Designing without context is like building a bridge to nowhere. This article explores how UX designers can avoid the pitfalls of working in isolation by grounding their decisions in user realities, project constraints, and evolving needs.
Working indepedent of project contexts will often lead to problems when delivering effective solutions.
At the root of all UX projects are goals centered around improving a user's experience. However, accomplishing this naturally involves accounting for a multitude of factors.
What are the users trying to accomplish? What are their motivations? What skills and knowledge do they likely possess?
In UX design, most of factors being considered have to do with the users themselves. Other factors typically involve the resources and tools available to deliver an intended experience for users.
All of these factors amount to the 'context' of a UX project.
When solutions are implemented without this consideration, they have been designed in a 'vacuum'. These solutions typically fail to deliver on the intended value, because they lack relevancy to what users expect or need.
Depending on the situation, there can be significant consequences for UX projects that fail to solve an issue. As a result, users may fail what they need to accomplish, and they will be the direct recipients of any ensuing consequences.
These types of situations are entirely avoidable, and UX designers should always use strategies that stop them from designing in vacuums.
Motivations behind user needs and actions are important, but so is understanding the factors that have put the user in the position they're in.
Despite how incorporating context into a design may seem intuitive, it is just as easy to lose sight of relevant factors when working on a UX project.
This is because UX designers will subconsciously include their own bias into design decisions & plannings.
In most situations, this actually serves a very beneficial purpose — it helps the UX designer empathize with their users without thinking. They understand what makes an effective design, and will make design decisions that are based on UX principles.
But, what can easily happen is an over reliance on these assumptions, which might not be correct based on one or more factors. This possibility encourages UX designers to find a balance between making decisions based on what they know and don't know (yet).
Staying out of a vacuum requires some level of research or analysis by the UX designer. This assessment creates a sense of understanding on knowing which assumptions may be ineffective at solving the issues users are encountering.
Gaining this contextual understanding can be done through several types of assessments by a UX designer.
It's easy to bring past experience into a project, however it can be challenging knowing what to leave behind.
One of the most common methods UX designers use to learn more about their users — is to create profiles. These are categories of users organized together based on shared motivations, characteristics, and capabilities.
Profiles provide a summarization of what some users will expect, acting as a valuable reference for UX designers in assessing their own assumptions.
For example, a UX designer working on the design of a physical product would likely want to include a profile for users that have certain physical disabilities. These users will have very different needs than those who can use the product without any limitation. These differences provide reference points for the UX designer to compare what they had originally planned for against what this type of user will look for in how the product is designed.
Creating user profiles can be done through a variety of different tools, approaches, and styles. However, all user profiles share the similarity of including relevant information for a particular UX project.
User profiles are expected to differ from project to project, because there will be different intended outcomes & requirements that the profile is intended to help account for.
This is why UX designers are encouraged to always start with considering what user information would be relevant to look for based on how their project is structured. These considerations also help the UX designer avoid accidently using irrelevant information, further prioritizing the most effective solutions.
To efficiently identify what will be relevant to know, UX designers can work backwards from the intended outcomes.
As an example, if a key outcome is improved user satisfaction, then a UX designer would look at the factors that affect satisfaction. This could include considering user time management & emotions. Variables in a user profile for 'emotions' might include an expectation on the users feelings at the start of their user journey. This can then be researched further if needed, before being a comparison point between the start and end of a user journey.
Even when a user profile relies on one or more assumptions, it's important for UX designers to carefully consider how they reached that consensus. Looking at factors affecting users can support safe assumptions about user motivations, feelings, and abilities.
Profiles provide opportunities to empathize with users, putting the designer in their shoes.
Determining the 'best' solution for a UX problem requires understanding the relationship between available resources and potential options. This is a contextual consideration that focuses on the practicality of a solution over a period of time.
Not every solution is intended to be permanent, but solutions are much more effective at improving an overall user experience if they provide a consistent, positive experience over time.
As an example, a UX designer proposes to a business that they should invest in a mobile app to help customers place orders more efficiently. Research for the plan indicates the business would expect to see a rapid increase in customer satisfaction, leading to a boost in monthly sales. However, these plans don't necessary include the time needed by the business to manage & maintain the data being used on the app that customers will be using. Internal reviews of the plan reveal that although there will be numerous UX improvements for customer journeys, the business is not expected to have enough staff available to manage the app effectively.
For UX designers, not having all of the information needed to know what is possible is expected at the start of any project. This is a reality that encourages UX designers to either research or work with a researcher to determine what resources are available.
Resources is a broad concept, but typically concerns the time, expenses, and knowledge a team can invest in a possible solution.
Each of these factors affects how viable a potential solution is for a UX problem, and lacking one or more required resource can significantly reduce its effectiveness. The opposite is also true, that having an abundance of resources indicates potential solutions should be easily maintainable over time.
This context is key to effective maintenance planning — that it demonstrates the UX designer is accounting for the practicality of possible solutions.
Every maintained plan will differ depending on the nature of the UX situation. Some plans will focus on managing consistent communication towards users, while others will be focused on making consistent design choices.
A similarity across all of these plans is that they combine context with consistency. This direction explains how users can expect the same positive results over time without the concern of these results being impossible to maintain.
When UX problems appear to have been solved indefinitely, UX designers can confidently move onto other pressing challenges to continue this cycle of positive improvements.
UX projects exist as long-term pursuits, requiring a plan in how to maintain their effectiveness over time.
Many relevant factors for a UX project will change over time. Sometimes these changes are insignificant, but in some scenarios they require UX designers to use new information in directing new & existing solutions.
Instead of spending time and effort constantly searching for potential changes, UX designers will typically invest in creating an 'engagement space'. These are channels that stakeholders in a UX project can use to share their feedback as a method of tracking changes in their experiences over time.
For example, many UX designers will work on collecting basic satisfaction metrics from users at the end of important user flows. This could be an online order, visit to a location, or even reading an article. Regardless of the situation, the purpose is to create a tool that provides passive stakeholder feedback that can be reviewed periodically for potential improvements in the overall UX approach being taken. Users of an online store might start to share increasingly negative feedback that would inspire the business to begin investigating possible causes & solutions to the situation.
These feedback channels are commonly used after the implementation of a solution, but can just as effectively be used during a project. Feedback on how a plan is progressing or getting comments on a prototype are traditional examples of using engagement to direct how a solution is eventually implemented.
Engagement spaces also serve as checks for a UX designer when reviewing their own understanding of contextual factors.
A UX designer may be confident in understanding the target users and available resources, but the research supporting that understanding might be flawed due to its source. Engagement spaces are direct channels for stakeholders to share what they're thinking with UX designers, providing an opportunity to compare existing research with these responses.
When designing these channels, UX designers are always encouraged to consider what type of feedback is relevant to improving their understanding of the context. A lack of prompt towards the stakeholder can open up responses to being problematically varied, making an analysis of the response more difficult than it needs to be.
By find ways to collect regular, useful feedback — UX designers can keep themselves well-informed of important project factors that need to be accounted for when finding effective UX solutions.
Feedback provides the evidence that supports great UX decision making.
Context fundamentally provides a tool for UX designers to minimize confusion & frustration with a project. It helps account for relevant factors that determine how successful possible solutions will be, while helping avoid creating new issues.
These dangers involve using inaccurate information to guide important UX decision mistaking, potentially leading to new challenges for users.
A common vacuum scenario is when UX designers used outdated research that doesn't account for current user expectations. This could involve users not knowing how to complete tasks or find information, because they rely on a different understanding of the situation than what the UX designer has envisioned. The consequences for users can appear quickly, leading to rapid decline in the quality of the overall user experience. Minimizing the likelihood of these situations is critical in maintain a positive trajectory for user experiences.
For these reasons, context is often treated as a prediction tool. Factors surrounding a situation are indications of what effects can be expected when change is introduced into a system.
Disregarding contextual factors blurs the distinction between what is expected to be an effective solution and what could pose as a challenge to users.
It's always easier to stay out of a vacuum than to get yourself back into the reality of a project after you've found yourself isolated from context.
Many UX designers and teams work in fast-paced environments, where there is an underlying pressure to implement solutions as quickly as possible. These situations naturally incentivize UX designers to increase their reliance on existing knowledge to speed up their workflows.
Despite the immediate benefit of feeling 'at pace', this response to organizational pressures often results with a decline in solution quality. Not taking adequate time to review the context of a situation will increase the possibility of solutions failing to deliver value for users.
This conflict is made worse by the gratification of delivering solutions on time, further promoting the notion that how work is being done aligns with what is required.
However, this requirement is intended to be balanced alongside the fundamental pursuits of UX design — to provide users with a better experience.
An effective approach of balancing these management needs is looking for the most efficient ways of gaining & maintaining contextual understanding. Some methods, like a research study, might not be easily achievable when time restrictions prohibit extensive assessments.
Because of these pressures, UX designers are encouraged to focus on the context of their work environment. Actively looking for ways of staying informed on UX assignments is a mindset that rewards UX designers with having an easier time achieving success with their solutions.
Feeling overconfident or overwhelmed is itself a variable that UX designers can use to help guide them towards being as successful as possible in their professional pursuits.
