Creating design goals, Review design goals, Design alternatives,

Comparing alternates
Ms. Sana Ashraf

Creating design goals

Core concept that drives user experience design is that the best interface can only be
designed if we understand the user and the task they want to accomplish.

UX designer must be technically skilled & possess a number of soft skills, such as the
ability to communicate with their audience. The process involves extensive research,
wireframing, strategizing, product development, prototyping, designing, and testing.

Six Tips for Setting UX Goals

Great UX starts with clearly defined goals. Here is how you establish these objectives.

1) Think Big Picture

UX goals must complement, support, and further your larger strategic goals. It is
important to align them with your organization’s mission, values & primary objectives.

Additionally, you must consider what it will take to accomplish your projects. What is the
process behind them? What are you looking to achieve? Which problems are you
solving? How will you and your team realize them? How will you test and evaluate them?

2) Consider the W’s

Who, what, when, why, and how: these are all critical considerations when it comes to
UX. Let us take a closer look:

 Who: Who are your target users? It helps to create personas to determine their
wants, needs, likes, and dislikes.
 What: What kind of product are you building? What is it meant to do? What will it
achieve and resolve for the user?
 When: When is your team looking to bring the product to market? Deadlines are an
important factor in the UX process.
 Why: Why should or do people want to use this product? Why are you building it?
 How: How do you expect consumers to use it?

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 Creating design goals, Review design goals, Design alternatives,
Comparing alternates
Ms. Sana Ashraf
3) Be SMART

SMART goals are a framework that enables you to conceptualize your project & assess
your incremental & overall progress toward achieving your outcomes. These stands for:

 Specific: The goals should be well defined and as nice as possible.

 Measurable: Consider how you will assess progress and outcomes. What
measurement tool or tools will you use?
 Actionable/achievable: There must be specific things you are able to do in an effort
to achieve your goals.
 Realistic: Your objectives must neither be too lofty nor too simple.
 Time-bound: There should be a time frame within which you will achieve these goals.

4) Build Relationships with Team Members

While the providers of UX design services and their teams are the ones who shape the
UX. That is why it is essential to fortify your relationships with your team members.
By this, you can ascertain that you’re collaborating to generate an optimal
experience for your users. Moreover, think about all the skills & talents you will need
to pull in order to make the user experience the best it can be.

5) Embrace Flexibility

Things change. Ideas change. Projects change. Goals change.

This is an unfortunate part of UX process, but it does not have to derail the project. In
order to formulate powerful and achievable goals, you will need to accept that not
everything is set in stone. You must embrace flexibility and be able to adapt. Software
or web projects don’t have rigid structure/path to follow. Thus, you must be open mind.

6) Always Exercise Empathy (understanding)

Empathy is the most crucial part of the user experience process. Any UX designer must
be able to empathize with the prospective user, and this must be foundational to
any goals they set. Therefore, it is critical to have this at top of your mind whenever
you are planning, conceptualizing, researching, and considering.

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 Creating design goals, Review design goals, Design alternatives,
Comparing alternates
Ms. Sana Ashraf
Nokia downfall reason

While explaining Nokia's fall, many observers found three reasons:

Nokia's technology was inferior to Apple's, arrogance among top-level
managers & lack of vision. The company struggled to keep up with the
pace of innovation, and this led to a decline in market share & loss of
consumer loyalty. Ultimately, Nokia's failure to innovate & adapt to
changing user preferences led to its downfall in smartphone market.

Define/review the problem w.r.t to goals

Before different designing alternatives, you need to have a clear understanding of the
problem you are trying to solve and the goals you are trying to achieve. You should
also identify the stakeholders, users, requirements of project, & how they affect
your design decisions. By defining problems, you will have a better idea of what
criteria to use to evaluate your design alternatives & what trade-offs you are willing to
accept.

Generate and document design alternatives

After defining problem and goals, you can start generating and documenting different
design alternatives that could potentially solve the problem and meet the goals. Use
various techniques, such as brainstorming, prototyping, sketching, or modeling,
to come up with different design ideas and represent them in a way that is easy to
understand and communicate. Document the main features, benefits & drawbacks
of each design alternative, as well as assumptions, dependencies & risks involved.

Choose and apply design criteria

To compare and evaluate different design alternatives, you need to choose and apply
some design criteria that reflect the quality attributes and performance indicators
of your software solution. Some common design criteria are usability, reliability,
security, scalability, maintainability, testability, and cost. Select the criteria that are
most relevant and important for your software project, and assign them priorities
based on your goals and stakeholder expectations. You should also define how to
measure or assess each criterion, using metrics, standards, or heuristics.

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 Creating design goals, Review design goals, Design alternatives,
Comparing alternates
Ms. Sana Ashraf
Compare and analyze design alternatives

After choosing & applying the design criteria, you can analyze & compare the design
alternatives based on how well they satisfy each criterion. You can use different
methods, such as matrices, charts, diagrams, or simulations, to visualize &
quantify the results of your analysis. You should also consider the tradeoffs &
constraints that each design alternative imposes on your software solution, such as
complexity, feasibility, compatibility, or flexibility. You should highlight the strengths
and weaknesses of each design alternative, & identify any gaps or conflicts that
need to be resolved.

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