Practical Design Discovery

The key is to focus on the product’s users and the challenges they face

Before I could recommend a strategy, I needed to understand the problem better. My team interviewed stakeholders, held a brainstorming session, and facilitated user interviews. We gathered information about the organization, about the users, and about what people expected of search. By doing this, we named the demons that plagued the search experience. The demons already existed as complaints and frustrations from employees, association members, and executives. You can’t control complaints—but you can use them to frame a problem

When you sketch in a group, remember:
Have a goal. Before sketching, establish goals for the activity. Figure out what aspect of the product to model.
Start with a scenario. In addition to a goal, it’s useful to describe a person using the product—how they’re using it, what they want to get out of it, and what their expectations are. By sketching toward a scenario, you establish some reasonable constraints to define the immediate exercise.
Set a time limit. Don’t let people draw for more than fifteen minutes. My sketching sessions usually cap the drawing at ten minutes. Like the scenario, this constraint prevents meandering, getting participants to focus on solving the problem.
Discuss the ideas. The value of sketches is in their speed. Get feedback on the ideas in the sketches before making any final decisions.
Extract the good ideas. Don’t assume you’ll remember the conclusions about the sketching session from the sketches alone. Make a list of what worked and what didn’t.
Sketch again. The cost of iteration is low. Use as many iterations of sketches, with increasing clarity and fidelity, as you need to feel confident about the idea

What do you need to show? How will you use the prototype? Just for demonstrating certain functions? For testing? Make sure you assemble it appropriately for how it will be used in the design process. Highlight the most important features of the product

Despite the naysayers, there are lots of legitimate reasons to do wireframes, and the most important thing is to know what you want them to accomplish in your process

It shows two ways we can express a big idea:
How the product makes you feel: carousels evoke the joy of reliving happy memories.
How the product works: the spinning carousel mimics storing and displaying photographic slides from a wheel

The Windows User Experience Design Principles came directly from research. In reading some of these principles, you can almost hear supporting quotes from users:
Reduce concepts to increase confidence
Small things matter, good and bad
Be great at “look” and “do”
Solve distractions, not discoverability
UX before knobs and questions
Personalization, not customization
Value the lifecycle of the experience
Time matters, so build for people on the go

In Luke Wroblewski’s summary of a 2009 talk by Stephan Hoefnagels of Microsoft, he writes, “Goals are the mountain peaks you are trying to get to. [Design] principles are the path we use to get to the top of the mountain.”

Show just enough information to support essential decisions—no more, no less.

By venturing a solution, you’re not just asking, “Will this work?” You’re also asking, “Do I have enough knowledge to know whether this will work?”