Importance of Communication in User Experience Design Process
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The document discusses the critical role of communication in the UX design process, emphasizing that effective communication encompasses non-verbal, visual, and verbal methods. It highlights that a significant portion of communication is non-verbal and that misunderstanding can lead to project failures if not addressed properly. The author concludes that while UX designers must focus on communication, all team members should collaboratively ensure clarity to achieve successful project outcomes.
Importance of Communication in User Experience Design Process
- 1. IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN UX DESIGN PROCESS SAINI, SUMIT Importance of Communication in UX Design Process Sumit Saini | Sr. User Experience Designer What is Communication? Communication: “The imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium.” Source Wikipedia Often we have come across a situation where, as a designer, we have worked on a brief, but the final result resulted in a deviated outcome. The final result has gaps in terms of meeting end user requirements or it’s not as per the stakeholders had envisioned. How is it possible that the final outcome is not as per the Stakeholders and End-Users? Well there can be many factors associated with it, but out of those there is one factor which we, as designers, often may make mistakes and that is ‘COMMUNICATION’. Communication, what we normally understand, is ‘Written and Oral’ communication because that’s what we usually do in our day to day life and it is 7% of our total communication, rest 93% constitutes other form of communication which actually support the written and oral communication. Communication can be divided as:
- 2. IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN UX DESIGN PROCESS SAINI, SUMIT Fitment of ‘Communication’ in the UX Process If we take a step back and critically look into the entire process of UX journey in a project then we can find out where things would go wrong and how the final outcome will have skewed results. In a typical UX process roadmap we usually start with: If we look into the UX process, define phase is the most critical part where lot of ambiguities are sidelined by way of mutual meetings/written documents and understandings, sets the course for the whole project and brings the clarity towards getting the right results. It is this phase where a UX designer needs to be more focused and alert and should pay his/her due diligence towards capturing the right requirements from the End-Users and Stakeholders. The other stages design/develop/test & iterate are also important from the perspective where the design artifacts are finalized and shared with the development team, after development the product passes on to Test & Iteration phase. So now the big dollar question is where and how the designer has to pay attention, as part of communication? If we look into the UX process from communication perspective then the priority to focus onto type of communication will be: 1. Non-Verbal Communication: The interaction of the UXD in a project happens with the stakeholders, end-users and different teams for: -Meetings
- 3. IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN UX DESIGN PROCESS SAINI, SUMIT -Workshops -Focused Group Interviews and Discussions -Internal Team Meetings -End User Testing For all these activities, UXD have to have in-depth ‘Observations’. Observations will be in the form of Notes, Audio recordings, Video Recordings, Still images or any other medium which he/she can refer to in the future. Apart from this the UXD will be observing the end-user’s reactions, body expressions, voice tones. The non-verbal communication with the Stakeholders/ end users/team members, during face to face interactions, gives the most correct insights into the requirements to the UX designer. This form of communication as we have seen above forms ~90% of the communication. If the UX designer does not get this information right, then the communication from other supporting written documents, related with project, are solely dependent on the individuals ‘interpretation, understanding and perception or how well detailed documents are prepared. This sometimes actually results in the low degrees of understanding and leads to more frequent back and forth of notes/emails etc. during the project execution. 2. Visual Communication: For effective documentation of the project, Visual communication forms the basis. The first and the foremost important activity, from the visual communication perspective, are the wireframes/images/icons which help in documenting and communicating the artifacts to Stakeholders/development team. Apart from this visual diagrams/task flows/process flows etc. become integral part during the entire project execution. The role of the UX designer should always be to prepare well-articulated artifacts which: - are easy to understand and can be easily interpreted by all the team members / stakeholders / end-users -contains well laid out imagery (wherever applicable) -well designed style guides/icons/wireframes/visual design guideline etc. -support written documents/communication with proper images/icons 3. Verbal Communication: This type of communication is only successful if it is very well supported by top two types of communication. Oral communication is always supported by the
- 4. IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN UX DESIGN PROCESS SAINI, SUMIT non-verbal communication in the form of expressions/gestures/voice tones etc. and written communication is mostly complimented/supported by the visual communication. Hence for a UX designer, it’s imperative to better communicate orally or in writing during presentation / documentation / workshops / discussions, related with project, so that they can communicate their thoughts, ideas and messages across the table and to the audience. Unless they are able to do so, there will be gaps in understanding between the team members/stakeholders etc. and this will have an adverse impact on the project’s final outcome. Conclusion Communication, for UX designer is not new and each one of us practicing it in every stage of UX design process. For UXD, the focus needs to shift on the deliberate effort to look into the each aspect of communication and its impact on the project course. He/she should always explore new/existing ways for a project success. But on the hind sight, it is not entirely onto the UX designer to make the best use of communication in the project; it should be the practice of each member of the team to remove any ambiguities and should apply the best practices deliberately for the effective achievement of a successful project. Sumit Saini Sr. User Experience Designer