Published in · 11 min read · Jul 13, 2017
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The list below contains most common methods and techniques used by UX Designers as they create great experiences for users. For each item on the list you’ll see additional links with some of the best practices available.
Let’s start!
A statement that maps out the key aspects of product: what it is, who it is for and how it will be used. Value proposition helps the team create consensus around what the product will be.
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A product strategy is the foundation of a product life-cycle and the execution plan for further development. It allows UX designers to zero in on specific target audiences and draw focus on the product and consumer attributes.
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Competitive Audit is a comprehensive analysis of competitor products that maps out their existing features in a comparable way. The goal of competitive audit is to discover what is working for other companies in your industry, so that you can make those strategies work for you, too, to gain a competitive advantage.
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Cultural probes is a technique used to inspire ideas in a design process. It serves as a means of gathering inspirational data about people’s lives, values and thoughts. With minimal intrusion, researchers can glean insights into participants’ environments that can help to identify problem statements, uncover new opportunities, and inspire the designer with new ideas and novel solutions.
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Stakeholder Interviews are conversations UX designers conducts with their key stakeholder: customers, bosses, subordinates or peers both within and outside the organization. The interviews allow UX designer to step into the shoes of their interviewees and see your role through the eyes of these stakeholders. It also helps prioritise features and define key performance indicators (KPIs).
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A user interview is a common user research technique used typically to get qualitative information from existing users. User interview helps UX designer better understand their users (user’s emotion and opinions). This technique is especially useful when the target audience is new or unknown for the team.
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The kickoff meeting covers a high-level outline of the product’s purpose, who is involved in designing and developing the product, how they’ll work together and stay up to date on progress, and what the intended results or success metrics are. The kickoff meeting sets the stage for the success of your product.
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Heuristic Evaluation is a detailed analysis of a product that highlights good and bad design practices in existing product. It helps UX designers visualize the current state of the product in terms of usability, accessibility, and effectiveness of the experience.
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Brainstorming is widely used by teams as a method to generate ideas and solve problems. Brainstorming allows the team to visualize a broad range of design solutions before deciding which one to stick with.
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A study of the actions required in order to complete a given task. Task Analysis is helpful when designers and developers try to understand the current system and its information flows. It makes it possible to allocate tasks appropriately within the new system.
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Product roadmap is a product’s evolution plan with prioritized features. It could be a spreadsheet, a diagram or even a bunch of sticky notes. UX designer shares the product strategy with the team and the road that needs to be taken to achieve its vision.
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A focus group is a moderated discussion that typically involves 5 to 10 participants. You bring people to discuss issues and concerns about the features of a user interface. The group typically lasts about 2 hours and is run by a moderator who maintains the group’s focus.
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Card sorting is a method used to help design or evaluate the information architecture of a product. UX designer asks users to group content and functionalities into open or closed categories. A result gives UX designer input on content hierarchy, organization and flow.
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Usability testing is the observation of users trying to carry out tasks with a product. Testing can be focused on a single process or be much more wide ranging.
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A UX researcher shares an approximation of a product that captures the key essence (the Value Proposition) of a new concept in order to determine if it meets the needs of the target audience. Concept testing can be done one-on-one or with larger numbers of participants, and either in person or online.
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A/B testing is offering alternative versions of a product to different users and comparing the results in order to find out which one performs better. This is a great technique for optimizing funnels and landing pages.
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Guerrilla testing is one of the simplest (and cheapest) form of user testing. Using guerrilla testing usually means going into a coffee shop or another public place to ask people there about your product or prototype. It can be conducted anywhere ex- cafe, library, train station etc, essentially anywhere where you can find a relevant audience.
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Field study is about going out and observing users “in the wild” so that behavior can be measured in the context where a product will actually be used. This technique can include ethnographic research, interviews and observations, plus contextual enquiry.
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A technology that analyzes the user’s eye movements across the UI layout (i.e. web page). Eyetracking provides data about what keeps users interested on the screen and how their reading flow could be optimized by design.
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Various methods for assessing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that impact the user experience of a product.
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A study to measure if the website can be used by everyone, including users with special needs. It should follow the W3C guidelines to make sure that all users are satisfied.
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