Next Generation Design specializes in a “User Experience (UX)” design process.
Our design process goes beyond how something looks. It considers the intersection of visuals, technology, content, accessibility, and business goals.
Here’s my favorite visual representation of UX Design by Oliver Reichenstein.
It beautifully captures the intricacy, depth, and balance of UX design focus compared to a focus on User Interface (UI) design. UI design is also very important, but only one part of what a UX process considers. They’re two separate skill sets and specializations.
NXGD uses this UX focus to craft experiences that are…
- Holistic
- Informed
- Accessible
- Inclusive
- Authentic
- Valuable
Design and art both create beautiful things, and are both important, needed disciplines, but they are distinct practices.
Art serves the artist and their audience. It considers social, economic, political, and environmental observations and often aims to express and/or elicit emotions, thoughts, conversations, maybe even change.
Design serves an organization’s measures of success, sometimes called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). A design project is targeted around one or more of those specific outcomes and is measured on how well it achieved that goal. It’s why most organizations hire “designers” instead of “artists” (in quotes because they’re both artists, but titles help clarify responsibility).
Example of design goals include…
- Increasing sales
- Generating leads
- Reducing complexity
- Enhancing user satisfaction
- Improving efficiency
- Promoting adoption of a new feature
- Socializing a community event
- Sharing an inspiring story to uplift a community
- Ensuring accessibility standards
- Increasing perceived ease of use
- …and more
Whatever your organization is using to monitor its performance is where we align with you in our design work.
While every situation is unique, in general our process follows three steps:
- Learn
- Design
- Review
1. Learn
A free, no-obligation introduction call gets things started. Both a junior and senior designer are present so we all meet each other and have the same information.
After learning more about each other as fellow humans, we’ll talk about your organization.
- What are you especially good at?
- What’s happening that’s exciting?
- What’s going well?
Then we’ll get into why you’re considering work with NXGD.
- What are the problems you’re seeing?
- What are your users telling you?
- What’s keeping you up at night?
To wrap up, we’ll cover timelines, expectations, and budget.
- When would you like work to start & end?
- How will we measure success of this design? (We can help with this!)
- What does your organization have budgeted for this work?
From there, we’ll write a custom contract to suit your unique situation and needs.
2. Design
For best results we recommend these 8 steps on every project:
- Interview Product Managers, Developers, Creatives, and other relevant stakeholders
- Review available analytics & user feedback
- Review current designs, content, & technical capabilities
- Analyze 2-4 competitors
- Design & review 1-2 prototype concepts
- 1st round of prototype user testing
- Update prototype & 2nd round of user testing
- Craft & deliver final designs
Depending on the situation we may suggest additional steps or a different approach. Our process is intentionally flexible as every situation is unique.
Here’s a great graphic made by Nielsen/Norman Group showing the wide range of tools in a UX professional’s repertoire…
3. Review
How many times have you finished a project, moved on to the next thing, and completely forgotten about it for the next 3 years?
Yeah, me too. 😂
NXGD’s “How’s it going?” reviews are inspired by something quite successful I started in my last corporate job which helped the Marketing team build a new habit: Make time to learn and improve after every project.
About 3 months after an NXGD project finishes, we’ll gather all the latest data and insights since making changes and facilitate the meeting. The only commitment from you is the 30 minutes on your calendar.
This practice also helps the junior designer build confidence by learning to measure results on their designs, create and present reports to multiple levels of stakeholders, and it gives them excellent content for their portfolio.