas or not. Also, you do not need to go into too much detail. Just write enough that would help you remember what you were thinking at that point. I usually add tiny sketches to capture what words won’t. Sketching and brainstorming are forms of ideation.
Note that it is important to ideate early, especially when you freshly understand the problem. It is also important for your ideation to be specific. For example, instead of an ideation process on “corruption in the country”, you can centre on “financial crimes tracking systems” (this is why problem framing is essential).
Remember
- Go into the ideation stage after your fresh understanding of the problem
- Come up with as many ideas as you can
- Time and devoid yourself of any distractions, as this could trigger a “cognitive rush”
Creating the User-centered Picture
Because it’s User eXperience (UX) design, the needs of users should always be the foremost guiding principle of your design. I’d like to go into details in some other article, so this would brief. The components of this stage in the CP are personas, scenarios, and storyboards. Some would include design rationale. I think it connects the CP to the later part of the design process. So, it is right in the middle. What do you think? Creating personas, scenarios, and storyboards are important because they serve as reference points you can consult during the never-ending course of your design. They help you remember why you chose a feature, layout, colour, font, or any other detail in the design, as they are what the users want. They create a story for your design.
Personas: Personas are fictive characters made up by a UX designer to represent intended users. That they are fictive doesn’t mean they aren’t true to life. Usually, a UX designer would base their personas on real data gotten from the formative research. The purpose of personas is to translate data gathered through research into a concrete design tool that acts as a user representative.
Um… Take note that you are not your user, so your entire design shouldn’t be based on your preferences, but on what your personas (representing your users) need and want.
Scenarios: As expected, characters come with stories. So, scenarios are narratives that tell the story of a user journey. They tell the reasons a user needs a web product and unfold, to how it comes in handy at various points in their life. It also points out what feature is useful to different kinds of users. Think of scenarios as the story that comes in handy during an idea/business pitch. They also create room to help designers consider how useful a feature is. Typically, a scenario comes in the bio of a persona.
Storyboards: We know pictures can say a lot more than words, so storyboards act as supplements to scenarios. A storyboard is a visual representation of a user narrative. It helps convey emotions and facial expressions that would be difficult to replicate on paper. Additionally, a storyboard would also convey time, environment, space, size, and interaction more easily.
So, how can you create a user-centred picture?
After your formative research, either informal or formal, you will have data about users. From this, you can generate personas, scenarios, and storyboards. As the image below shows, a persona comprises demography, biography, motivators/needs, and constraints/frustrations/pain-points.
More examples can be seen here.
You can create a scenario by penning down the problems that would cause a persona to use your product, how it is used, and the result of it. You do not have to be a great storyteller for you to create a scenario. You can find some examples of scenarios here. See the example of a scenario I came up with:
Think of storyboards as comics. Pictures and words come together to give you what plays out like a real action. No, you do not have to be a good artist to draw a storyboard. Your “human” can look like this 👇🏾.
You can find examples of storyboards here. Below is an example of one:
Remember
- After ideation comes creating instances for the user-centred solutions you came up with
- You can construct your personas, scenarios, and storyboards based on the data received in your formative research
- You neither have to be a good artist or writer to get any of these done
- Time and devoid yourself of any distractions, as this could trigger a “cognitive rush”
Recommendations
For new designers, conceptualizing a UX design is a known struggle as well. From personal experience, my plight at the beginning of my UX journey was that I simply didn’t know what to design… or how to. I was worried about “stealing other people’s work”, so I tried not to recreate designs as I saw them. I tried to do it all by myself. This was my first mistake. My mentor at SCA made me realize that this one of the reasons muse zones like Behance and Dribbble exist in the first place. Asides, of course, helping people host their portfolios, those muse zones (Uplabs and Mobbin inclusive) are there to help designers get a hang of this designing thing. You can always get ideas and inspirations from those platforms.
So, the next time you have an idea, go to one of those platforms and see what other people have done. I can’t help but connect this to the Literature Review process in academic writing (nerd here 🤓). Anyway, to clarify, if you want to copy a design, icon for icon, font for font, colour for colour, layout for layout, take the extra step to reference the original owner. This also applies if you are recreating a website or an app for self-development.
Another way is to enrol in mentorship programs hosted by communities like She Code Africa that would surround you with seniors designers and professionals that you can learn from. She Code Africa also has a Slack Community that you can join, learn, and share your designs for great reviews.
As of now, I am a mentee in the 3rd Cohort of Sche Code Africa mentorship program. In that period, I have been introduced to many design concepts that have helped me develop myself as a designer. One of my goals in joining the program is to learn and share. This is why I am excited about this article and more to come.
