A Design Process Story

I thought I’d start with a famous quote from Steve Jobs.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

A great product without an appealing user experience may affect the ability of an organisation to achieve its business goals.

Companies, Agencies and Products have various User Experience design processes. The process lets you go through different stages repeatedly while evaluating your designs at each stage. This involves stakeholders and users to take part in the process to make it highly efficient and usable.

Where did we start?
We started with a brainstorming workshop and ideation sessions. Doing this, we’ll discover what our concepts and thoughts were, giving us a good opening foundation. Here there’s the opportunity for transformation to challenge.

What was discovered?

  • Iterative processes
  • Incorporate full digital
  • Non-linear
  • Rapid experimentation
  • Expected ambiguity
  • Intention with clarity
  • Simplification
  • Terminology
  • Subjective views

We decided on a process within a process—Design within build.
As you can see from the designs, over time, with further workshops we discovered new questions to problems:

  • Where does it start?
  • Should there be a starting point?
  • Where does motion and interaction live?
  • Ambiguity in terminology
  • Who is going to use this?
  • Strategy and research be iterative?
  • The direction of the process, and is it clear enough?
  • Feels hard to use and understand

Art Direction
Using the relevant design brand guideline I used a minimal approach. I made a key decision halfway through the design to change from a dark flat design to a neomorphic (or Neo-skeuomorphism) approach. I did this for a variety of reasons:

  • Easier on the eye
  • Modernise (static)
  • Print-friendly
  • Visualise the message, easier to follow
  • Less is more
  • Simpler focal points
  • Colour control

Completion
We got here as a team lead by myself, and over time with more discussions and refinements, we’ll always be challenging improving.

I’m proud of our achievement. From experience, these types of challenges have a habit of becoming perpetual, the skill is knowing when to stop. The process can be refreshed in time, like the UX Design Process, we use, test and update.

Thank you to all in the Accedo Design Team. Couldn’t have done it without you.