Detailed design: Preserving the UX from concept through delivery

Half-day workshop. Wednesday 24 August 2011. Afternoon

Description

So you’ve done ethnographic user research. You’ve also analysed log files. You’ve interviewed help desk and customer service folks. You’ve had long meetings with stakeholders. You’ve nailed down an understanding of the user, so you’ve got some great personas. You even held some design sketching sessions.

NOW what?

While many authors have codified the early phases of experience documentation, there’s a disconnect that often happens when business analysts write requirements documents or developers and product managers write user stories.

Despite the best personas and user/task grids and wireframes, people other than project champions need information to help them succeed, including the creation of data architecture, interaction coding and the actual realisation of the user interface.

User experience work doesn’t end at the wireframe – it ends when the product is implemented. Detailed design covers those activities that reduce possible miscommunication between the designer and the developer and product owner. Activities can include specifying tweens in interaction, specific pixel radii on corners, or data formats for forms, for example.

So, if the heart of UX design is empathy, then detailed design codifies that empathy.

This workshop investigates how to make sure your good work continues right through until the product is released. Focusing on better ways to specify functionality, visual design, and content, we’ll collaborate to find solutions that work for YOU.

Outcomes

As a participant, you will learn how important it is to be involved in a product’s construction, even if on the advisory side of the house. You’ll learn better ways to produce just the right amount of documentation. Finally, you’ll work together to discover ways to communicate with other competencies to ensure that your experience design vision appears in the finished product.

Workshop structure

Through lecture, discussion, and hands-on exercises, this workshop covers understanding the problem space, techniques to improve communication in projects, and exercises to practice improvements.

Why worry about detailed design at all?

  • Introductions and a warm-up exercise: “What would you document?”
  • What is detailed design?
  • Where does it break down? Why?
  • The importance of traceability in design.

How can we improve

  • What are some solutions? How do frameworks and style guides fit into the mix?
  • How do we work within our projects?
  • Exercise: “RACI”

How does Agile fit in?

  • No matter how we approach agile from a UX perspective, we need to ensure that people who build understand how to address the UX.
  • Exercise: “Challenge Card Game”

Open discussion, Q&A

Target audience

  • Agencies who want to avoid the ‘throwing over the wall’ syndrome
  • Independent UX professionals
  • People working in highly regulated areas: healthcare, government, military
  • Anyone working with distributed teams (including cross-border, multiple time zone teams)
  • Agile practitioners who want to communicate with other teams or new team members

Materials provided

Workshop slides will be provided.