don't just wireframe - tell the design story
DESCRIPTION
The growth of the User Experience Design field is astonishing, but well deserved. Thanks to UX Designers all over the world, the quality of products has increased dramatically. Design really does matter now. It’s not only Apple on the scene anymore. Samsung gizmos look better than ever. Google has redesigned all of its products. Literally every successful startup looks and works beautifully and popular iOS apps are just gorgeous… “This is the decade of User Experience Design” – we’ve heard this many times during meetings with inspirational people such as Dave McClure, Paul Singh (both 500 startups), Hiten Shah (KissMetrics), Brandon Schauer (Adaptive Path), when together with my team, we’ve visited Silicon Valley to validate our long-term strategy. Since we’re not only UX Designers, but also creators of tools for User Experience Designers, this particular declaration made us jump for joy. Is the future bright for us? It certainly is, but we still need to work hard on the way we act as a community. User Experience Design must show its merits in front of stakeholders and prove its value in financial terms.TRANSCRIPT
DON’T JUST WIREFRAMETell The Design Story
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THE UX DESIGN APP
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We’ve heard this many times during meetings with inspirational people such as Dave McClure, Paul Singh (both 500 startups), Hiten Shah (KissMetrics), Brandon Schauer (Adaptive Path), when together with my team, we’ve visited Silicon Valley to validate our long-term strategy.
“This is the decade of User Experience Design”
- Growth of our field is amazing -
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I have a feeling that many people consider UX Designers as wireframers. By wireframers I mean unfortunate people who just do wireframes and perhaps clickable prototypes from time to time.
HERE COMES THE DANGER
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I’M NOT A WIREFRAMER!It’s about time to state: UX Design does not equal wireframing. Let’s make it clear: anyone can wireframe – it’s a rather simple activity, but not everyone can design experiences.
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So...what is User Experience Design?
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„Duuude... UX is obvious...”
Well...it’s not
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User Experience Design (abbreviation UX, UXD) - A discipline focused on designing end-to-end experience of certain product. To design an experience means to plan and act upon a certain set of actions, which should result in a planned change in the behavior of a target group (when interacting with a product).
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Whaaa?
An UX Designer’s work should always be derived from people’s problem and aim at finding:•pleasurable•seductive•inspiringsolution.
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UX LIES AT THE CROSSROADS OF ART AND SCIENCE
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WHAT SHALL WE DO?
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1.Plan an experience using a different means of communication (Personas, Flow Charts, Sitemap, Wireframe, Mockup, Prototype…) and our knowledge (cognitive psychology, HCI, interaction design, research…)
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2.Tell the design story in such a convincing way that the whole product team and stakeholders will actually want to create the product that we designed.
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Why not just create a wireframe?
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Simple as this – a wireframe without a context is meaningless.
It doesn’t represent the design, nor does a clickable prototype.
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The design should solve certain problems for a certain group of people.
•Wireframes and prototypes do not present the problem that needs to be solved •and do not describe a targeted group of users
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Wireframes are only one chapter of the design story that we need to tell.
Accompanying diagrams and documents are meant to help you communicate your design. Tell the whole story not just one chapter. It will help your team and stakeholders understand your intentions.
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Read more:
http://speckyboy.com/2012/07/23/dont-just-wireframe-tell-the-design-story/
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* Professional wireframing editor* Design Story Teller* Ability to upload different kinds of design documents* Persona, Project Canvas, Business Model Canvas templates* Paper prototyping recognition
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Marcin Treder is a design enthusiast that literally lives for creating the best user experience possible. After years working as a UX Designer and UX Manager he focused on his own start-up UXPin that provides tools for UX Designers all over the world. UXPin tools are used by designers in companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce. UXPin was recently voted the best start-up in Central and Eastern Europe. Marcin enjoys writing (e.g. for UXMag, DesignModo, SpeckyBoy...), blogging (Blog UXPin, UXAid, Startup Pirate) and tweeting (@uxpin, @marcintreder).