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UX Design Process

Empathize

Empathizing with users and defining pain points.

Empathy is the ability to understand someone else’s feelings or thoughts in a situation.

How to empathize with users

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Determine research goals

As a UX designer, what do you want to learn from the interviews? Are there certain user problems or pain points that you need to empathize with?

I want to understand the processes and emotions that people experience around the problem my product is trying to solve.

I want to identify common user behaviors and experiences with tasks that my product is trying to address.

I want to understand user needs and frustrations as they relate to the product I’m designing.

Write interview questions

Ask open-ended questions.

Keep questions short and simple.

Ask follow-up questions.

Prompt Research Interview Goals

I want to understand users struggles while reading a menu and going through payment methods so I can design an accessible and easy to use mobile menu.

I want to understand better older users problems.

Prompt Research Interview Target Users

Age: 18-62

Location: Jojutla

Likes: Italian food

Different genders

People who don’t have time to cook.

People who order food from restaurants at least once a week

Prompt Research Interview Questions

When you are ordering food delivery, what are your biggest struggles while doing so?

What is your experience with digital menus?

What is your experience with digital payment methods?

How can it be improved?

What features would you like to add, improve or change to have a better experience with ordering Italian food though an app?

How do you feel about writing your payment information in an app?

What do you need to feel safe while writing down your payment information?

Conduct user Interviews

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First, script the interview questions.

Second, collect supplies you'll need for the interview, such as a printed list of your questions, a computer or paper and a pencil, and any recording equipment you might need.

A good UX designer also comes prepared with a backup plan, in case problems with technology occur.

Third, research the users. If the users you're preparing to interview provide their personal information before the interview, be sure to take note of it.

This information might include their name, demographic information, relevant user experience with the product you are designing, or details about how they found out about the interview.

The first step is to meet the participant. Build a good rapport.

This is all about establishing a professional, but friendly interaction.

You can use light conversation to start, something like, how's your day going?

You should also thank the participant for coming. Thanking users is a part of establishing a good rapport and can make them feel like their opinions and time are valued.

Remember to ask about any details that are relevant to the interview like their name and demographic information.

Starting with questions that are easy for the participant to answer can give them a nice boost and confidence.

Finally, let the participant know that there are no right or wrong answers.

This way, they feel comfortable and are not worried about giving incorrect answers.

Follow interview etiquette.

Speak in a clear and concise manner while asking questions.

It's important to remain professional no matter how users answer a question.

While interviewing, also remember to ask open-ended questions.remember to take notes, which is the third step of conducting a user interview.

Finally, consider recording interviews. When you're first learning how to conduct research, recording is ideal.

It can be helpful later when you're revisiting parts of an interview or taking additional notes after the interview is over.

Wrap up the interview by giving users a chance to share final thoughts about any items discussed during the interview. you should always thank the participant again for their time.

Tell them that you appreciate them participating in your interview, and give them a warm goodbye.

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Sample user Bios⁠

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Empathy Maps

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Step 1: Add the user’s name. Include the name of the person interviewed in your empathy map. Having a name attached to it will help if you ever need to look back at the original transcript or research, and it’ll distinguish this map from other maps you create.

Step 2: The “SAYS” square. Write down exactly what the person said; don’t summarize it in your own words.

Step 3: The “THINKS” square. Here, you can summarize the thoughts expressed by the user. Add feelings the user conveyed through body language, tone, or other noticeable indicators, even if they didn’t verbally express them to you. You can make inferences for some of these feelings, but you have to be careful not to make assumptions about the user.

Step 4: The “DOES” square. Detail on steps and actions the user takes.

Step 5: The “FEELS” square. List the feelings the user expresses. The notes you include may overlap with some of what you listed in the “THINKS” square.

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Types of empathy maps

One-user empathy maps are created by taking the data from one user's interview and turning it into an empathy map, like the example earlier in this reading. This approach helps designers distill a single user's thoughts, feelings, and traits into a format that's easier to gather data from.

An aggregated empathy map, represents a group of users who share similar thoughts, opinions, or qualities. Aggregated empathy maps are created by creating multiple one-user empathy maps, then combining the maps where users expressed similar things into a new empathy map. This helps designers identify segments, or groups of people with similar tendencies, who will use the product.

Identify user´s pain points

Pain points are any UX issues that frustrate the user and block the user from getting what they need.

Financial pain points are user problems related to money.

If you've ever gotten lost in an online article, only to be rudely interrupted by a paywall,

you know all about these.

There are also product pain points. These are usually quality issues related to the product.

Next up, there are process pain points. These are frustrations that stop the user going from point A to point B.

For example, have you ever shopped online and struggled to get the item you want to check out?

And finally, there are support pain points.

When users interact with your product, they might have questions.

If they can't find answers to their questions, they won't feel supported.

Customer service information that's hidden on a website falls into this category.

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Create Personas

In UX design, personas are fictional users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs

of a larger group of users.

Personas can help us identify patterns of behavior in users.

These patterns might point to a common pain point that a group of users experiences.

While personas are fictional, we don't make these characters up from scratch, we build them based on research.

You've got to do your research if you want a set of personas that truly represent your potential users.

As you research, you'll form images in your head about who your users are. These will become your personas.

Building personas

Personas are created by conducting user research and identifying common pain points, which are UX issues that frustrate and block the user from getting what they need from a product.

As you create personas, look for the most common themes in your data and group the users who personify those themes together.Generally, creating 3 to 8 personas is enough to represent the majority of a product’s user base. Think of personas as an overview of all of your research and interviews. While it’s important for personas to accurately represent users, it’s impossible to meet every one of their specific needs. Personas are also context-specific, meaning they should be focused on the behaviors and goals of users interacting with the product effectively.

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Persona template⁠

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30 must-see user persona templates⁠

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CoffeeHouse project⁠

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Glossary week one⁠

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Personas⁠

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Damiano's⁠

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