TECH4100 UX and Design Thinking Report 1 Sample

TECH4100 UX and Design Thinking Report 1

Assignment Brief

Your Task

This assessment is to be completed individually. In this assessment, you will analyse the UX development life cycle and the purpose of each phase.

For this assessment, you are required to explain and analyse the UX development life cycle. The assessment is designed to be approachable, allowing students to showcase their knowledge and analytical skills related to the UX development life cycle.

Case Study

Case Study: Optimising User Experience for a Social Media Platform – X

Scenario: You have been hired as a UX consultant for the social media platform – X. The platform has gained popularity but is facing user dissatisfaction due to various usability issues and inconsistent user experiences across different features. As the UX consultant, your role is to thoroughly analyse the existing user experience and propose recommendations for improvement based on the UX development life cycle.

Your Task: In this case study, you are required to analyse the user experience of the social media platform and provide a comprehensive explanation and analysis of the UX development life cycle. Your analysis should address each phase of the UX development life cycle and highlight its purpose in ensuring a user-centred design approach. The focus is on your ability to articulate the importance of each phase and its contribution to the overall user experience.

Assessment Deliverables:

1. UX Development Life Cycle Explanation:

a. Provide a detailed explanation of each phase of the UX development life cycle.

b. Clearly articulate the purpose and objectives of each phase in relation to user-centred design and improving the user experience.

c. Discuss the key activities, techniques, and considerations involved in each phase.

2. UX Analysis and Recommendations:

a. Analyse the current user experience of the social media platform, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.

b. Utilise your understanding of the UX development life cycle to provide recommendations for enhancing the user experience at different stages.

c. Justify your recommendations with references to UX design principles, industry best practices, and user research.

Students must conduct research externally and included references in order to produce a well referenced assessment. You should use at least ten (10) sources of information and reference these in accordance with the Kaplan Harvard Referencing Style.

Solutions

Introduction

The social media platform X has been growing in popularity but recently users have reported multiple problems with the usability of the application and different experiences while interacting with various elements of the service. UX plays a significant role in SM, as it defines how users interact, are satisfied, and remain active with social media platforms (Baj-Rogowska and Sikorski, 2023). It helps to define how the user is able to get around a site, find what they are looking for, and ultimately, have a positive experience with it, likely to bring them back, thus increasing the user loyalty. This assignment is to explain and discuss UX development life cycle and to give detailed recommendations on enhancing the user experience on the platform X based on every phase of the UX development cycle Although each cycle will be expanded and analyzed for its contribution to a user-centered design, the activity and techniques that can improve the user experience in the context of the platform X will also be discussed for MBA assignment expert.

Figure 1:UX Development Life Cycle
Source: (Bruton, 2021)

UX Development Life Cycle Explanation

Research and Discovery

Research and Discovery phase is aimed at gaining understanding of the users, their requirements, usage patterns and context in which they interact with the platform. The main goal of this phase is to generate the content that would be needed for the actual design work, thus focusing on user experience. Some of the activities that are performed in this stage include the use of interviews and questionnaires that help in gathering both quantitative and qualitative information regarding user attitudes, behaviors, and challenges (Canziba, 2018). Competitive analysis is also carried out with a view to knowing more about competitors, the standards set in the market as well as any area that can be leveraged to offer a competitive edge. Moreover, the interviews with internal stakeholders are essential in order to include their perception and use needs as business objectives. These activities assist in fostering the necessary groundwork for the subsequent design phases (Pinheiro et al., 2019).

Analysis and Definition

In the Analysis and Definition phase the results of the research are analyzed and user needs and problem are defined. This phase ensures that there is a proper understanding of the user’s point of view and the challenges that should be met. Some of the actual activities include developing user profiles and user scenarios to describe the user experience of the platform. One of the most critical steps in formulating problem statements is understanding what exactly defines a problem statement to avoid confusion about the problem that requires solving. Developing user scenarios is also useful in defining how the potential solutions would be approached (Dove et al., 2017). This phase helps to guarantee that the design process is still oriented at solving the right problems and meeting the needs of the users.

Ideation

The Ideation phase is concerned with the brainstorming of multiple solutions for the problem that has been defined (Wyrtki, Röglinger and Rosemann, 2021). The main goal is to look for a number of possible strategies and determine which of them is the most effective. Such activities are creative meetings that allow free thinking and coming up with new ideas or approaches. Drawing on paper and mapping out solutions are techniques employed to conceptualize approaches and devise possible solutions. A number of ideas are created during the brainstorming process and concept development is a process that helps in defining these notions into workable concepts that could be extended and experimented. During this phase, creativity and collaboration is encouraged to ensure the best solutions to the problems or needs of the users is found.

Prototyping

Prototyping phase is the creation of physical or conceptual models for the purpose of idea development and implementation of the solution that people are envisioning (Yu, Pasinelli and Brem, 2017). The goal is to create solutions that can be taken into real-life applications and used in experiments with the users. Key activities include: design sketching where low fidelity representations of designs are created through the use of wireframes and mockups. This is because the creation of prototypes for interaction allows for a realistic representation of the final product before fielding it to the public. Popular applications for creating mock-ups include Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD, depending on the task and the team’s preferences. Ideation is the last phase of this phase is particularly important, as it provides a way to prototype ideas and assess their viability for implementation.

Testing and Validation

The Testing and Validation phase aims at testing the designs with the users and conducting feedbacks. It is the goal to guarantee the design solutions are satisfactory to the users, or up to the expected standards. These include usability testing to see whether there are any problems regarding usability to capture the user’s response (Camburn et al., 2017). The difference between two designs is A/B testing, where the goal is to understand which design is the most effective. The reception of users is instrumental in achieving these goals as it helps in identifying their strengths and weaknesses and make subsequent modifications (Rawat, 2017). This phase is important in order to make sure the final design of the product complies with the intended levels of usability and satisfaction of the user.

Figure 2:A/B testing
Source: (Rawat, 2017)

Implementation

This phase of Implementation means that the designs are converted into working models. The goal is to have the outcome of the design process mirror the original conception and maintain a functional interaction with the viewer. Activities include working with the development teams to ensure that the designs are faithful and adhere to standards (Dove et al., 2017). Design reliabilities is the process of keeping design similar to the final end product so that the end product does not deviate from the design. The final tests and quality control is essential as it will identify most problems that may be present before the product launch. This phase involves the implementation of the designs and the creation of the applications’ interfaces that will be used by the end user.

Launch and Post-Launch

The Launch and Post-Launch phase is aimed at getting the product into the hands of consumers and observing the product’s activity. The goal is to make a proper start and get real users’ response for the constant app development. Some of the activities include introducing the product into the market and tracking the response from the customers, as well as the performance feedback to determine whether there are any more concerns or deficiencies. It is refined over the years with small changes and updates depending on the feedback received from the users and statistics/figures. As for this phase, it guarantees the product’s applicability and relevance to users’ requirements in the future.

UX Analysis and Recommendations

Current User Experience Analysis

From the current user experience of the social media platform X it is evident that there are both the strengths and weaknesses. Strengths are that it is widely used, and some elements of the site that may make it entertaining or addictive to users. Still, there are some signs of the weakness like poor usability or the lack of seamless experience in the use of the product’s features. Some of the areas to work on are: general interaction with the application, matching the look-and-feel of the interface, and specific problems found out from the users.

Recommendations for Improvement

Using UX development life cycle stages on platform X can improve the experience of using the platform greatly. According to the guidelines provided for the Research and Discovery phase, it is advised to engage in extensive user research in order to gain more insight into users’ requirements (Hartson and Pyla, 2018). Identifying and defining user problems and needs in Analysis and Definition phase can be useful in directing design processes by using personas and user journey maps. Ideation phase: A wide variety of creative thoughts has to be explored and generated through the brainstorming and concept mapping process (Murphy et al., 2022). During the Prototyping phase, creating and rehearsing new designs through interactive prototypes may assist in determining the best solution. During the Testing and Validation phase, it should be important to perform usability tests and A/B tests to guarantee that users enjoy the site. Implementation can be challenging since developers need to be engaged; design fidelity has to be kept in sight. It is crucial to mention that in the Launch and Post-Launch phase, it is essential to monitor the application and make changes based on the users’ feedback continually. These recommendations are backed up by UX design principles, current practice, and user testing to ensure overall user experience is optimized.

Conclusion

It is concluded that The UX development life cycle is essential in guaranteeing the application of a user-oriented approach, and it defines the significance of each stage in achieving the goal of developing a positive UX. Thus, the improvement of the navigation, layouts, and overall layout structure can be achieved through the implementation of the key recommendations outlined above, as this will lead to an overall increase in satisfaction with the usability and consistency of the social media platform X. This implies that concepts of user-centered design should be adopted so that social media platforms can keep to the market and continue to keep their users happy and active.

References

Baj-Rogowska, A. and Sikorski, M. (2023). Exploring the usability and user experience of social media apps through a text mining approach. Engineering Management in Production and Services, 15(1), pp.86–105. doi:https://doi.org/10.2478/emj-2023-0007.

Bruton, L. (2021). What is the UX design process? A step-by-step guide - UX Design Institute. [online] www.uxdesigninstitute.com. Available at: https://www.uxdesigninstitute.com/blog/ux-design-process/.

Camburn, B., Viswanathan, V., Linsey, J., Anderson, D., Jensen, D., Crawford, R., Otto, K. and Wood, K. (2017). Design prototyping methods: state of the art in strategies, techniques, and guidelines. Design Science, [online] 3. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/dsj.2017.10.

Canziba, E. (2018). Hands-On UX Design for Developers. [online] Google Books. Available at: https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DAlnDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=The+Research+and+Discovery+phase+in+UX+design&

ots=sFAIOTYvZa&sig=HLii6ZtUjp22Yy_KdEVbkW7BuhI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=The%20Research%20

and%20Discovery%20phase%20in%20UX%20design&f=false [Accessed 5 Aug. 2024].

Dove, G., Halskov, K., Forlizzi, J. and Zimmerman, J. (2017). UX Design Innovation: Challenges for Working with Machine Learning as a Design Material. [online] doi:https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025739.

Hartson, R. and Pyla, P.S. (2018). The UX Book. [online] Google Books. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RHIGCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Applying+the+UX+development+life+cycle+stages+to+

platform+X+can+significantly+enhance+its+user+experience&ots=EOEgMmoXqK&sig=rAsK8uudOqhcG1cvxUbt-IvTiW8 [Accessed 5 Aug. 2024].

Murphy, L.R., Daly, S.R. and Seifert, C.M. (2022). Idea characteristics arising from individual brainstorming and design heuristics ideation methods. International Journal of Technology and Design Education. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-021-09723-0.

Pinheiro, E.G., Lopes, L.A., Conte, T.U. and Zaina, L.A.M. (2019). On the contributions of non-technical stakeholders to describing UX requirements by applying proto-persona. Journal of Software Engineering Research and Development, 7, p.8. doi:https://doi.org/10.5753/jserd.2019.155.
Rawat, S. (2017). A/B Testing Guide. [online] Website. Available at: https://vwo.com/ab-testing/.

Wyrtki, K., Röglinger, M. and Rosemann, M. (2021). Opportunity‐led ideation: How to convert corporate opportunities into innovative ideas. Creativity and Innovation Management, 30(3), pp.523–541. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12450.

Yu, F., Pasinelli, M. and Brem, A. (2017). Prototyping in theory and in practice: A study of the similarities and differences between engineers and designers. Creativity and Innovation Management, [online] 27(2), pp.121–132. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12242.