User Experience (UX) and Design Thinking

What is User Experience (UX) Design?

• UX design is the process of creating products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users
• This involves designing the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product
• Key aspects include branding, design, usability, and function

What is Design Thinking?

• A way of thinking about product/service/system development
• A set of tools to help generate ideas

How Can We Solve Problems?

• Solving business problems with IT is a program learning outcome of the Bachelor of BIS
• Design thinking is often used to assist in solving problems (used by Apple for example)

5 Stages of Design Thinking

• Empathise: Gain an understanding of the problem by observing, engaging and empathizing with people to understand their experiences and motivations
• Define: Analyze observations and synthesize them to define the core problems. This is done in a human-centered manner.
• Ideate: Generate ideas for solutions to the problem statement.
• Prototype: Create inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the system or specific features to investigate problem solutions. This can be achieved using horizontal, vertical, or scenario prototyping.
• Test: Test the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase.

DTP: Empathise

• Empathy is crucial to a human-centered design process
• Challenge assumptions about the world to gain better insight into users and their needs
• Gather information during the Empathise stage to develop a deep understanding of users, their needs, and the problems that underlie the development of the product.

DTP: Define

• Analyze observations and synthesize them to define the core problems
• Define the problem as a problem statement in a human-centered manner
• Help designers gather great ideas to establish features, functions, and other elements that will allow them to solve the problems
• Prepare for the Ideate stage by asking questions that help you look for ideas for solutions

DTP: Ideate

• Understanding of users and their needs gained during the Empathise stage
• Observations analyzed and synthesized during the Define stage
• Human-centered problem statement
• Team members think “outside the box” to identify new solutions to the problem statement
• Many ideation techniques can be used such as Brainstorm, Brainwrite, Worst Possible Idea, and SCAMPER
• Brainstorm and Worst Possible Idea sessions are typically used to stimulate free thinking
• Pick other Ideation techniques by the end of the Ideation phase to help investigate and test ideas

DTP: Ideate: Brainstorming

• Most common and popular ideation technique
• Best ways to generate many ideas as a team rather than thinking alone
• Focus on the quantity of ideas, not the quality
• Intention is to think collectively, engage with each other, listen, and build on ideas.
• To ensure that brainstorming sessions are effective, follow these best practices:
• Set a time limit
• Only goal should be to produce as many ideas as possible
• Stay focused on the topic area defined in previous stages
• Don’t judge, evaluate, or criticize any idea even in the form of non-verbal actions
• Facilitator needs to set a positive tone that allows participants to feel confident
• Encourage crazy, wacky, and even weird ideas
• The more creative the thinking process, the better the idea might be.

DTP: Prototype

• Create inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the system or specific features
• Investigate the problem solutions generated in the ideation stage
• Prototypes may be shared and evaluated with experts or users of the system.
• Identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages
• Solutions are implemented within the prototypes and investigated, improved, re-examined, or rejected based on user experience activities
• Design team will gain insight of the constraints and problems
• Clearer view of how real users would behave, think, and feel when interacting with the system

DTP: Prototype Tools

• Powerpoint
• Proto.io
• Balsamiq
• Marvelapp
• Figma
• Many others: InVision Studio, Adobe XD, Webflow, Sketch, FluidUI, etc.

DTP: Test

• Test the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase.

Explore the fundamentals of User Experience (UX) design and the principles of design thinking. This quiz covers critical aspects of creating meaningful user experiences and the five stages of design thinking. Learn how these concepts apply to solving real-world business problems.