I think I should play the role of a guardian. I understand that user needs are always at odds with business goals. I must convince business that we need to add value first so that people use it, and then develop a business model and pricing strategy to market it. I will explain logically to the business and educate them so that I can balance the needs of the users and the business objectives.

I must assure that my product can solve a real end-user problem and I design my solutions in a way that is beneficial to the business.

There is no substitute for preparations before an interview. The goal of asking questions is to learn about everything that influence how the users might use what I am creating. So, after I have decided who to talk to and what to find out, I will study carefully and prepare the document that I should have when conducting interviews.

By asking open-ended and follow-up questions, users are encouraged to tell stories. I think this way I should be able to capture all the emotions involved.

When I get answers to all my questions without noticeable pauses and they uncover situations and behaviors that I never thought of asking, then I can be sure that I am definitely asking the right research questions.

I must assure that my product can solve a real end-user problem and I design my solutions in a way that is beneficial to the business.

The biggest challenge in the research phase is to get the company to agree to a research phase because they have milestones and want everything without delay.

As a UX designer, I think it’s a challenge to convince and communicate to companies that if we skip research, we will end up with a product that nobody wants.

Products are going to cost a lot of money anyway, and it’s our job to make companies understand that not doing research would affect the product’s acceptance in the market. So, it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible at the same time.

After that, the most challenging part would be to craft interview and survey questions.

By asking open-ended and follow-up questions, users are encouraged to tell stories. I think this way I should be able to capture all the emotions involved.

It depends on the project, but I think it is always good to start with interviews, one-on-one meetings. The right kind of questions to the potential users or to people who value our product can help me gain insights.

Asking questions to stakeholders in the company also plays a very important role when starting a new project.

On the internet, I can refer to some business research studies so that I can uncover some lack of information.

As a UX designer, I think it’s a challenge to convince and communicate to companies that if we skip research, we will end up with a product that nobody wants.

Products are going to cost a lot of money anyway, and it’s our job to make companies understand that not doing research would affect the product’s acceptance in the market. So, it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible at the same time.

After that, the most challenging part would be to craft interview and survey questions

By asking open-ended and follow-up questions, users are encouraged to tell stories. I think this way I should be able to capture all the emotions involved.

When I get answers to all my questions without noticeable pauses and they uncover situations and behaviors that I never thought of asking, then I can be sure that I am definitely asking the right research questions.

I must assure that my product can solve a real end-user problem and I design my solutions in a way that is beneficial to the business.

For whom am I designing?
Who are the real users?
What problem would  users like solved?
What needs to be solved or improved from a business perspective?
There is a lack of information and how do I basically solve for it.
We all know that UX is all about solving problems using design. Sometimes it just not about solving a problem, but making things better.
So another potential and interesting question to be answered here would be:
What is better? I know my better, but I am not designing it for me. So what is other person’s better?
Am I making any assumptions? It is a very good question to be explored because there is a high risk of being wrong if I make assumptions.
So, inorder to answer all these questions and to create one design that solves a problem for an endless combination of people, I shoud do a thorough research first. I would start with user interviews and surveys.
So basically if I need to design an experience that appeals to real people, I need to talk with real people who actually cares.

It really helped me explore and experiment with ideas easily. Without this process it would have been really difficult to put into practice the intricate problem I’m trying to solve.Initially I used pen and paper. Then I switched to iPad and Pencil to naturally sketch out all my ideas. Prototyping was extremely helpful in solving the problem. Sketching, erasing, re-sketching, and reusing my own drawings definitely helped me save time. I would say that it helped me spot certain flaws in my own ideas and design when I started sketching. That was quite a learning experience.

By running usability tests on my prototype, I can get a good idea of user reactions and, on a very basic level, check whether my product is feasible or not.
Usability testing allows me to find out things in advance about user behavior, needs, and expectations, and that ultimately helps me figure out if my prototype is doing what it is supposed to.
Here I am trying to solve real users problem. So I have to first identify the right participants who are also different from me and who I think would value my product.
When they start testing my prototype and can’t complete a task or get stuck, I have to admit there is a design fault and I have to rethink my prototype.

In my opinion, UX design is a psychological design approach to solve the right problem. It is a system that focuses on the end product or results through which people have a seamless experience with their lives or a product or service. UX design deals with everything that touches a person’s experience with a product or service. It focuses on everything the person is trying to achieve, how well they appreciate it, and how happy they are with it. It plays a very important role when user is experiencing the world and certain things get in their way or make it harder or frustrate them.

I think there are a lot of people out there and it’s incredibly hard to pick one. But the first name that comes to mind is the father of “user experience” – Don Norman. I happened to read his book “The Design of everyday Things” even before I decided to get into this profession. After reading this book, I started to observe every little thing around me. Before I read the book, I honestly thought that UX was mainly about designing websites, apps and things like that. Now I know it’s more than that. Using UX design, we design life, and I really admire the way he teaches methods: how to observe people to understand what people really do in their lives without asking them. That would help us identify the right problems and find completely different solutions to those problems. Later, we test them to find out which of them is more suitable for the people who would use them and experiment with them. That way, we can keep improving things as users’ needs change. He made it simpler for me to understand how this whole process of learning and iteration works, and he remains my source of inspiration, and of course all the designers out there who believe in these principles, including my tutors and mentor.

The handoff process is a very important step in the design system.

Whether the project is large or small, I need to finalize the design and send the links or exports to the engineers. However, it is often not enough for the developers to have just the links to actually implement the project. There are a number of things that the engineers need details on, such as flows, states, interaction patterns, triggers, components used, and they may also expect certain assets. So, there’s a lot to document and communicate.

But it’s very important how I do that.

First, I need to prepare my hand-off page using whichever design tool I’m using.

Before I start the project, to define the definition of handoff, I should be clear about what kind of deliverables are expected from the engineers involved in the project.

The structure  of my project and how I organize them is key. All workflows should be clearly defined and categorized. There should be a status that indicates the status of the prototype.

Include well-defined links to all relevant documents related to the project and information about how screens work, the component library, how core components are used and how they work, etc. Leave notes for engineers as needed so they can effortlessly figure out how things work.

Everything should conform to the company’s basic design system so that engineers can easily connect the dots when they need more information about the components being used.

All screens should be designed in the form of a user flow so engineers can easily understand where the user is, where they are going, and how to get there. It’s basically like breaking it down into a user story so that engineers understand how the whole experience works.

Once you are done with it, you share the link and leave it to the engineers to comment and I would respond accordingly.

And make improvements on each project. I learn from what went wrong with the handoff in the previous project. I would say it’s an evolving process. A lot of things  depend on the projects or teams you’re working with.