We are all responsible for delivering a great Experience to our users.That said, there are loads of opportunities to work collaboratively during the course of a project:
Vision and initial Research
By the time the business (and the Product Owner) comes up with the initial vision, the entire team needs to be involved and should start discussing the whats and whys. It’s absolutely important that as a team we understand what we’re aiming to achieve, why we want to achieve it and what we’ll be doing to make it happen.
Also, it’s good to participate in initial research sessions (Focus groups, surveys, Personas creation, etc.) to build empathy with our audience and understand their limitations and motivations.
Requirements gathering
The team should be involved in writing assumptions and initial user stories so by the time they need to start coming up with solutions everyone is on the same page.
Development sprints
Designers should take part in planning sessions and work towards a sprint goal. It’s ok to do JUST ENOUGH design in early stages to test and iterate as much as possible. In the meantime, the development team should have a good understanding of what they’re about to build and can kick off with analysis and more complex infrastructure sprints.
Sketching and Prototyping
If you’ve read some of my previous articles, you know I’m always keen on involving the whole team in sketching sessions. Not only development but also stakeholders. Sketching together means we’ll come up with better solutions that immediately have buy-in from everyone in the room.
You can read about how to set up a sketching session here.
User testing
This is the most important bit — I’ve read this quote somewhere in the past and I absolutely agree with it:
“The best design decisions are still just assumptions until you validate them with your end users”
Testing with your end-users can actually save the Business a lot of money and will avoid the development team having to go back (which we know, rarely happens, and we end up having to live with the fact that we launched a product that doesn’t work).
It’s absolutely rewarding to design a product that users will love and visit often. Make sure you’re delivering a great User Experience by allowing time to user test your product while you’re still designing it.