Colin Dyke

Sketching

I typically use sketching most at the start of a project - it's a great way to rapidly explore ideas as well as keeping things relatively focused on concepts and core ideas (rather than getting sidetracked with detail concerning font sizes or colour-ways). 

Sketching remains a valid and useful tool throughout a project's delivery, as a way to quickly provide options where additional scenarios are uncovered, or to share finder details if a particular interaction or state needs to be recognised during 'build' and I am able to sit directly with developers to provide the information they need.

PROTOTYPING

Prototypes are a great way to communicate functionality and the intended customer experience for specific scenarios. They are particularly useful to help stakeholders understand the proposed customer experience, and an ideal way to test early ideas with users to assess how well the new experience meets their needs.

I typically build prototypes in Axure - this is very effective as during testing sessions it is possible to make alterations to the experience to make the most of the time available.

I find Axure prototyping is particularly useful when seeking to test or validate a particular task or scenario. Where a complete system is being redesigned, an HTML prototype is often more flexible and able to provide a realistic experience akin to a 'demo'. For larger projects I have worked directly with developers to produce a functional system demo which is used for similar testing purposes.

Workshops

I like to run workshops in small groups. Workshops are a good way to interrogate a brief, generating ideas and avenues for exploration, gaining consensus for how to move forward with an idea, exploring a specific idea in more detail.

The workshops I've run are typically to either explore a problem further (e.g. getting input from stakeholders and what current problems they believe exist) or to explore ways to address particular needs and get to a specific outcome (e.g. whiteboard session to sketch customer journeys and identify key page templates). Using a whiteboard and post-it notes is a great way to keep ideas flowing without being hampered by the formality of electronic documentation and versioning which can be introduced when needed at the right stage.

Wireframes

I'm accustomed to creating wirframes in Axure and Omnigraffle although have also used Visio, Balsamiq and the illustrious PowerPoint when the time has necessitated it. Ultimately all these tools are used for the same purpose of conveying an idea so I don't see any issue with  reason to be particularly precious about using one tool over another.

The fidelity of wireframes can vary depending on their purpose, I personally find it helpful to keep the fidelity low during early stages of a project to avoid feedback relating to cosmetic details which are not usually relevant in relation to the core design challenge being undertaken. I am often keen to avoid using 'dummy' text in wireframes as I strongly believe content is a core part of any design. It's therefore important to use copy which is at least indicative of what a customer would expect to see in order to provide a representative view of the page and experience - which after all is ultimately is the main goal of wireframe.

User journeys

One of the most common deliverables I produce is the user journey flow. Depending on the audience I break the journeys down by tasks or create a 'process' map that covers all core journeys within a single flow. I usually find key project stakeholders appreciate the simplicity of multiple individual flows, while developers who are building the journey appreciate the single flow which outlines the system functionality and defines which screens a customer would see based on their activities.

Personas

I've developed a number of personas for projects in collaboration with research teams - although I remain undecided on how useful personas actually are. While it's obviously incredibly important to be aware of who you are designing for, I've found personas can sometimes become taken too literally and result in a focus shifting away from the real customers a business should keep front and centre. 

I believe personas can be a useful tool for stakeholders to use as a means  of stepping into a customer's shoes. I strongly believe personas should be created based on customer data, so they at least represent known customer types. In the most recent project I created a set of personas for, I matched each character to a percentage of the customer base they broadly represented. This was useful when deciding which features to prioritise as it was possible to quickly gauge the approximate amount of customer who might benefit. 

Research & Testing

You can never do enough research in my eyes. There are many research techniques and each is suited to different needs. I have briefed teams for lab-based research, defining the tasks and producing the test assets used in the session.

I have used eye tracking software to generate heat maps with a view to understanding how users interact with a page, and where the placement of actions is most effective.

I regularly complete competitor analysis when undertaking a brief to look at what things are done well and could be incorporated into my thinking. Heuristic evaluation is also a useful tool to identify and manage improvements to any obvious issues with an interface.

Ethnographic studies have also been helpful when designing experiences as I've been able to get a much better understanding of the context in which a user will interact with the design. This was particularly eye-opening when testing self-help setup content guides as a customer was very unlikely to be sat down comfortably browsing on a desktop machine.

Card sorts have proven invaluable in producing meaningful labels and information architecture for the projects I've worked on. This is another example of how integral content is to good design, as even the most beautiful app or website will remain largely ineffective if a customer is unable to find the area they need to complete their goals.

Experience maps

Experience maps differ to user journeys in that for me they represent an abstraction of the user journey and typically focus more on the emotional/psychological effects of a customer experience - rather than simply the physical assets presented on a screen. 

A particularly compelling experience map I've seen is one created to represent the Starbucks customer experience. These maps may often be created retrospectively, but can also be used to identify how and where an existing experience can be improved, if for example, it appears to be missing sufficient emotive aspects. For solely digital experiences, this plays into the 'benefits over features' mantra and the ability to identify and fulfil a customer's latent needs. 

Guerrilla testing

As organisations seek to embrace agile development methodologies, I have found guerrilla testing to be an incredibly pragmatic and useful approach to getting useful user feedback with rapid timescales.

Although guerrilla testing cannot be said to replace more conventional testing methods, it is often able to uncover issues and provoke suggestions that would otherwise not be brought to attention.

The biggest benefit is that there's little in the way of bureaucracy or budget to prevent guerrilla testing from happening. I've carried out simple testing in the canteen, on the office floor and outside a local supermarket as a means to get rapid feedback on some of our early concepts as well as more detailed feedback if participants have agreed to give up a little more of their time.

In a work environment I've found participants are often happy to leave their details to be contacted again as they enjoy being involved in new product development which can feed into the recruitment profiles for more traditional lab testing.

HTML/CSS

I have a good practical understanding of HTML, javascript and CSS. In my past I created websites from scratch (using a text editor) however I now like to focus on the user experience as I believe this is where I'm able to provide the most value. This historic experience enables me to work closely with developers and gives me a solid understanding and appreciation for the coding techniques employed.