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MY
DESIGN PROCESS
Hello!
Over the years, working with great talents from different fields and industry, I have come to realize that design is not just a holistic approach for finding user centered solutions, but it is truly a way of life. I have learned to explore and inculcate empathy within large, complicated systems and design human experiences within them. The work presented on this website is a brief glimpse into my experience of design thinking, conducting user centered research, building strategies, and formulating business opportunities.
01
Identifying Challenge Areas
Establishing Research Focus Areas by creating Framing Questions and Research Questions
Developing and putting down Framing questions is important to the primary level of Research areas and identifying the primary stakeholders in the project. This helps to investigate different perspectives while conducting preliminary field visits for observations and documentation of user behaviors.
Above is an example which shows Framing Questions from the project Inglewood Automates
02
Building Context
Preliminary Field Visits, Documentation, and User Behavioral Observations
Conducting preliminary field visits for observations and documentation of user behaviors and area mapping the space is really important before conducting primary qualitative research. This ensures to capture all the necessary perspectives and views of the problem space in question.
Above are some photographs taken during Field Visits during the project Inglewood Automates
03
Secondary Research
Flushing out additional data through Case Studies, Research Articles, and published papers.
Developing and building context around the research areas and backing it up with data is very important to ground the research done and build on after taking into consideration every available perspective of the problem. Secondary Research is conducted to extract data, widen the scope and strength of the research.
Inglewood Community
Progress in Inglewood
Demographic Data
Transportation Insights
Employment Statistics
Crime Rates
Tourism in Inglewood
Adoptation of Public Transit
Research Questions
Above are examples of data gathered from Secondary Research from the project Inglewood Automates
04
Primary Research | Exploratory Phase
Structured Qualitative Interviews, Quantitative Surveys, User Documentation
Conducting Primary Research and getting to know the stakeholders and their pain points is the most important weapon in a designer's artillery. Design is all about asking the right questions. And it can be done in various ways which differ from project to project. Making discussion guides for each stakeholders and then conducting structured Qualitative Interviews, Focus Group Discussions, and Co-Creating Design Activities are a few. Others can be gaining Quantitative Data through Surveys and polls, Card-Slotting, etc. Documentation of the conducted research by using Video Recording, Audio Recording, and Photography is crucial and should only be done with the consent of the Stakeholder.
Above is a Highlight Reel from a Stakeholder interview done for the project Inglewood Automates
Highlight Reels
This is a process of condensing the entire interview into a 2-3 minute video to document important insights, behavior patterns, quotes, and observations gained during the process. It is also a great way to refer back to interviews at later stages if needed.
05
Synthesis of Data
Formulating Insights and Opportunities by Affinity Analysis and Coding Methods
After all the data from available resources are collected, the next step is Affinity Analysis. This is done by KJ Method to read between the lines, extract user behaviors and understand their mental model to define all the opportunity spaces for Ideation. Post-It notes and quick sketching are designer's best friend while doing this process. Clusters of information are segregated into emerging human behavioral themes, and Insights and opportunities are formed from them and reworded accurately for Design Ideation.
Above is an example of Affinity Analysis and Coding done for the project Inglewood Automates
Above is a Brainstorming Session going on during my DesignMatters Fellowship.
Above is a board full of Ideation Sketches done for the project Uber Elevate
06
Conceptualizing Phase
Concepts are developed through Brainstorming ideas, Ideation, and Sketching
After all the opportunity Spaces are established, it is time to ideate as many concepts as you can. Brainstorming and ideation are the place where a designer can think out of the box, go crazy, and come up with tons of exciting ideas. This process is repeated several times till you have pumped out every perspective idea possible around the established opportunity spaces formulated from the Affinity Analysis.
07
Prototyping
Multi-Fidelity Prototypes are made for Iterative rounds of User Testing
After developing and pumping out tons of ideas and formulating them into potential holistic concepts, multi-fidelity prototypes are made for easy user-testing and getting quick feedback. This iterative process is carried on and refined every time until the final concept is strong, desirable, scalable and practically possible. Low-Fidelity Prototypes are made to be quick and messy using things like cardboard, foam-core, paper, MDF, or simply by making users enact the user-test scenarios. The idea of this process is to gain as much feedback as possible early on.
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Above are examples of Prototyping done for the project Uber Elevate
08
User Experience Testing
User Testing the Developed Concepts with Stakeholders for Feedback
After developing prototypes of the formulated potential holistic concepts, its time to User Test the final ideas with Stakeholders for their feedback and desirability. Note that this is an iterative process and Step 6 and Step 7 have to be repeated until the final potential concept is desirable by all the stakeholders, practically viable, scalable, and economically possible. User Testing is one of the most important steps a designer does for validating his concepts and ideas.
Above are some photographs taken during user-testing of recent projects.
09
Preparing for Delivery
3D Modelling, Rendering, Building User Scenarios, Personas, and Story boarding.
Once the prototypes are built, sufficiently tested out and proven to be desirable, working, and feasible, it's time to flush the final concept out by 3D Modelling it and bringing it up to presentable fidelity. Personas are fabricated fictional user profiles developed to explain a design and convey a realistic story. Story Boards and different User Scenarios are built on the Personas, and a holistic user experience story is conveyed through multi-media presentations.
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Above are examples of 3D Modelling done for some recent projects.
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Above are examples of Personas made for my fellowship.
Above are examples Story-Boarding done for some recent projects.
10
Client Presentations
Multi-Media Client Presentations
A detailed pitch presentation is given to the Clients with the help of Story telling, User Scenarios, visuals, presentation boards, verbal and digital presentations. An entire walk-through of the concept and its use cases is presented along with a detailed business plan and time line of execution, market analysis, and cost predictions.
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Above are some photographs taken during client presentations of the project Inglewood Automates.
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