Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Stephen Ng Illustration by Linda Linko

Every project begins with the discovery phase, which is a data gathering process meant to dig deep into the finer points of what is crucial to a stakeholder’s business, target users, and industry as a whole.

This phase is critical because the data gathered here becomes the basis for developing the solution. Not getting the data correct at the start can ultimately lead to the failure of the project and an extremely unhappy stakeholder.

Here’s how I use UX design activities to gather and validate data during the discovery phase.

Gathering data through design activities

Stakeholders are limited in how they can express the information contained in their heads.

The two main forms of expression are either through speech and writing. Unfortunately, this is never enough when trying to explain complex business logic or requirements.

As a UX’er, my role is to help my stakeholders express their intangible thoughts, ideas and feelings into a tangible product, such as a prototype that they can see and touch.

Stakeholder’s may not be comfortable with the idea of drawing on paper, but I find it to be the best form of communication. You can gather a stunning amount of information from the gentle curve of a line to a few haphazardly-drawn stick figures.

Another tool that is less intimidating than drawing but requires more preparation is LEGO Serious Play. LEGO, everyone’s favorite toy company, has created a LEGO set to improve group problem solving by utilizing visual, auditory and kinaesthetic skills.

In either case, you are creating an environment where people are able to freely express their thoughts and ideas. This produces data that is both quantitative and qualitative in nature.

Data has to be transformed into another medium

Once the data has been collected and analysed, we have to test our understanding of the data by transforming it into another medium.

Think of this like learning to drive a car. You can’t just relay back the instructions you were given by your instructor in spoken words. In order to test your understanding, you have to take another form of action: taking control of the wheel and hitting the road.

Image taken from sharonmonisharaj.com

In our context, we show our understanding by designing a low-fidelity version of the product.

Having the ability to transform this data into a new medium is a test of how much we understand the data we collected.

Validating Data using Design

The design creation process is where we start validating our understanding of the data.

I like to use rapid prototyping at this stage of the project, which involves multiple iterations of a three-step process.

Design
Design simple low-fidelity prototypes of the solution based on our understanding of the data.
Review
Review the prototype with stakeholder in order to determine if the proposed design solves the problem they are trying to fix.
Refine
If the design is not what the stakeholders have in mind, ask them why that is, gather information, analyse it, and design another prototype until we are on the same page as the stakeholder.

Happy Stakeholders

Through this process of using design, we are able to navigate through the complexities of each business’s needs, rapidly test our understanding and refine it.

From my experience with using design as a medium to gather and validate data, stakeholders feel that they are understood, resulting in us delivering products that the stakeholder’s had envisioned in their minds.

Being known and understood is a very important ingredient in every working relationship with any stakeholder.

A Bridge to Understanding

Data can look like a big hairy monster but with simple design methods we can untangle it, bring meaning to it and solve complex problems.

Design is not only a communicative tool; it is a tool we can use to bridge understanding.

How I use UX activities to discover and validate Data was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How I use UX activities to discover and validate Data

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