Picture yourself in a room filled with skeptical stakeholders, questioning the role of design in software development and expressing concerns that they feel it slows down delivery timelines. I found myself in a similar position recently, and this blog is the output of that interaction. If you are in a position where you need to champion the value of design or just want to learn more about the benefits it brings to software development, this is for you!
You probably won’t just start hammering pieces of wood together. You’ll hire a good architect to design the layout, draw up the plans, and ensure the house will be structurally sound and visually appealing. Similarly, in modern software development, unless you want a product or website that looks like it’s from the early 1990s, you need a designer to ensure the software is intuitive, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing.
Designers focus on the end user and create a user interface (UI) that is easy to use and understand. They work with the software developer team to ensure the software meets users' needs and provides a great user experience (UX). Without a designer, the software may be functional but not user-friendly, resulting in poor user adoption and user satisfaction.
Having a designer as part of a balanced team (Product Manager, Developers, Design) is crucial for modern software development. They are an integral part of the development process and help to ensure that the software meets the needs of both the business and the end-user. Product teams with designers embedded experienced 41% lower risk in overall project cost. By involving designers early on, teams can identify and address usability issues and design flaws before they become expensive to fix.
Prototyping is like a superpower that designers have at their disposal. It allows them to explore different design ideas, test assumptions, and gather feedback before committing a developer’s time to building the product in code.
Low-fidelity prototyping involves creating rough sketches or wireframes that are quick and inexpensive to produce. These prototypes allow designers to test basic concepts and functionality without getting bogged down in details. Low-fidelity prototypes are great for quickly iterating on ideas and gathering stakeholder feedback.
High-fidelity prototyping, on the other hand, involves creating more detailed and realistic representations of the product. High-fidelity prototypes include interactive demos with realistic graphics and animations or even using virtual or augmented reality to simulate the user experience. High-fidelity prototypes are great for testing more complex interactions and getting a more realistic sense of how the product will look and feel.
The benefits of low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototyping before you start to code solutions include:
- Saving time and money: Engineers are expensive, to be frank, most digital skillsets drive costs. Design upfront limits rework. Less rework = cost savings and increases productivity.
- Gathering feedback: Stakeholders (board members, C-suite, customers) have opinions, and lots of them. Gathering feedback early in the design process ensures final products meets the needs of users and stakeholders before building begins.
- Facilitating collaboration: Prototyping bridges the gap between designers, developers, and business stakeholders by providing a tangible representation of the design that everyone can understand and work with.
- Iterating quickly: Low-fidelity prototyping allows designers to quickly iterate on ideas and test out different concepts without getting bogged down in details.
- Reducing risk: All of the above drills down to reducing risk of building the wrong thing.
Prototyping is essential for designers to refine their ideas and create successful products but it's not just about creating pretty pictures - it's about continuously testing and improving the user experience.
Designers test a product’s user experience through usability testing or think-aloud testing. This type of evaluation doesn't just ask for a play-by-play of what users are doing but rather a thought-by-thought account of their experience. This approach allows the team to pinpoint successes and failures in their system and diagnose the causes.
Think-Aloud Tests reveal important insights and inferences that otherwise may be unknown to a design team. Conducting effective sessions with comfortable reviewers, who offer clear information, provides deeper understanding of users' mindset, intentions, and expectations. This, in turn, helps designers decipher what specific attributes of their design are causing certain reactions and how to address them.
Thankfully, just six to nine of these tests are usually enough to reveal 80% of the issues with a design. This means that even with a relatively low investment, designers can significantly impact the efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction of their solutions.
By embracing the power of design, software development teams unlock transformative potential and deliver exceptional software solutions. Remember that anyone can be an advocate for design, regardless of their background.
[1] Sagely App
[2] Nielsen Norman Group: https://www.nngroup.com/
[3] Google Ventures- Design Sprint: http://www.gv.com/sprint/
