

Ask HN: How do you start a product/interface design process? - pravj

Suppose you have to design something new, a product that your team is all done to kick off.<p>How do you start the process that you come up with such interesting interfaces.<p>What advice would you give some who is not professional in the user interface design field?<p>How do you make sure that the user experience is what it needs to be?<p>I know that the perfection comes when product goes through a lot of iterations, I just want to know that how do you guys do this?<p>Actually I&#x27;m a Student Developer and recently got interested in Product&#x2F;Interface Design.<p>I&#x27;m sure asking this here on HN will help me learn&#x2F;move fast.<p>Any resource you provide, would be helpful.
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vitovito
Hi, I'm a designer and a researcher, and I consult with startups on a regular
basis.

If your "team is all done to kick off," then I assume there's a stack of
documentation that defines who your customer is, the market size, the
segmentation, their problems, their mental models, competitive solutions, the
things they look for in solutions, etc. That's market research; it's not your
assumptions. I also assume there's a database of potential customer contacts,
ready to be called in for focus groups, to shadow, to do interviews with, and
to test designs. That's customer development.

If there aren't those things, you're not "all done to kick off" yet.

Also,

> How do you make sure that the user experience is what it needs to be?

is a different question than

> How do you start the process that you come up with such interesting
> interfaces.

I'll answer them in that order.

For any product, you make sure the user experience is what it needs to be by
making it for the user. That's it. Yes, coming up with a solution can be a
creative act (although it doesn't have to be), but if you can't prove it
solves your users' problems, you made art, not a design.

So you "get out of the building." Go find your potential users and understand
the problems they have, and the processes they currently experience those
problems within. Understand where your potential solution fits into that
existing process and their existing mindset and their existing worldview. Make
sure they're willing to pay for a solution to that problem in that context.

Then, listen to them. Design your thing, and bring it back to them to test it,
using paper prototypes or an interactive simulation or whatever. Watch how
they use and react to it. You're not testing the users; you're testing your
assumptions and your arrogance. Fix the problems, and then test it again.
Every time you think you've "got it," test it again. You only have a solution
when it performs the way you (originally, sixteen iterations ago) expect it to
with the users. You never make a change and then assume you've sorted it.

By the time you've done all that, you don't have an "interesting" interface
any more. You have a usable one. It probably looks pretty boring. It probably
works using standard OS controls, or perhaps similarly to their current system
but with some efficiency improvements.

That's because your goal isn't "interesting." You're not making a design to
impress other designers, or to create something novel, or to challenge your
developers. You're making a design to solve a problem for a person that isn't
you.

This is why my "design" process starts with creating as little as new as
possible. I do a bunch of background research to see what other solutions have
preceded me. I look to other industries and other, unrelated products to see
what other solutions have similar workflows or inputs or outputs. I know that
without testing, any potential solution is as good as any other potential
solution. Let's find out how these other solutions perform first. If nothing
does the way we want it to, okay, now I'll start coming up with something
original and testing that. But maybe some existing thing is perfectly
adequate. Great. Look at all the time and money and creative effort we saved.
I don't feel like I was cheated out of doing great work because this isn't
art. I'm not painting a masterpiece. I'm solving a problem for someone else,
and it got solved.

> I'm sure asking this here on HN will help me learn/move fast.

Market research and customer development can be two of the slowest processes
in business. That's why most people on HN skip them and go right to code, but
then wonder why their product turns out to be terrible. Finding and then
recruiting potential customers for your first focus group can take weeks or
months. But, you can't build the right thing for your customers if you don't
know who they are or why you're building it for them. In this, there are no
silver bullets, only lead bullets. There's nothing to do but all of the work.

~~~
pravj
Hey @vitovito,

First off, thanks for taking your time in writing this.

Sorry for being unclear as you have commented on this already.

    
    
      > How do you make sure that the user experience is what it needs to be?
      is a different question than
      > How do you start the process that you come up with such interesting interfaces.
    

What I actually meant was "How do you work on initial prototype for a
product"?

    
    
      > That's because your goal isn't "interesting." You're not
      > making a design to impress other designers, or to create
      > something novel, or to challenge your developers. You're making
      > a design to solve a problem for a person that isn't you.
    
      Yeah, this seems a nice advice, till now I was doing just
      opposite of what you're suggesting.

~~~
vitovito
From a practical perspective, I'd look at the books Sketching the User
Experience, and Designing for Interaction, as far as a design process goes.

As far as a research process to back those design processes up, I'm not sure
what a good user research 101 how-to guide is, because I learned in school and
later on the job. But, digging around in my bookmarks, I see:

[http://design.internews.org/design-
research-101/](http://design.internews.org/design-research-101/)

[http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/11/02/product-
research-101-res...](http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/11/02/product-
research-101-research-diving-design/)

[http://www.gv.com/lib/gv-guide-to-research](http://www.gv.com/lib/gv-guide-
to-research)

[https://medium.com/getting-started-with-user-
research](https://medium.com/getting-started-with-user-research)

[http://abookapart.com/products/just-enough-
research](http://abookapart.com/products/just-enough-research)

[http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/remote-
research/](http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/remote-research/)

Does that help?

