Saggitarius & Virgin.
Creativity freedom vs analytical scalability.
Do you believe in Zodiac? Funny, isn’t it?
I’m a Saggitarius, with ascendant Virgin. The apotheosis of freedom vs the austerity and disciplined soul, a very special duet.
I’m currently based in Milan, Italy. Started studying Graphic Design & Art Direction in NABA, I’m now a UX Designer with more than 8yrs of experience in high-complexity projects, with a huge focus on creating scalable digital products, that help business growing offering people simple and delightful experiences.
I’m also a user tests moderator, kind of approach I like to use every time I can to validate design solutions. Fan of analytics approach and “scientific method”, I did a Master in “Business data analysis & data visualization“, practices that I use every day in making design decisions.
Design method: an iterative never-ending process
Having a method of approaching and solving problems is one of the best soft skills a designer should have. Tools change, methodologies improve, but the way you face the projects helps you stayed focus on goals from beginning to the end, bringing the best values you can.
01. Define
Defining the problem is the most important phase of the design process, if you missed the real problem and, as a consequence, set the wrong goal, the entire process is unuseful.
Defining the problem consist also in setting the right KPIs to track the performances of your design solution.
Setting KPIs requires a very open-minded and large-view approach, because, if it’s “easy” to set main KPIs to track the results of your work, it is more difficult setting sets of KPIs that give you also a bigger picture and useful insights of other potential opportunities to approach in the next phases.
02. Research
Research is the phase in which you try to collect the more information you can. About users, behaviors, goals, problems, fields, all you could need to get more knowledge about your problem, and the people affected.
Interviews, user tests, online documentation, studies, analytics, experiences, all the information must be collected, organized, and clusterized to quickly get access to the whole data lake to gain insights and started to build up the requirements before the design phase.
You do not now anything, and it’s right.
The best answer a UX could give?
I don’t know.
No, I’m not joking, seriously.
As a User Experience designer, I do not have a crystal ball, and I don’t know any case or have any solution to any problem.
During my career, I faced many, in many fields, and solved them in many ways. I’ve learned that there is never a problem like another.
There is no “universal solution.” There are just scalable processes that help in coming up with solutions.
A good designer is not the one who knows everything, is the one that studies, analyzes, identifies, and then came up with solutions. And he knows that the best answers came up in a group of people, sharing feedbacks, ideas, points of view.
The role of a designer is to understand the problem, make it simpler, and transform all the ideas coming from different people into a practical and scalable solution.
03. Design (using data)
Once research are done, the design phase can starts.
Design means came up with solutions based on goals set on the “Define” process, that respect and integrates all the requirements you find during the “Research” phase.
Design is often the longest process, during which you and your team build several solutions, prototypes, and hands-on. Design and test are always in symbiosis. In some projects we build a “final” version of a solution and then test it before go-live, in others we test every single piece of design, arriving at the final stage before releasing it with many insights and an already-validated product.
The second approach is sure the best, but is not always possible.
04. Test, test, test…
Here comes the “funniest” part. The moment in which you test your work, your assumptions, your questions, and your solutions. It’s also a genuine moment when you see how people will use your product and you have the chance to get the most from your experience.
No matter if the test fails or succeeds, you have always learned something useful, that you didn’t while studying or designing.
It’s a never-ending process through you constantly test your work with the purpose to make it better, to find even a detail that could improve the experience and grow the business.
…and re-test!
A never-ending process
The perfect product does not exist.
The infinite improvement process does.
I’m firmly convinced that the perfect product does not exist. In my whole experience, I always realized that the products I delivered need improvements. Constantly.
This the part I personally like the most, once the MVP is done, start the real process. A never-ending story of improvements, refining, testing, hypotheses that make your product better, day after day.
This is the part I prefer because is the most valuable experience that a product could offer to stakeholders.
Perfection does not exist, but we need to embrace this never-ending improvement process to make our products better and our experience bigger.
Everyday tools:
Design tools:
Sketch App, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch Mirror
Prototype tools:
Invision Studio, InVision App, Sketch Mirror
File managment:
Dropbox, Box, Onedrive
Tasks managment:
Asana, Instagantt, Notion, Airtable
Team communication:
Microsoft Teams, Slack
Documentation:
Confluence, Notions
“Anything of meaning and of value,
not gonna be easy”
cit. “Stop asking for easy” video
