An in-progress list of concepts, tools and resources for simplifying experiences.
Problem statement
A concise explanation of the real problem to be solved and the desired outcome. Problem statements set the boundaries to focus discovery activities and the search for solutions.
Stakeholder mapping
An approach for figuring out the different groups of people who will be involved or impacted by the piece of work you are doing to inform how and when you will engage with them throughout your project.
Stakeholder workshops
Facilitated sessions focused on a specific task (such as identifying the key steps in the customer journey or eliciting subject-matter expertise) to build context, empathy and understanding of the problem-to-be-solved.
Interviews
Semi-structured interviews held with stakeholders or people who represent the target audience. Used to build understanding of their needs and develop empathy with the way they see and live in the world.
Focus groups
Facilitated discussions held amongst groups of people representative of your target audience to explore their aspirations, motivations, perceptions and views around a subject area to help build empathy and understanding.
User shadowing
Accompanying users over a period of time to observe them in their own day-to-day environments to see how they carry out their tasks or interact with a product or service.
Service safari
Where team members use the existing service and immerse themselves in the experience to understand and build empathy with users.
Jobs to be done (JTBD)
Also known as ‘Customer Jobs’, JTBD describe the outcomes that users want to reach. To achieve their outcome, a users will have specific tasks or ‘jobs’ and they will often make use of products or services to help them complete them.
Usability testing
Testing carried out with users to identify barriers and issues that prevent them from easily completing their journey through a product or service.
Personas
Used to describe your target audience (normally in terms of demographic details such as age, gender, location, occupation, etc), so that teams can begin to relate to the people they are building a service for.
Customer lifecycle mapping
A way of showing the different points where a customer will engage, use and eventually churn from the products and services you offer.
Surveys and questionnaires
A relatively quick way to capture feedback and insights about your target users.
Data analysis
Querying and modelling data (including web analytics, CRM, procured third party data, market research) to gain insights and improve decision making.
Customer journey map
A way to visualise the entire journey your customers or users will go through to reach their desired outcomes. Using a customer journey map enables you to see where your product or service fits into the overall journey to ensure a smooth connection. A journey map can also be used to identify problem areas that are impacting the user experience.
UX storyboards
Storyboards enable you to visually explore the experience user’s go through to achieve a goal by illustrating both on-screen and off-screen activities in a given scenario. The visual nature of storyboards also makes them very useful for communicating context and building empathy among stakeholders.
User flows
Use cases
User stories
User story mapping
User scenarios
User archetypes
Used to describe the behaviours of your target audience, so that teams can understand their motivations, needs and pain-points.
- The role of archetypes in enterprise user experience
- How to use personas and archetypes to drive shared understanding and digital strategy
Service blueprint
A way to visualise the key components (people, processes, products and props) and the connections between those components that enable the delivery of a service.
Competitor analysis
A view of the direct and in-direct products, services and alternatives that your service will be competing with.
PESTLE analysis
A summary of the key political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors impacting your users and your organisation.
Business capability analysis
Mapping out the things that the organisation is capable of doing through its people, processes, locations, specialist knowledge, tools and technologies.
Value stream assessment
Mapping out the steps that an organisation takes to bring a service from its beginning through to delivery to the user.
Channel assessment
Understanding the best ways for your target audience to access the service.
Financial analysis
Using financial data to assess historical and projected profitability, cash flows and risk, to inform decision making.
Value proposition
Business model design
A methodology for understanding if and how the value proposition of the service can be scaled up and delivered as a profitable business.
Organisational design
Defining the structure, people policies and ways of working of an organisation to best deliver on goals and strategy.
Business process mapping
Building a picture of how an organisation operates and finding insights into how a current way of working can be improved.
Positioning
Defining how the service will be positioned in the market in terms of target audience, price and direct / indirect competition.
Branding
Closely related to positioning, but important for defining whether the service will have an identity of its own and how it will relate to the identity of the organisation delivering it.
Moodboards
Ideation
A creative process for developing ideas, concepts and solutions to well-understood problems.
Hypothesis design
Intentionally forming assumptions based on insights you have gathered that can be experimented on.
Task analysis
Asset mapping
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/asset-mapping/