Tool Used – Visualization

Challenge

I work as a UI developer in my organization. As a UI developer my primary focus was to develop the  screens with the functionality for the particular project I was working. The project was to be delivered in  real quick time and for the User experience wireframes (UX screens) development we needed a UX  designer but which we couldn’t afford as it would take time in hiring a UX designer and explaining all the  business requirements in quick time. So the challenge was to use my skills and transform myself into a  UX designer and come up with the screens. This includes ramping myself into an UX mindset and also  think according to the business and deliver a standard designs. I have used the technique of using a  visualization of a problem domain by asking questions for discussion to make a large group of audience  to learn from each other in the process of defining relationships between elements to consider when  identifying opportunities or improvements for the solutions.

Selection

I discussed with my colleagues regarding several design thinking tools but after a discussion we selected  tool of Visualization. We selected this tool as UX screens are nothing but the visual representation of  business functionality/activities and also visualization helps in unlocking our brain to design and give a  simple way to understand things. So we felt visualization or visual thinking tool will be best suited for  this.

Application

I started the procedure by creating a lay man view of the business logic either by discussing with the  business people directly or through the documents or any written materials available. First step was  analyzing the business points and come up with the rough visual design for it and asking my colleagues  to have a look on the design and ask them to give the valuable feedback. The lay man view was as  simple as possible by just using the simplest icons or the shapes available so that the viewers  (Colleagues in this case) can understand it easily. I divided the group into individuals of two into three  groups. Each group was given the task of looking into the visual and come up with the feedback. Once  the feedback was received and based on that the design would be modified and after a several analysis  through feedback designing a final copy of the view. Second step was to show the same design to the  business people and receive feedback from them. Final step was to compare the feedback and proposed  changes from the business and my colleagues and generalize what exactly was common with both  feedbacks as the individual group and to keep this for the future reference.

Insights

The learnings from this was the stakeholders/Business people were able to visualize the  things through  the visual representation and was really helpful for them to understand the functionality or the business  in a better way and suggest the possible missing’s or changes which were required. This also gave a  general template understanding the point of view of the business and the common stakeholders.

Approach

As I discovered that the most valuable outcome was the shared feedback (Business and stakeholders)  and visualization played an important role in helping the business and stakeholders to understand the  problem. I can continue with the visualization tool and use the general template (Outcome of the  exercise) to complete the remaining work.

