I've been asked to write a "Product Design Process" for an #opensource project. Happy to do so. Not a big deal. However... I'm a bit surprised we, as the #ux community, don't just have this as boilerplate by now. It's not rocket science. I know, I know, every project is a bit different but can't we have something basic that we can use as a starting point? Why is this seen as a type of "secret sauce"? It's the exact opposite! Notice I'm not saying "how to design the pixels", I'm talking about the bridge process: types of research, problem statement, team cohesion, finding focus, early prototyping, etc. To be sure, not every project can do all of that but that's the point of a starting document: lay out the basic flow and then decide what you can do. I think the answer is that no one wants to admit it's not that complicated. It takes away the mystique of the genius designer. This is totally flawed thinking as doing the process well is actually quite hard, describing it isn't giving anything away.
Two reasons that comes to mind: 1. Design is, most of times, still a responsive function to PM & Dev processes- by themselves constantly changing- and most of us are still more comfortable being perceived as those problem-solvers balancing the boat rather than the ones rocking it ourselves. 2. Relating to the “genius” thing. When everyone packages the same stuff bit differently to sell their “special process” and define themselves by it, the natural reaction is to denaunce the process as a trademark and view the project through a “tailor-made” perspective. I often find myself saying that I don’t have a process, only tools.
This is what we’ve been telling our teams of business and product managers for an eternity. Designers that are too dogmatic are one thing but what a team should do isn’t a mystery. It’s the lack of organizational effectiveness that destabilizes even basic processes.
The only reason it’s not one boilerplate is that there’s no mechanism for consensus nor any “source of truth”. No singular design authority. But there are a thousand boilerplates if you search for them. Many will agree on the big picture, most will differ on details.
UX Strategy and Design
10moSo I posted a 'starter doc' and got very little interest/interaction. My only guess is that 'the devil is in the details': having a simple starting document is too simple and obvious. But I still think there is something here. Having even an 'obvious' starter document is STILL going to ruffle some feathers. For example, "start with pain points before proposing a solution" is obviously one of the first steps we do but it often causes eye-rolls from PMs. So I still DO think having a 'obvious starting doc' would be helpful.