Design Process Articles & Videos

  • User-Centered Intranet Redesign: Set Up for Success in 11 Steps

    Before designing an intranet, appoint a leader, align with stakeholders, get user feedback, derive an intranet vision, create user-related artifacts, and assemble the right team.

  • DesignOps: What's the Point? How Practitioners Define DesignOps Value

    Practitioners define DesignOps based on the value it provides for their team or organization. Most practitioners think of DesignOps as a way to standardize and optimize processes, enable and support designers, or scale design.

  • How Well Discovery Phases Are Performed in UX Projects

    Our survey results reveal that many UX practitioners perform discoveries in some shape and form, although many are on the short side, lack user research and don’t involve the right people.

  • Workshop Facilitation 101

    By following a set of simple facilitation principles and using standard tools and activities, anybody can grow into a confident workshop facilitator.

  • Remote UX Work: Guidelines and Resources

    Even though in-person UX sessions are typically ideal, sometimes budget or travel restrictions necessitate remote UX work. This article presents guidelines for remote user research, UX workshops or presentations, and collaboration.

  • Service Blueprinting: Fails and Fixes

    The most common pain points with service blueprinting are setting expectations, determining scope, and communicating insights, according to 97 UX professionals.

  • Discovery: Definition

    Although many different instigators, roles, and activities are involved in a discovery, all discoveries strive to achieve consensus on a problem to be solved and its desired outcomes.

  • Tools for Remote UX Workshops

    The type of workshop will dictate which tools your team should use. Ultimately, with limited time and budget, your best bet is to use a tool your team already knows how to use.

  • Foundational UX Workshop Activities

    There are 7 activities that act as a foundation for every UX exercise during a workshop or collaborative team meeting. By understanding these, you can create almost any other exercise you need.

  • UX Workshops vs. Meetings: What's the Difference?

    Meetings are for sharing information; workshops are for solving a problem or reaching an actionable goal. We compare the differences in purpose, scope, length, structure, and preparation time for workshops and meetings.

  • 10 Best Intranets of 2020: What Makes Them Great

    Clear vision, Agile development, and the goal to connect coworkers are what distinguishes the best intranets.

  • How to Get Stakeholders to Sketch: A Magic Formula

    Collaborative sketching is a powerful tool for building buy-in for design decisions; however, it can be difficult to get stakeholders comfortable with the idea of drawing in a group setting. These variables help make group sketching more productive and effective with stakeholders.

  • 5 UX Workshops and When to Use Them: A Cheat Sheet

    5 common UX workshops, explained. Learn about 5 UX workshops and how to use them within the design process.

  • Service Blueprinting: Top Questions Answered

    Service blueprints are the primary tool for service design, but practitioners often misunderstand how they relate to journey mapping, who should be involved in the process, and how to sell their value to the organization.

  • DesignOps FAQ: 6 Common Questions About Design Operations

    Because the field is being defined in real time, practitioners often have questions about what Design Operations means, and how to establish DesignOps practices.

  • Service Blueprinting in Practice: Who, When, What

    UX practitioners associate the term “service blueprinting” with an artifact, framework, or collaborative tool. Those surveyed used service blueprints early on or near the end of the product-design lifecycle.

  • Incorporating UX Work into Your Agile Backlog

    Three different backlog models enable teams to keep track of UX work in their Agile processes. Each model comes with pros and cons.

  • Parking Lots in UX Meetings and Workshops

    A parking lot captures unrelated questions or out-of-scope conversations during UX meetings or workshops to keep the discussion focused and maintain momentum.

  • DesignOps 101

    The practice of Design Operations focuses on processes and measures that support designers in creating consistent, quality designs.

  • Cognitive Maps, Mind Maps, and Concept Maps: Definitions

    Cognitive maps, concept maps, and mind maps are diagramming techniques that can be utilized throughout the UX process to visualize knowledge and surface relationships among concepts.