15+ years in product based environments has taught me that there is more to Service & Product Design than acronyms, buzzwords & the latest tool fads. In my experience, it is not the actual design tasks which are particularly difficult, but the contextual challenges around the process.

You can read more about these in my Case Studies accessible from the menu above, or read a short note about my design philosophy here.

Below is a gallery of artefacts illustrating the steps of my design process. It includes examples of documentation I have created through past design work. The gallery is broken into 4 sections; User Research, Design Process, Specification, Build & Promotion.

User Centred Design (UCD)/User Research

Generally the point is for the designer to broaden their own insight. These are also useful for verifying assumptions & documenting results. These techniques not only illuminate the team on audience perspectives & build empathy, but are also extremely useful for dissipating stakeholder disagreement & building consensus in teams so that team participants all start from the same page & perspective at the beginning of a project.

Usability Testing

UT can provide valuable insights not only on an existing product, but also on a competitors, or an alternative solution, before a project to learn more about the audiences’s needs & perspectives on the journey. It can also be used or after a prototype or design is developed to refine designs.

User Insight Sessions

User insight sessions are direct target audience sessions which enable the design team to learn more about users wants & needs. Sessions could be in the form of co-creation sessions, focus groups, or 1-to-1 contextual enquiry or ethnographic studies.

Personas

Demographic & Audience Data Insights

Demographic data, whether geographical or virtual, can provide help in building up a picture of who your audience is made up of.

Analytics Data Insights

Analytics can be a goldmine of information on what is currently happening on an existing site or app & insight on the audience. Ideally analytics should include funnel tracking & analysis. Caution should be used in interpreting results however, as conclusions are hypothesis only & should be cross-verified through some other user insight methods.