Start the UX Design Process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate.

Week 1
There are two key parts to every UX design project: conducting research to learn
about the users you’re designing for, and gathering feedback about their
perspectives. UX design is all about putting the user first, and research helps
designers understand those users. 
UX research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations
through observation and feedback. UX research aligns what you, as the designer,
think the user needs with what the user actually needs. 
Foundational research is the research that took place before anything is designed,
during this stage, you will also make personas and user stories. It answers the
following question:
 What should we build?
 What are the user problems?
 How can we solve them?
 Am I aware of my own biases, and am I able to filter them as I do research?

Common foundational research methods: 

 Interviews: A research method used to collect in-depth information on

people's opinions, thoughts, experiences, and feelings. You’ll often conduct
interviews of your target users themselves.
 Surveys: An activity where many people are asked the same questions in
order to understand what most people think about a product.
 Focus groups: A small group of people whose reactions are studied. For
example, your focus group might bring together eight users to discuss their
perspectives about new features in your design. A focus group is usually
run by a moderator who guides the group on a certain topic of
conversation. 
 Competitive audit: An overview of your competitors’ strengths and
weaknesses.
 Field studies: Research activities that take place in the user's context or
personal environment, rather than in an office or lab. 
 Diary studies: A research method used to collect qualitative data about
user behaviors, activities, and experiences over time. Often, a user will log,
or diary, about their daily activities and provide information about their
behaviors and needs, which can help inform your designs. 

Design research is the research that took place during the design phase, or phase
3, of the product development life cycle. In design research the goal is to answer
the question:
 How should we it? (Things to ask users during this phase: how was your
experience using the prototype today? How easy or difficult was it to use?
Why? Did you encounter any challenges?)
Common design research methods:

 Usability study, which is a technique to evaluate a product by testing it on

users. The goal of usability studies is to identify pain points that the user
experiences with your prototypes, so the issues can be fixed before the
product launches.
 A/B testing: A research method that evaluates and compares two different
aspects of a product to discover which of them is most effective. For
example, you might have users evaluate two layouts for the homepage of
your app to find out which layout is more effective. 
 Cafe or guerrilla studies: A research method where user feedback is
gathered by taking a design or prototype into the public domain and asking
passersby for their thoughts. For example, you might sit in a local coffee
shop and ask customers if they would be willing to test your app design for
a couple of minutes and provide feedback. 
 Card sorting: A research method that instructs study participants to sort
individual labels written on notecards into categories that make sense to
them. This type of research is largely used to figure out the information
architecture of your project.
 Intercepts: A research method that gathers on-site feedback from users as
they engage in the activities being researched. Intercepts are often
conducted in the field, so this type of research is often considered a subset
of field research. An intercept study can provide quick, high-level feedback.

Post-launch research can be used before the end of the product development life
cycle and can be used to evaluate how well a launch feature is meeting the needs
of users. It answers the question:
 Did we succeed?
Research methods you might use to conduct post-launch research include:

 A/B testing
 Usability studies
 Surveys
 Logs analysis: A research method used to evaluate recordings of users
while they interact with your design, tools, etc. 

Key-qualities of UX researcher
  Empathy: ability to understand someone else’s feelings or thought in a
situation.
 Pragmatism: is a practical approach to problem-solving. Pragmatic people
are focused on reaching goals.
 Collaboration: ability of work with a range of people, personalities, and
work styles.

Primary research: research you conduct yourself. Interview users, survey users or
conduct a usability study to hear from users directly.
Secondary research: research that uses information someone else has put
together. Can be information from books, articles, or journals. Is done at the very
beginning of the product development life cycle, before any ideation.
Benefits:
 Saves time and money
 Immediately accessible
 Backs up primary research
Drawbacks
 No first-hand user interaction
 No specific user feedback
How data can be collected
Quantitative research: focuses on data that can be gathered by counting or
measuring. Quantitative research is often based on surveys of large groups of
people using numerical answers. This type of research often answers questions
like: how many? How much?
Qualitative research: focuses on observations about why and how things happen.
Qualitative research is often based on interviews, where we focus on a smaller
number of users and understand their needs in greater detail. This type of
research answers questions like: Why? Or, how did this happen?

Quantitative research gives you the “what” and qualitative research gives you the
“why”.

Methods: how you get the research done. The research method we choose is
decided by the question we’re trying to answer.
 Interview: method used to collect in-depth information on people's
opinions, thoughts, experiences, and feelings. Interviews are usually
conducted in person and include a series of open-ended questions where
the researcher asks the user about their experience. Use interviews when
your questions require a detailed response. 

Benefits:
a. Understand what users think and why
b. Ask follow up questions

Drawbacks:

a. Take time and money

 b. Small sample size

 Surveys: an activity where many people are asked the same questions to
understand what most people think about a product. Surveys allow us to
hear of many users. Includes a mix of quantitative and qualitative
questions. Is most useful when you already have some initial understanding
of the user’s pain points.

Benefits:
a. Large sample size
b. Fast
c. Inexpensive

Drawbacks:

a. No in-depth feedback

 Usability study: a technique to evaluate a product by testing it on users. The

goal of a usability study is to identify pain points that the user experiences
with different prototypes, so the issues can be fixed before the final product
launches.

Benefits:
a. Firsthand user interaction
b. Challenge our assumptions
c. In-depth feedback

Drawbacks:

a. Only measure how easy a product is to use

b. Expensive
c. Difference in lab use versus real life

PS: During a usability study, you get a chance to see how your end
users interact with your new product or feature, and afterward you can
interview the users to learn more about their experience. The usability
study data is then used to improve the UX of the design. If the product has
already launched, a post-launch usability study might include data like
success metrics and key performance indicators, which are commonly
known as KPIs.

 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): critical measures of progress toward an

end goal. The KPIs for an app or new product launch might include things
 like how much time the user spent on a task or the number of clicks they
used to make a purchase.

Identify types of bias in UX Research

Bias: favoring or having prejudice against something based on limited information.

 Confirmation bias
Occurs when you start looking for evidence to prove a hypothesis you have.

Overcoming confirmation bias

a. Ask open-ended questions
b. Actively listen
c. Include a large sample of users

 False consensus bias

Overestimate the number of people who will agree with our idea or design.

Overcoming false consensus bias

a. Identify and articulate your own assumptions
b. Survey a large groups of people

 Primacy bias
Remember the first participant most strongly.

 Recency bias
It’s easiest to remember the last thing you heard.

Overcoming recency and primacy bias

a. Take detailed notes or recordings for each interview or
conversation.
b. Interview each participant in the same way

 Implicit bias
The collection of attitudes and stereotypes we associate to people without
our conscious knowledge.

Overcoming implicit bias

a. Reflect on our own behaviors
b. Ask others to point out our implicit biases

 Sunk cost fallacy

 The deeper we get into a project we’ve invested in, the harder it is to change
course.

Overcoming sunk cost fallacy

a. Break down your project into smaller phases
b. Outline points where you can decide whether to continue or stop

Preventing bias in data collection

 Choose your words carefully. While conducting research, it’s important to

use words that don’t lead the user in one direction or another.
 Foster independent thinking. Group interviews can be affected by the
bandwagon effect, or going along with the group’s opinion instead of
thinking creatively, which can discourage open discussion by people who
have an opinion that doesn’t align with the majority of the group.
 Avoid specific language. It’s important to be mindful about the types of
questions you ask users and how those questions are framed. You’ll need
to be careful to avoid confirmation bias, which is trying to find evidence to
prove a hypothesis you already have.
 Limit the guidance you give users. Everyone learns and thinks in different
ways. When you’re conducting any type of UX research, you have to be
cautious to avoid experiencing any false consensus, which is the
assumption that others will think the same way as you do. 
 Consider users’ tone and body language. You’ll work with many different
users and participants throughout your UX career, and part of your job will
involve interpreting their nonverbal cues, like vocal tone and body
language. To avoid experiencing implicit biases, which are based on the
collection of attitudes and stereotypes you associate with people without
your conscious knowledge, it’s important to clarify when you think you’re
getting mixed signals from a participant.
 Be careful of your own body language and reactions. You also have to
be mindful of your own tone and body language while interacting with
participants. Social desirability bias can happen when a participant
answers a question based on what they think you want to hear. If you ask a
question to a participant, and they notice you exhibiting a visual or audible
clue that suggests your own opinion about the question, they might answer
in a way that they think will please you. 
  Plan your research effectively. Tight deadlines are inevitable. But as a UX
designer, it’s essential you get enough time to recruit the right users for
your research. Availability bias occurs when you rush the user recruitment
process or skip screener questions to attract a bigger pool of users, even if
they don’t fit the qualifications or characteristics that you’ve already
determined are present in your ideal user.
 Remain open minded. One more tip: When you’re conducting research,
you have to work hard to treat all information equally to avoid both primacy
bias, which is remembering the first user more than others, and recency
bias, which is most easily remembering the last thing you heard. To help
combat these biases in your own research, it’s helpful to space out the
scheduling of interviews, ask your colleagues to join you during interviews
to provide additional opinions, and take careful notes.

Week 2

When you have pity for someone, you feel sorry for them. But pity usually has
condescending overtones. When you have sympathy for someone, you
acknowledge their feelings, but you keep yourself from experiencing those
feelings. Empathy goes beyond sympathy. When you empathize with
someone, you share their mental and emotional experiences. Empathy is at the
core of everything we do.

UX design is not about solving problems we assume users want solved. It’s about
solving problems that users actually want solved.

How to empathize with users

Ask lots of questions. As a UX designer, you cannot make assumptions about the
needs of your users. Instead, ask your users directly about their needs and wants,
which your product design can address. Ask questions that begin with what, how,
and why to gain a deeper understanding of your users’ perspective.

Become more observant. Shift your focus to the whole user and not just the
words they are using. In interviews where the user is physically present or on a
video recording, watching a user interact with you or your product can provide
physical cues that can affect your research outcomes. To help capture
observations, you’ll take detailed notes or even record your sessions with users.

Be an active listener. Active listening requires you to fully concentrate on,

understand, and remember what is being said by the user you’re interacting with.
Avoid getting distracted by where the conversation is going or what you might say
next. In UX design, practicing active listening can help you get impartial feedback
directly from your users, which you can apply to improve your designs.

Request input. It’s important that the feedback you receive is objective and
unbiased. Friends or colleagues often provide biased, mostly positive feedback
because they want to support or please you. So, it’s important to request input
from a variety of sources and a diverse group of users. When asking for feedback,
use open-ended questions to understand the user’s actual thoughts on the
experience or product.

Have an open mind. We all have biases. Remember, a bias is favoring or having
prejudice against something or someone, based on limited information. As UX
designers, we have to set those biases aside to better empathize with others. Your
goal is to understand users, not to complicate their feedback with your own
opinions and emotions.

Keep current on UX research. Follow researchers and join online communities to

stay up-to-date on the research that affects UX designers and the users you’re
designing for. Research is always changing and evolving as we understand more
about human psychology. Staying current will give you an advantage in how you
understand and interact with your audience. 

Recruiting interview participants

Screener (survey): a detailed list of questions that helps researchers determine if
potential participants meet the requirements of the research study.

Step 1: Determine interview goals

a. What do you want to learn from the interviews?
b. Are there certain user problems or pain points that you need to empathize
with?
c. Are there any characteristics of users you want to interview?
d. Why?
e. How much information should we have to ensure we get a comprehensive
and balanced set of data?

Representative sample: a subset of the target population that seeks to accurately

reflect the characteristics of the larger group.

Exemplar
Interview goals: 

I want to understand common challenges people face trying to manage a busy

schedule and meal planning.
I want to identify frustrations people experience during the process of ordering
from a restaurant.  

Interview questions: 

1. Can you describe your current schedule and how you balance your
responsibilities with meal planning?
2. How often do you order meals from a restaurant? When you do, what
is your motivation for doing so? 
3. What challenges do you face in the ordering process? How does this
make you feel?
4. Is there any way in which you feel these challenges could be resolved?

Target participant characteristics:

 Ages 18-62
 Lives in metropolitan or suburban areas
 People who order food from restaurants at least once a week
 Include participants of different genders
 Include participants with different abilities

Preparing for the interview

 Script interview questions
 Collect supplies
 Research the users (name, demographic info, etc.)
 Practice

Steps for conducting a user interview

1. Meet the participant
 Build a good rapport
 Thank the participant for coming
 Review legal details
 Gather basic details
 Let the participant know there are no right or wrong answers
2. Conduct the interview
 Follow interview etiquette
 Ask open-ended questions
3. Take notes
 Highlight compelling quotes
 Document observations about participants (mood, expressions,
body language, and behaviors)
 Consider recording interviews
4. Wrap up the interview
 Give users a chance to share any final thoughts
 Always thank the participant again for their time
Documenting user interviews

Recording the interview. One of the best ways to ensure all the information you
need from your interviews is saved is to record the interview. Having a recording
allows you the flexibility to revisit and easily pull important feedback even after the
interview is done. This is especially useful if you’re conducting interviews on your
own, so you don’t have to facilitate the interview, take notes, and digest the
responses simultaneously. 

Taking notes during the interview. Another tool you should use to capture
important feedback from the interview is note taking. If you were conducting
interviews for a company or with a team, you would probably have a dedicated
note taker supporting the lead interviewer. This allows the lead interviewer to
focus on the participant and move the conversation forward.

This can be as simple as jotting down bullet points of interesting quotes, recording
quick observations, or writing down follow-up questions to ask the participant
next. Recording the session relieves the pressure of capturing everything in your
notes, so you can devote your attention to the interview. However, if a recording is
not possible, make sure the participant understands that when you're writing or
typing, it’s because you’re taking notes, so you don’t forget any of the great
information they’re sharing.

Documenting information after the interview. One option is to create interview

transcripts, which are a typed or written version of a conversation that’s been
recorded. Interview transcripts can come in handy when you need to quickly and
easily scan interview content to look for key quotes or feedback from research
participants. However, transcribing interviews word-for-word can be time
consuming, especially if you’re working by yourself.

Empathy Map: an easily-understood chart that explains everything designers have

learned about a type of user.
Aggregated empathy maps: represent a visualization of everything designers know
about an entire user segment or group of similar users.
Identify user pain points
Pain points: any UX issues that frustrate the user and block the user from getting
what they need.
Types of Pain Points
 Financial: user problems related to money.
 Product: these are usually quality issues related to the product.
 Process: these are frustrations that stop the user going from point A to
point B.
 Support: When users interact with your product, they might have
questions. If they can't find answers to their questions, they won't feel
supported.

Personas: fictional users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a
larger group of users.
Benefits of personas
 Build empathy
 Tell stories
User story: a fictional one-sentence story told from the persona’s point of view to
inspire and inform design decisions. (Also known as scenarios and user cases)
Advantages
 Prioritize design goals
 Unite the team
 Inspire empathetic design decisions
 Personalize pitches to stakeholders
User story structure
As an (type of user), I want to (action), so that (benefit).
Type of user – who we are designing for
Action – what the user hopes will happen
Benefit – why the user wants the action to happen
Example: As an online shopper, I want to receive a text when the item arrives, so that I
can pick it up right the way.
Happy path: a user story with a happy ending.
Edge case: a rare situation or unexpected problem that interrupts a standard user
experience.

Spotting & resolving edge cases

 Create personas and user stories
 Thoroughly review the project before launch
 Use wireframes

User journey (journey map): the series of experiences a user has as they achieve a
specific goal.
Benefits of user journey mapping
 Helps UX designers create obstacle-free paths for users
 Reduces impact of designer bias
 Highlights new pain points
 Identifies improvement opportunities
Consider accessibility when empathizing

Accessibility is not just designing to include a group of users with varying abilities.
Instead, it extends to anyone who is experiencing a permanent, temporary, or
situational disability.

Touch

 Decide where to place buttons within your design based on several

different hand sizes.
 Create a feature that allows double taps to avoid accidental icon clicks.
 Enable the one-handed keyboard feature and general keyboard
compatibility.
 Allow button customization for easy access to information that the user
finds most important.

See
 Use a larger font to create a reader-friendly design of the app.
 Ensure the app and the images have alternate text that can be read by a
screen reader.
  Detect whether the user is operating a motor vehicle.
 Design the app with high contrast colors.
 Don’t rely on text color to explain navigation or next steps. For example,
don’t use red text alone as an indicator of a warning. Instead, your design
should include explicit instructions.

Hear
 Don’t rely solely on sounds to provide app updates, like a new message
notification. Instead, enable haptics, which are vibrations that engage a
user’s sense of touch, and notification lights.
 Apply closed captioning to all videos. 
 Provide a text messaging system within the app to allow users to
communicate through writing.

Speak
 Provide written intros, descriptions, and instructions for users, in addition
to video-based content.
 Provide Real-Time Texting during phone calls with users or with app
support.
 Arrange alternatives for automated systems that rely on speech
recognition.
 Provide an in-app messaging system that allows the use of emojis and
image uploads.

Curt-cub effect: a phenomenon that describes how products and policies designed
for people with disabilities often end up helping everyone.

Week 4

Problem statement: a clear description of the user’s need that should be

addressed.

 Human-centered
 Broad enough for creative freedom
 Narrow enough to be solved by a design

Formula to write a problem statement

(User name) is a (user characteristics) who needs (user need) because (insight).

Example: Amal is an athlete who needs to sign up for workout classes because the
class he wants to participate in fills up fast.
What we can learn from an effective problem statement

 Establish goals
 Understand constraints
 Define deliverables
 Create benchmarks for success

The 5 Ws and H: who, what, when, where, why, and how

Who is experiencing the problem? Knowing your users and their background is key
to creating successful solutions for them.

What are the pain points you’re trying to solve? Determining a user’s pain points
early allows you to answer the rest of these questions and clarify the context of the
pain points.

Where is the user when they’re using the product? A user’s physical context
matters to your design.

When does the problem occur? Maybe it’s right after the end of a long and tedious
process, or maybe it’s something that happens daily. Knowing when the problem
occurs can help you better empathize with the user’s feelings. 

Why is the problem important? Knowing how this problem affects your user’s
experience and life will help to clarify the potential consequences.

How are users reaching their goals by using the product? Understanding how
users reach their goals allows you to map the user journey that they take through
your product.

Hypothesis statement: our best educated guess on what we think the solution to a
design problem might be.

This is not a formula, just an example of how to start:

If (action) then (outcome).

Example: If Amal downloads the gym’s app then he can reserve his favorite class in
advance. Or, Amal needs an app that allows him to reserve his favorite classes in
advance and notifies him of the first opportunity to sign up.

Value proposition: the reason why a consumer should use a product or service.

Value propositions ensure that users have a reason to use the product that 
you are creating, as opposed to any other product currently available.

Build value propositions

 What does your product do?

Clearly explain the offering that your product provides users. 

 Why should the user care?

Describe how your product addresses users’ pain points.

Step 1. Describe your product’s features and benefits. Create a list of all the
great features and benefits of your product, big and small. Don’t hold back; list
everything that comes to mind and then narrow it down later.

Step 2. Explain the value of the product. Anything that you identify as a value
proposition needs to be beneficial to your users. The giant list of features and
benefits from step one is sorted into those categories.

These features and benefits were not sorted into the categories and were instead
set to the side.

Step 3. Connect these features and benefits with the needs of your users. The
goal is to identify what’s truly valuable to the user and not just a cool feature that
users didn’t ask for. To determine value, take the personas you’ve developed and
pair each persona with a value proposition that meets their biggest pain point.

Step 4. Review your official value proposition list. You’ve narrowed your list
down of lots of benefits and features by matching them with actual user needs.
Now it’s time to review the list of value propositions your product offers.

One way to check out your product’s competitors is to read reviews. Sort the
reviews from lowest to highest, and closely examine what reviewers are sharing
about your competition.

One of the most important things to know about value propositions is that they
need to be short, clear, and to the point. Users want to be able to easily identify
exactly how your product will meet their unique needs and what sets your product
apart in the market.

Human factor: the range of variables humans bring to their product interactions.

Common human factors that inform design

 Impatience
 Limited memory
 Needing analogies
  Limited concentration
 Changes in need
 Needing motivation
 Prejudices
 Fears
 Making errors
 Misjudgment

Feedback loops: the outcome a user gets at the end of a process.

Psychology principles that influence design

 Von Restorff effect (Isolation effect)

When multiple, similar objects are present, the one that differs from the
rest is most likely to be remembered.

 Serial position effect

When people are given a list of items, they are more likely to remember the
first few and the last few, while the items in the middle tend to blur.

 Hick’s Law

The more options a user has the longer it takes for them to make a
decision.

Week 5

Ideation: the process of generating a broad set of ideas on a given topic, with no
attempt to judge or evaluate them.

Ideation in the real world

 Brainstorm out loud

 Document all ideas
 Focus on quantity
 Do not allow evaluation
 Gather a diverse team
 Question the obvious
 Evaluate the ideas (after a break)
When reviewing the ideas, it’s important to have a reason for picking the idea you
move forward with. Common ways to evaluate your ideas:

 Is the idea feasible? Is it technically possible to build?

 Is the idea desirable? Does the idea solve the problem you’re focusing on?
 Is the idea viable? Is it financially beneficial for the business?

Why should we come up with a lot of ideas?

 List of ideas is narrowed based on constraints, like budgets and timelines.

 Need to focus on equity
 Let users test the ides

Understanding the business needs behind the design

Two major components of branding are voice and tone.

Design can help facilitate a conversation between a business and its users.

Research your brand's competitors as part of the design exploration.

Competitive audit: an overview of your competitors’ strengths and weakness.

What you can learn from a competitive audit

 Identifying your key competitors

 Reviewing the products that your competitors offer
 Understanding how your competitors position themselves in the market
 Examining what your competition does well and what they could do better
 Considering how your competitors talk about themselves

Direct competitors: have offerings that are similar to your product and focus on
the same audience.

Indirect competitors: have a similar set of offerings but focus on a different

audience, or have a different set of offerings and focus on the same audience.

Benefits to competitive audits

 Inform your design process

 Solve usability problems
 Reveal gaps in the market
  Provide reliable evidence
 Save time, money, and energy

Limitations of competitive audit

 Stifle creativity
 Depend on how well you interpret the findings
 Not all designs work in all use cases
 Need to be done regularly

Steps to conduct a competitive audit

1. Outline the goals

2. Create a spreadsheet with a list of your competitors (direct and indirect)
3. Call out the specific aspects you want to compare
4. Research each company
5. Analyze findings
6. Summarize findings in a report

How Might We: Is a design thinking activity to translate problems into

opportunities for design.

How – explore a bunch of ideas

Might – our ideas are possible solutions, not the only solution

We – collaborative effort

Ways to create How Might We phrases

 Amp up the good

 Explore the opposite
 Change a status quo
 Break the point-of-view into pieces
 Remove the bad
 Go after the adjective
 Question an assumption
 Create an analogy using the established need or context
 Identify unexpected resources that can provide assistance
Crazy Eights: sketch eight different designs, each with a new idea for solving the
user’s problem.