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3. Design Framework

My personal understanding of some Design Frameworks

Design Framework

Design Framework

What is a Design Framework?

A design framework is a structured approach that guides the process of creating products, systems, or experiences. It provides a set of principles, methods, and tools that help designers solve problems systematically, ensuring consistency and efficiency throughout the design process.

💡 By using a design framework, teams can align their efforts, make informed decisions, and create solutions that effectively meet user needs and business goals.

Why do we need design frameworks?

 Some of the core benefits of using a design framework include:

  • Consistency: Ensures a uniform and recognizable design across different parts of a project.

  • Efficiency: Saves time by providing established patterns of work.

  • User-Centricity: Prioritizes the needs and expectations of users, leading to better products.

  • Collaboration: Facilitates communication among design teams, developers, and stakeholders.

  • Productivity: Teams deliver projects methodically and consistently.

Design Sprint

What is a Design Sprint?

A design sprint is a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or a feature to the market. The process aims to help teams to clearly define goals, validate assumptions and decide on a product roadmap before starting development. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_sprint#

🎯 Design Sprint focuses on getting insights into critical business questions within a very short timeframe – just five days.

When to run a Design Sprint

According to the sprint book on their article How do I know if it’s the right time to run a Design Sprint?, here's a few thing we should know before starting any Design Sprint.

Design Sprints are powerful recipes that produce impactful results, but they’re not for everyone or every type of project

Let's answer the important question “How do I know if it’s the right time to run a Design Sprint for my project?”.

There’s no obvious solution to your challenge

Running a Design Sprint when there’s no obvious solution is also really good for the early days of defining a new product.

Maybe you and your team are start a project in a completely new industry then using a Design Sprint can be great because they are working to understand new customers in a whole new problem space.

🧐 You may not even understand the problem yet!

How can this existing technology be applied in new ways? Who is our best customer? How do we differentiate from competitors? And then, does anyone want this? Design Sprints can help answer those kind of questions.

The problem requires a cross-functional team to solve it

A Design Sprint is effective when the problem is meaningful enough and challenging enough that employees from different groups need to work together to find a solution.

When you are solving problems that can be solved using design thinking techniques, a full Design Sprint might not be necessary. However, if solving it requires a cross-functional team, you're clearly tackling a significant and meaningful challenge.

✅ When the problem needs a cross-functional team to solve it, you know that you’re investing in solving an unknown that’s big and meaningful.

You have a big enough problem that it’s worth investing five days to solve

Time is our most valuable asset. It’s no surprise that aligning schedules and convincing people that it’s worth 36 hours of their time is one of the most difficult tasks in organizing a Design Sprint.

🕘 If you can convince someone to give you 36 hours of their time, it’s probably a problem worth tackling.

5 Phases of a Design Sprint

A Design Sprint is grounded in the principles of Design Thinking, so its steps are designed to mirror and incorporate the stages of the Design Thinking process. The 5 phases of the Design Sprint are:

  • Understand – Gather background information, define the problem, and create a map of the existing customer journey.

  • Sketch – Ideate solutions through sketching, note-taking, and brainstorming.

  • Decide – Analyze and prioritize the ideas generated during sketch.

  • Prototype – Build a realistic prototype of the concept.

  • Validate – Finally, test the prototype with target customers.

Regardless of your organization’s size, here’s how you should approach a design sprint:

Before a sprint

  • Choose the right team members

  • Allocate an entire workweek to ensure the team can focus on the sprint without interruptions.

  • Prepare for taking note during the sprint.

When running a sprint

Monday: Map out the problem with experts and define the sprint goal. Understand users through journey and empathy maps.

Tuesday: Ideate and sketch potential solutions. Draw inspiration from existing ideas.

Wednesday: Evaluate and select the best solutions. Turn them into storyboards.

Thursday: Build a prototype based on the storyboards.

Friday: Test the prototype with real users.

End of the sprint

Depending on your process and result, you can expect one of these outcomes:

  • Successful Failure: You gained valuable insights and avoided wasted time. Plan a follow-up sprint to explore new approaches.

  • Flawed Win: You pinpointed what works and what doesn’t. Refine, adjust, and retest.

  • Resounding Victory: Your prototype exceeded user expectations. You now have a clear path to your final product.

Pros and Cons of Design Sprints

The Pros

  • Accelerate Decision-Making: Skip lengthy debates and avoid drawn-out committee decisions.

  • Focused Collaboration: Experience dynamic, concentrated teamwork.

  • Deep User Insights: Gain a clearer understanding of key users.

  • Clear Deliverables: Ensure everyone is aligned on the final outputs.

  • Creative Exploration: Encourage innovative thinking and experimentation to explore a broad range of ideas.

  • Streamlined Process: Avoid the need for detailed specifications.

  • Cost-Effective Testing: Reduce the financial risk of failure through early user testing.

  • Enhanced Ownership: Foster stronger team ownership through active collaboration.

  • Real User Validation: Witness firsthand as real users validate ideas.

The Cons

  • Team Commitment: It requires the right people who can dedicate themselves to a 5-day sprint—this can be challenging for senior executives.

  • Scope Management: The problem scope and expectations must be carefully chosen to ensure the issues aren't too complex to solve within a week, requiring a balance between ambition and feasibility.

  • No Guaranteed Success: Be aware that success is not assured.

  • High Intensity: Recognize the demanding nature of a sprint—it’s called a "sprint" for a reason.

💡 Collaboration, insight and ownership are key to locating the best, most viable solutions quickly and preventing your organization from pursuing costly failures.

Lean UX

What is Lean UX?

Lean UX is focused on the experience under design and is less focused on deliverables than traditional UX. It requires a greater level of collaboration with the entire team. - Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2021, January 2). A Simple Introduction to Lean UX. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/a-simple-introduction-to-lean-ux

According to Rachel Krause - Senior UX specialist from Nielsen Norman group

💡 A Lean UX is a design approach that brings the true nature of a product into light faster in a collaborative, cross-function, and user-center way. It prioritized continuous learning and and using an evident-based approach for team decisions.

🎯 The core objective is to focus on obtaining feedback as early as possible so that it can be used to make quick decisions.

The principles of Lean UX

Here's a few principles of Lean UX:

Act as one team

This means integrating designers, product designers, engineers, and developers to work together, rather than separating tasks by skill.

💪 A diverse team creates more well-rounded solutions and fosters a shared understanding of user needs and design challenges.

Solve the right problem

By using continuous feedback and working in small increments, teams can quickly adjust and focus on the true issue.

📉 This approach minimizes risk, as you’ll only waste a week if a solution fails, rather than several months.

Design collaboratively

The third key principle of Lean UX is collaboration. As design roles become more versatile, effective teamwork is essential.

🗒️ Shared notes or whiteboards are crucial for idea-sharing and collaboration.

Be flexible

Unlike traditional UX, where you strive to reduce uncertainty, Lean UX embraces it. Always expect changes and plan for them. If user testing reveals flaws, be prepared to revisit and adapt your approach.

😀 Flexibility is essential to the Lean UX process.

De-emphasize deliverables

Unlike traditional design, which emphasizes upfront work, Lean UX focuses on adapting your process and making decisions as you go.

🚀 While deliverables are still important, Lean UX values the discussions that guide progress.

The Lean UX Cycle?

💡 Lean UX is a collaborative approach to UX design that incorporates principles from Lean and Agile methodologies.

“Thinking” stage

In this phase, the goal is to define a clear problem and develop a hypothesis. Typically, this involves a brainstorming session where the problem is presented to generate ideas and assumptions. These assumptions help designers understand the potential solutions and form a hypothesis.

🎯 This phase aims to gain a deeper understanding of the problem areas and lay the groundwork for a product that meets consumer needs.

Creation stage “make”

Solutions are created in this stage; it goes from having more abstract thoughts to more specific solutions. In Lean UX, a lot of attention is paid to both low and high-fidelity prototypes. Since Lean UX involves testing multiple hypotheses in a quick period of time, the use of rapid prototyping tools allows minimal effort.

🎯This stage aims to create a basic, testable version of the product.

Verification stage “check”

Includes validating solutions using various methods. These tests are based on the same principles used in traditional UX methodologies, but the approach tends to be faster. It involves testing with real people, preferably with real users of the product to measure the validity of the hypothesis raised.

🎯 This stage aims to validate the MVP with real users and gain insights.

What is Lean UX?

Lean UX is focused on the experience under design and is less focused on deliverables than traditional UX. It requires a greater level of collaboration with the entire team. - Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2021, January 2). A Simple Introduction to Lean UX. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/a-simple-introduction-to-lean-ux

According to Rachel Krause - Senior UX specialist from Nielsen Norman group

💡 A Lean UX is a design approach that brings the true nature of a product into light faster in a collaborative, cross-function, and user-center way. It prioritized continuous learning and and using an evident-based approach for team decisions.

🎯 The core objective is to focus on obtaining feedback as early as possible so that it can be used to make quick decisions.

The principles of Lean UX

Here's a few principles of Lean UX:

Act as one team

This means integrating designers, product designers, engineers, and developers to work together, rather than separating tasks by skill.

💪 A diverse team creates more well-rounded solutions and fosters a shared understanding of user needs and design challenges.

Solve the right problem

By using continuous feedback and working in small increments, teams can quickly adjust and focus on the true issue.

📉 This approach minimizes risk, as you’ll only waste a week if a solution fails, rather than several months.

Design collaboratively

The third key principle of Lean UX is collaboration. As design roles become more versatile, effective teamwork is essential.

🗒️ Shared notes or whiteboards are crucial for idea-sharing and collaboration.

Be flexible

Unlike traditional UX, where you strive to reduce uncertainty, Lean UX embraces it. Always expect changes and plan for them. If user testing reveals flaws, be prepared to revisit and adapt your approach.

😀 Flexibility is essential to the Lean UX process.

De-emphasize deliverables

Unlike traditional design, which emphasizes upfront work, Lean UX focuses on adapting your process and making decisions as you go.

🚀 While deliverables are still important, Lean UX values the discussions that guide progress.

The Lean UX Cycle?

💡 Lean UX is a collaborative approach to UX design that incorporates principles from Lean and Agile methodologies.

“Thinking” stage

In this phase, the goal is to define a clear problem and develop a hypothesis. Typically, this involves a brainstorming session where the problem is presented to generate ideas and assumptions. These assumptions help designers understand the potential solutions and form a hypothesis.

🎯 This phase aims to gain a deeper understanding of the problem areas and lay the groundwork for a product that meets consumer needs.

Creation stage “make”

Solutions are created in this stage; it goes from having more abstract thoughts to more specific solutions. In Lean UX, a lot of attention is paid to both low and high-fidelity prototypes. Since Lean UX involves testing multiple hypotheses in a quick period of time, the use of rapid prototyping tools allows minimal effort.

🎯This stage aims to create a basic, testable version of the product.

Verification stage “check”

Includes validating solutions using various methods. These tests are based on the same principles used in traditional UX methodologies, but the approach tends to be faster. It involves testing with real people, preferably with real users of the product to measure the validity of the hypothesis raised.

🎯 This stage aims to validate the MVP with real users and gain insights.

What is Lean UX?

Lean UX is focused on the experience under design and is less focused on deliverables than traditional UX. It requires a greater level of collaboration with the entire team. - Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2021, January 2). A Simple Introduction to Lean UX. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/a-simple-introduction-to-lean-ux

According to Rachel Krause - Senior UX specialist from Nielsen Norman group

💡 A Lean UX is a design approach that brings the true nature of a product into light faster in a collaborative, cross-function, and user-center way. It prioritized continuous learning and and using an evident-based approach for team decisions.

🎯 The core objective is to focus on obtaining feedback as early as possible so that it can be used to make quick decisions.

The principles of Lean UX

Here's a few principles of Lean UX:

Act as one team

This means integrating designers, product designers, engineers, and developers to work together, rather than separating tasks by skill.

💪 A diverse team creates more well-rounded solutions and fosters a shared understanding of user needs and design challenges.

Solve the right problem

By using continuous feedback and working in small increments, teams can quickly adjust and focus on the true issue.

📉 This approach minimizes risk, as you’ll only waste a week if a solution fails, rather than several months.

Design collaboratively

The third key principle of Lean UX is collaboration. As design roles become more versatile, effective teamwork is essential.

🗒️ Shared notes or whiteboards are crucial for idea-sharing and collaboration.

Be flexible

Unlike traditional UX, where you strive to reduce uncertainty, Lean UX embraces it. Always expect changes and plan for them. If user testing reveals flaws, be prepared to revisit and adapt your approach.

😀 Flexibility is essential to the Lean UX process.

De-emphasize deliverables

Unlike traditional design, which emphasizes upfront work, Lean UX focuses on adapting your process and making decisions as you go.

🚀 While deliverables are still important, Lean UX values the discussions that guide progress.

The Lean UX Cycle?

💡 Lean UX is a collaborative approach to UX design that incorporates principles from Lean and Agile methodologies.

“Thinking” stage

In this phase, the goal is to define a clear problem and develop a hypothesis. Typically, this involves a brainstorming session where the problem is presented to generate ideas and assumptions. These assumptions help designers understand the potential solutions and form a hypothesis.

🎯 This phase aims to gain a deeper understanding of the problem areas and lay the groundwork for a product that meets consumer needs.

Creation stage “make”

Solutions are created in this stage; it goes from having more abstract thoughts to more specific solutions. In Lean UX, a lot of attention is paid to both low and high-fidelity prototypes. Since Lean UX involves testing multiple hypotheses in a quick period of time, the use of rapid prototyping tools allows minimal effort.

🎯This stage aims to create a basic, testable version of the product.

Verification stage “check”

Includes validating solutions using various methods. These tests are based on the same principles used in traditional UX methodologies, but the approach tends to be faster. It involves testing with real people, preferably with real users of the product to measure the validity of the hypothesis raised.

🎯 This stage aims to validate the MVP with real users and gain insights.

5 Elements of UX

The 5 elements of UX

The five elements of UX design, from abstract to concrete, are strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. This model was created and defined by designer Jesse James Garrett in The Elements of User Experience. User experience (UX) design encompasses the entire process, while user interface (UI) design primarily focuses on the surface.

Instead of making sure that work is complete on a lower plane before moving to the next, a better approach is to have work on each plane finish before work on the next plane can finish.


Source: Jesse James Garret, C 2010, The Elements of User Experience, Pearson Education.

What are these 5 elements?

The five elements are, from bottom to top: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. Think of these as a set of five layers, where each layer is dependent on the one below it.

Strategy

Strategy incorporates user needs as well as product objectives. Therefore, the best time to start using the Five Planes method is in parallel or following the user research phase in any design process. Fundamentally, the strategy must answer two questions that are "Why do we want to build the product?" and "What are the needs of our users and how do we address them?"

Scope

Scope is guided by the product strategy. Here, we explore what features and functions are within scope, as well as what content elements may be required to meet users needs.

Structure

Structure defines how the various features and functions fit together. Here we start transitioning from the abstract to more concrete elements of the user experience. Structure deals with defining how users get to specific information and where they can go next.

Skeleton

Skeleton is the concrete expression of the more abstract structure of the site. Here we start designing interface elements — buttons, text blocks, images, etc. — that will facilitate the user’s understanding and movement through the product.

Surface

The top layer, surface, represents how the product looks to the user. The surface represents the interface that users view and interact with. Think of the surface like the clothes or makeup you wear that are visible to the outside world.

How UX Elements Work Together

Surface is the ‘skin’ layer of the product. Here, designers dive into the visual treatment of the product, including text, graphical elements, and navigational components to create the packaging, the final ‘look-and-feel’, of the product.

Here’s how the 5 elements work together:

  • Strategy is the foundation, translating business and user needs into actionable goals.

  • Scope defines content and functionality requirements based on the Strategy.

  • Structure outlines interaction patterns and information organization.

  • Skeleton involves creating wireframes to visualize interactions and information layout.

  • Surface finalizes the visual design, integrating all previous decisions into the final presentation.

💡 Each of the five elements of UX design should be equally as strong. Otherwise, your users will encounter problems that diminish their experience and undermine your efforts.

The 5 elements of UX

The five elements of UX design, from abstract to concrete, are strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. This model was created and defined by designer Jesse James Garrett in The Elements of User Experience. User experience (UX) design encompasses the entire process, while user interface (UI) design primarily focuses on the surface.

Instead of making sure that work is complete on a lower plane before moving to the next, a better approach is to have work on each plane finish before work on the next plane can finish.


Source: Jesse James Garret, C 2010, The Elements of User Experience, Pearson Education.

What are these 5 elements?

The five elements are, from bottom to top: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. Think of these as a set of five layers, where each layer is dependent on the one below it.

Strategy

Strategy incorporates user needs as well as product objectives. Therefore, the best time to start using the Five Planes method is in parallel or following the user research phase in any design process. Fundamentally, the strategy must answer two questions that are "Why do we want to build the product?" and "What are the needs of our users and how do we address them?"

Scope

Scope is guided by the product strategy. Here, we explore what features and functions are within scope, as well as what content elements may be required to meet users needs.

Structure

Structure defines how the various features and functions fit together. Here we start transitioning from the abstract to more concrete elements of the user experience. Structure deals with defining how users get to specific information and where they can go next.

Skeleton

Skeleton is the concrete expression of the more abstract structure of the site. Here we start designing interface elements — buttons, text blocks, images, etc. — that will facilitate the user’s understanding and movement through the product.

Surface

The top layer, surface, represents how the product looks to the user. The surface represents the interface that users view and interact with. Think of the surface like the clothes or makeup you wear that are visible to the outside world.

How UX Elements Work Together

Surface is the ‘skin’ layer of the product. Here, designers dive into the visual treatment of the product, including text, graphical elements, and navigational components to create the packaging, the final ‘look-and-feel’, of the product.

Here’s how the 5 elements work together:

  • Strategy is the foundation, translating business and user needs into actionable goals.

  • Scope defines content and functionality requirements based on the Strategy.

  • Structure outlines interaction patterns and information organization.

  • Skeleton involves creating wireframes to visualize interactions and information layout.

  • Surface finalizes the visual design, integrating all previous decisions into the final presentation.

💡 Each of the five elements of UX design should be equally as strong. Otherwise, your users will encounter problems that diminish their experience and undermine your efforts.

The 5 elements of UX

The five elements of UX design, from abstract to concrete, are strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. This model was created and defined by designer Jesse James Garrett in The Elements of User Experience. User experience (UX) design encompasses the entire process, while user interface (UI) design primarily focuses on the surface.

Instead of making sure that work is complete on a lower plane before moving to the next, a better approach is to have work on each plane finish before work on the next plane can finish.


Source: Jesse James Garret, C 2010, The Elements of User Experience, Pearson Education.

What are these 5 elements?

The five elements are, from bottom to top: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. Think of these as a set of five layers, where each layer is dependent on the one below it.

Strategy

Strategy incorporates user needs as well as product objectives. Therefore, the best time to start using the Five Planes method is in parallel or following the user research phase in any design process. Fundamentally, the strategy must answer two questions that are "Why do we want to build the product?" and "What are the needs of our users and how do we address them?"

Scope

Scope is guided by the product strategy. Here, we explore what features and functions are within scope, as well as what content elements may be required to meet users needs.

Structure

Structure defines how the various features and functions fit together. Here we start transitioning from the abstract to more concrete elements of the user experience. Structure deals with defining how users get to specific information and where they can go next.

Skeleton

Skeleton is the concrete expression of the more abstract structure of the site. Here we start designing interface elements — buttons, text blocks, images, etc. — that will facilitate the user’s understanding and movement through the product.

Surface

The top layer, surface, represents how the product looks to the user. The surface represents the interface that users view and interact with. Think of the surface like the clothes or makeup you wear that are visible to the outside world.

How UX Elements Work Together

Surface is the ‘skin’ layer of the product. Here, designers dive into the visual treatment of the product, including text, graphical elements, and navigational components to create the packaging, the final ‘look-and-feel’, of the product.

Here’s how the 5 elements work together:

  • Strategy is the foundation, translating business and user needs into actionable goals.

  • Scope defines content and functionality requirements based on the Strategy.

  • Structure outlines interaction patterns and information organization.

  • Skeleton involves creating wireframes to visualize interactions and information layout.

  • Surface finalizes the visual design, integrating all previous decisions into the final presentation.

💡 Each of the five elements of UX design should be equally as strong. Otherwise, your users will encounter problems that diminish their experience and undermine your efforts.

What's next in line?

2. Design Thinking Research

My personal understanding of Design Thinking

2. Design Thinking Research

My personal understanding of Design Thinking

Contents

Design Framework

Design Sprint

Lean UX

5 Elements of UX