Lets get Dirty
We are the microbial systems and live in a microbial world, our survival as individuals, communities and as a species depend on it ! In the movie “War of The Worlds”, Steven Spielberg attributed the success of humans in surviving the aliens invasion, to our immune systems evolutionary adaptation to withstand our microbial environment. Heres a look at how this could impact our design thinking from The Dirt
Designing Cities for Healthier Microbiomes
Humans are essentially super-organisms or holobionts made up of both human cells and those of micro-organisms, such as viruses, bacteria, archea, protists, and fungi. Researchers now know the human body hosts a comprehensive ecosystem, largely established by age three, in which non-human cells vastly outnumber human cells. The latest study from the American Academy of Microbiology estimates each human ecosystem contains around 100 trillion cells of micro-organisms and just 37 trillion human cells.
But while rainforest or prairie ecosystems are now well-understood, the human ecosystem is less so. As researchers make new discoveries, there is a growing group of scientists who argue our microbiomes are deeply connected with our physical and mental health. The increased number of prebiotics and probiotics supplements on the shelf in drug stores and supermarkets, and availability of fresh pickles and kimchi in local farmers markets, are perhaps testaments to this increasingly-widespread belief.
The question at the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) conference in Oklahoma City was: Can we design cities to better support our microbiomes and in turn our overall health?
Through urban farming and gardening — or just plain playing in the dirt — humans can also increase their exposure to healthy microbes found in soils. A group of scientists and advocates argue that greater exposure could help fight depression and anxiety and reduce rates of asthma and allergies in both kids and adults.
The incredible increase of allergies among Western populations may be caused by our “sterile, germ-free environments” that cause our immune systems to over-react to everything from nuts to mold and pollen. Dr. Brett Finlay and Marie-Claire Arrieta even wrote a book exploring this: Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Your Child from an Over-sanitized World.
Wener said we have created cities that reflect our fear of bacteria; instead we must create microbial-inclusive cities that improve our health. “Most microbes in our bodies have co-evolved with us. They are important to our vital functions. The future of urban planning and design should support healthy microbes.”
As part of this vision, landscape architects could design parks and plazas to be filled with accessible garden plots and soil-based play areas that let both adults and kids get dirty. We could design for holobionts instead of just people, boosting the health of the collective urban microbiome in the process.
Wener’s colleage at NYU — Elizabeth Henaff — is leading much of this research. Learn about her artful experiments. Read this article from Michael Pollan in The New York Times outlining the connections between our microbiome and health, and this Q&A from The Guardian.
ASLA Drawing Resource
An amazing combined Landscape Architecture information and drawing excercise resource from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) reposted from The Dirt
The ASLA Discover Landscape Architecture Activity Books are for anyone interested in landscape architecture, architecture, planning, and engineering, and for those who like to draw, doodle, and be inspired. The books’ primary focus is landscape architecture, giving readers the opportunity to see the many drawings, places, and landscapes created by landscape architects.
Download Activity Book for Kids
Take a journey across an imaginary town to learn about the building blocks of landscape architecture. In this activity book, you will learn about landscape architecture, see sketches from landscape architecture professionals, and have the opportunity to sketch and color drawings. This book is geared towards readers 9-12 years old.
Download Activity Book for Teens & Adults
Take a journey across the United States to see some of the great places designed by landscape architects. In this activity book, you will learn about landscape architecture, see sketches from landscape architecture professionals, have the opportunity to sketch and color drawings, and problem solve to plan your own projects. This book is geared towards readers 13 years and older.
Share the Books!
Do you have a friend that is interested in landscape architecture? Do your children like the idea of blending art with the environment? Are you a landscape architecture professional visiting a local school and searching for a fun interactive exercise?
Whether you are a kid, teen, parent, teacher, undergraduate student, or landscape architecture professional, there are many ways to share the activity books. To start, share with family, friends, classmates, neighbors, other professionals, and community members.
And don’t forget to share your work. Post your drawings with #ASLAactivitybooks to show the world your creative talents! Stay tuned for future initiatives at ASLA including available copies for distribution and Spanish translated editions.
Design from a Digital Device
Landscape architects create drawings on paper and on digital devices. If you are interested to complete the activity books from your digital device, check out some of the free apps and programs below that include drawing tools.
Adobe Sketch
iBooks
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Microsoft OneNote
This post is by Shawn Balon, ASLA, Career Discovery and Diversity Manager at the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).
THE SHAPE OF WATER
From Jason King’s Landscape+Urbanism site
“Rendering of Houston wetland channel showing ecological wetland, conservation areas, and recreation trails” p. 90-91
An amazing resource posted on ASLA’s The Dirt (here) focuses on Design Guidelines for Urban Wetlands, specifically what shapes are optimal for performance. Using simulations and physical testing to investigate hydraulic performance the team from the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) at MIT. Led by Heidi Nepf, Alan Berger and Celina Balderas Guzman along with a team including Tyler Swingle, Waishan Qiu, Manoel Xavier, Samantha Cohen, and Jonah Susskind, the project aims to have a practice application in design guidance informed by research. From their site:
“Although constructed wetlands and detention basins have been built for stormwater management for a long time, their design has been largely driven by hydrologic performance. Bringing together fluid dynamics, landscape architecture, and urban planning, this research project explored how these natural treatment systems can be designed as multi-functional urban infrastructure to manage flooding, improve water quality, enhance biodiversity, and create amenities in cities.”
Starting in the beginning by outlining ‘The Stormwater Imperative’, the above goal is explained in more depth, and issues with how we’ve tackled these problems are also discussed, such as civil-focused problem solving or lack of scalability, but also explore the potential for how, through intentional design, these systems “can create novel urban ecosystems that offer recreation, aesthetic, and ecological benefits.” (1)
The evolution that has resulted in destruction of wetlands through urbanization, coupled with deficient infrastructure leads to issues like flooding, water pollution due to the loss of the natural holding and filtering capacity of these systems and the increased flows. However, as pointed out by the authors, this can be an opportunity, as constructed wetlands “can partially restore some lost ecosystem services, especially in locations where wetlands do not currently exist.” (5)
The modeled flow patterns are also interesting, showing the differentiation from fast, regular, slow flows, along with any Eddy’s that were shown in dye testing using the flumes.
Check it out and see what you think. The report is available as a online version via ISSUU or via PDF download from the LCAU site, where there are also some additional resources. All images in this post are from these reports and should be credited to the LCAU team.
Landscaping in post Day Zero Cape Town
BY Kay Montgomery From SALI South African Landscapers Institute
Planting with species that thrive on less than 500mm of winter rainfall a year is the new reality for landscaping in Cape Town.
The politicians may have done away with the Day Zero concept, but the realities of the water situation in the Western Cape remains dire.
Water restrictions and the price of potable water have encouraged a new landscaping reality. The foundation of this reality is based on landscaping with plants that thrive with less than 500mm of winter rainfall. And in our current era of climate change, coping with dramatically wet years – followed by dramatically dry years.
Highs and lows
With an average rainfall of 464mm per annum, South Africa remains a water scarce country. In years gone by, Cape Town’s average rainfall was 820mm per annum. In 2013 and 2014, Cape Town’s annual rainfall exceeded this average with two dramatically wet years.
The winds of change arrived in 2015. Over the past three years, the rainfall received in Cape Town has swung way below the average: 549mm in 2015, 634mm in 2016 and 499mm in 2017 – the driest year since observations began in 1921.
Resilient landscaping
Against this backdrop, landscapers are practising the art of resilient landscaping. “We need green spaces in our cities”, says Norah de Wet, Chairperson of the South African Landscapers’ Institute (SALI). “Professional landscapers are at the forefront of securing the intrinsic value of properties across the Western Cape by refitting, rehabilitating, restoring and installing resilient landscapes”.
Planting for resilience
“Choosing plants that can thrive in a winter rainfall area with less that 500mm a year of rainfall is key to the concept of resilient landscaping in the Western Cape”, says Deon van Eeden from Vula Environmental Services. “Only with a sound knowledge of fynbos flora, can one succeed in designing water wise, ecologically sound, resilient landscapes for the winter rainfall area”, he adds.
Awareness of the Importance of Public Spaces is Increasing—Here’s How We Can Capitalize On It
- by Ben Willis
This article was originally published by Common Edge as “How Public Space Can Build Community and Rescue Democracy.”
Public spaces are having a moment. People from outside the field of urban planning are beginning to notice the vital contributions that they make to our quality of life: inserting nature and cultural memory into the everyday, reminding us of our collective responsibilities, supporting democratic expression. People are also beginning to notice the subtle ways in which those contributions are being eroded by threats of privatization, corporate appropriation, and apathy.
Most acutely, this moment is brought to us by Apple, which has begun an aggressive retail rebranding effort to re-conceptualize its stores as “town squares,” and wrought a wave of well-founded concern. Technology continues to beckon us away from the need to leave our homes or interact face-to-face with other humans. If for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, it would follow that opportunities for such interpersonal interaction become a luxury we begin to seek, a call to remember our origin as social beings.
Not to give technology too outsized a role in this moment, politics also plays a part: political progress often demands a physical place to exercise our first amendment rights (or to fight for them). Large, visible public spaces are a natural home. Americans in particular have recently discovered that places we treat like public spaces—airports, for example—are, in fact, the domain of private companies, or are at risk of being ceded to private companies. When we see public spaces as a physical extension of our rights, we begin to approach their true value to our society.
I can distinctly remember, during a cross-country bus tour in college, stepping off the bus on Main Street in Greenville, SC. We were greeted by wide sidewalks with bountiful street trees, well-paved crosswalks that invited us to surf from one row of shops and storefronts to another, punctuated by public art, and terminating in a park overlooking the river. With places to sit and some protection from the elements, the street invited people to interact and to linger. This was my first personal “aha” moment that a street could be more than just a corridor for the efficient movement of automobiles—if its physical elements were designed well, it could be just as vital to the health of a place as a park.
What happened here ? Cape Town’s failed water supply?
Awaiting Day Zero: Cape Town Faces an Uncertain Water Future
After Cape Town restricted water use in February to 13 gallons per day per person, city residents now wait in increasingly long lines to collect water from the city’s natural springs. AP PHOTO/BRAM JANSSEN
South Africa’s second-largest city has pushed back the day when its taps are expected to run dry. But with its population growing and the climate warming, Cape Town, like many cities in semi-arid regions, must take decisive measures to meet its future water needs.
Backed by the iconic Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa’s second-largest metropolis, seduces increasing numbers of international travelers. Its charismatic neighborhoods, bright beaches, and breathtaking natural landscapes garner shelves-full of tourism awards and terabytes of glowing Instagram posts.
Recently, Cape Town also has become infamous as the home of “Day Zero,” the day when most of the city’s taps are predicted to run dry. With its major, rain-fed supply dams dangerously low after three years of drought, most of the city’s 4 million-plus residents — some rich, many desperately poor — have been facing the prospect of lining up at emergency water distribution points to collect a daily ration of just 6.6 gallons per person sometime before June or July. That’s when winter rains normally begin filling the reservoirs of this Southern Hemisphere city.
Now, largely thanks to radical conservation efforts — in January, the average Cape Town resident’s daily water quota was just one-third the amount used by the typical Californian at the height of that state’s 2016 drought — the city has reduced water consumption by 57 percent. Day Zero has been pushed back to July 9. And if the citizens of Cape Town (myself among them) continue to save as we have been, we should make it to the winter rainy season without having to line up for water.
So, disaster averted? Nothing to see here anymore? Far from it. The city’s efforts on the supply side of the water equation have been far less successful than its work on consumption. Even if the drought comes to an end in 2018 — and few experts are willing to predict that — the effects of this water crisis will be felt for years, possibly decades.
How did Cape Town, one of the best-managed and wealthiest cities in Africa, find itself on the brink of running dry?
Cape Town’s predicament provides a global warning about the difficulty of ensuring water resilience in a warming world, even if, as with Cape Town, climate change is firmly on the agenda of city managers. Most climate models predict that the Cape Town region will become not only warmer, but drier, which bodes ill for a metropolitan area whose population has roughly doubled to 4 million in the past three decades and continues to grow at 1 to 2 percent annually.
And Cape Town’s rushed efforts to boost water supply by tapping into aquifers, including some in national parks and provincial nature reserves, are damaging valuable ecosystems and putting rare species at risk of extinction. The agricultural sector, including the Cape region’s world-renowned wine industry, has been forced to sharply cut back on irrigation, which is reducing production and leaving tens of thousands of people out of work.
So how did Cape Town, one of the best-managed and wealthiest cities in Africa, find itself on the brink of running dry? The city has, after all, won awards for its work on climate change. South Africa has some of the world’s most detailed, progressive water laws and deep expertise in water science and management, climate science, and meteorology. The city has mapped projected sea level rise and convened countless climate change adaptation planning sessions. Last year, Cape Town’s mayor said, “We cannot plan anything without factoring in the impact of climate change.”
People wait to collect water from a natural spring in the Cape Town suburb of St. James in January 2018. RODGER BOSCH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
A simple (and perhaps simplistic) answer to the cause of the current crisis is that rainfall was well below average for three years in a row, that no one could have or did predict that, and thus serious action to reduce water consumption — which should have begun in 2016 — came too late. The crisis has exposed significant weaknesses in scientists’ ability to forecast weather on a seasonal scale, which is when it matters to city managers and farmers, and predict rainfall on an annual or decadal scale, which is when it matters to developers of large-scale infrastructure, such as raising dam heights and building desalination plants.
The southwestern part of South Africa has a Mediterranean climate much like the central coast of California, with hot, dry summers and cool, rainy winters (June through August.) The winter rains fill the six large dams around the city that form the core of the Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS), which services the vast majority of the city’s residential and industrial water users, as well as farming areas and smaller towns nearby.
The winter rains are generally very reliable. Using historical rainfall data, Piotr Wolski of the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town has determined that a multi-year drought as severe as the current one would only be expected once every few hundred years, perhaps less than once in a millennium. The ongoing drought in the catchments of the WCWSS dams, he writes, “is indeed very, very rare, and thus very, very severe.” The historical rainfall record indicates that, having had two poor rainfall years in a row (2015 and 2016), the chances of a third bad year – especially one as bad as 2017 – were extremely remote.
In addition to historical data pointing to the extremely low likelihood of 2017’s winter being dry, the South African Weather Service modeled a three-month seasonal forecast for the winter of 2017 that predicted higher than average rainfall.Notwithstanding that seasonal rainfall forecasts for the Cape region are notoriously unreliable, it appears that officials were left feeling less urgency to impose hugely unpopular water restrictions or push forward with expensive water infrastructure projects early in the year.
Experts have long warned that Cape Town would find itself in a water crisis caused by converging drought, population growth, and the failure to secure new water resources. But because of uncertainties in water consumption rates and in weather and climate prediction, it’s been hard to fix a date.
The city’s water consumption has fallen from 317 million gallons per day in early 2015 to about 137 million gallons per day.
What is one thing every ecologist should know about urban ecology?
Introduction
An ecology for the AnthropoceneThe High Line in New York City. Photo: David Maddox
Urban ecology has expanded in the last couple decades as a major, global, interdisciplinary field that advances biodiversity, sustainability, and fundamental ecological research in the context of cities and urbanization. With all this accumulated learning, has urban ecology made its mark in the field of ecology more generally?
In some of the most important peer-reviewed ecology journals, and on social media, it seems even the most basic of urban ecology concepts have yet to be appreciated or incorporated in the broader ecology discipline. For example, it’s been 25 years since Humans as Components of Ecosystems was published, and yet many ecologists still don’t see humans as part of how we define and study nature—despite the fact that every ecosystem on earth is affected by, and has effects on, people.The High Line in New York City. Photo: David Maddox
In November 2017, Nature Ecology and Evolution published a major review of the field of ecology, titled “100 articles every ecologist should read” (behind a paywall, unfortunately). It must be noted that the list was a product of a extensive survey of ecologists. Nevertheless, many ecologists around the world took exception to the lack of gender and racial diversity, and its general lack of inclusivity (see here, here, and here). Notably lacking from these academic discussions has been a recognition of core contributions from urban ecology to how we understand, manage, and plan ecosystems on our urban planet.It begs the question: what would a reading list be for the discipline of ecology in the Anthropecene? But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
No one disputes that the 100 papers listed by Nature Ecology and Evolution are important in the history of ecology. Indeed, everyone should read these papers. But is this the right list of 100 papers to understand ecology today? There are other papers that should make a reading list for a complete understanding of modern ecology. An alternative version of a “key reading” prompt could be this: what are the 100 papers that every ecologist must read to understand ecology today, in the Anthropocene? Social ecology, biophilia, justice, poverty, gender, values, the Global South, design, climate change, policy; these are just some of the topics that are core material for understanding the broad science of ecology today, These topics are largely missing from the 100 papers list.
And also missing, of course, is urban ecology.
As it happens, urban ecology routinely includes the aforementioned list of additional topics: social ecology, biophilia, justice, policy, and so on. How does urban ecology advance the state of the art in ecology more generally? It advances our understanding of how our current world works, how it might work better, and it lays foundations to turn that learning towards pressing Anthropocene challenges, both urban and non-urban.
We asked a diverse group to help our non-urban ecological colleagues understand some of the most important contributions from urban ecology for advancing the field of ecology. We asked them this question: What is one thing every ecologist should know about urban ecology? (We asked them to suggest a reading also—a start on a reading list.)
Along the way, let’s expand the idea of “ecology”.
via What is one thing every ecologist should know about urban ecology? – The Nature of Cities
Eleven Reasons You Should Have A Landscape Architect on Your Development Team
via Eleven Reasons You Should Have A Landscape Architect on Your Development Team | LinkedIn
By Timothy Brown Principal at Traverse Landscape Architects
As a landscape architect, my experience has often been that we are brought in late on a project to “shrub it up”. The most unfortunate part about this is that owners and developers are being deprived of the chance to have a much richer and more significant project.
Below I offer eleven reasons why landscape design should be considered and landscape architects should be included throughout the project development process.
1. The landscape is the warp and weft which can weave a disparate collection of buildings into a cohesive city, community or campus.
2. Whether they are biking, walking or driving, people most often experience a place from ground level, and landscape provides the interest and impetus which inspires people to return in order to spend time in a place.
3. Vibrant native plantings, flexible plaza spaces, legible and convenient pathways and wayfinding provide a framework within which critical placemaking events can happen, contributing to the overall success of a place
Johnson and Wales University John J. Bowen Center for Science and Innovation
4. Landscape architects are often the keepers of a holistic vision and balance on a project, reconciling the sometimes conflicting design aspirations of architects, engineers, owners and developers.
5. Landscape touches every component of a development project and is a major factor inspiring people to live in a place or return as a visitor.
6. As this article from Time Magazine asserts, access to high-quality green spaces and nature makes people happier, improves physical and mental health and improves our overall sense of well-being. (Also See: WHO)
7. Well-designed landscapes, especially in neighborhoods and on campuses, contribute to an overall sense of well-being by providing places for people to meet up for a walk, for collaboration or to just chat. People places are successful places.
8. Well-designed landscapes provide a myriad of ecosystem services, not the least of which include groundwater recharge, habitat creation, and mitigation of urban heat island impacts.
9. Using vernacular materials in innovative ways, referencing natural landscapes with native plantings and providing places for people to gather, recreate and relax are just a few ways that well-designed landscapes contribute to a culturally impactful and potent sense of place.
10. Landscape architects are trained to look closely at all the existing conditions of a site. The inclusion of landscape architects from the beginning of the process can avoid costly mistakes down the road and ensure the preservation of historically important vegetation and site artifacts.
11. Well-designed landscapes bring people closer to the places where they live work and play, giving them a place to dwell, promoting stewardship and inspiring advocacy.
These are just a few of the many reasons landscape architects should be an integral member of the development team starting from project conception.
UX Process: What It Is, What It Looks Like and Why It’s Important
via UX Process: What It Is, What It Looks Like and Why It’s Important | Adobe Blog
As a UX designer, I am sure you have been asked many times “What is your UX design process? What and how many steps does it have?” There is a simple reason why this question so popular among designers: UX process is a cornerstone of UX design, it’s a make-it-or-break-it aspect of UX design. Without a solid UX design process, a designer could be completely moving in the dark. A clear and concise UX process, on the other hand, makes it possible to craft amazing experiences for users.
In this article, we’ll define a general UX design process, as well as the order in which specific UX phases should be taken. We will also see what methods can be used by UX designers during each phase.
What Does a UX Process Look Like?
The answer to this question is: it depends. A UX design process is something that everyone has in the UX industry, but something that everyone does differently. This happens because UX process depends heavily on the project. Different projects require different approaches: the approach to a corporate website differs from the way we design a dating app. And while there are some practices UX designers should follow for each project (such as conduct product research before moving on to prototyping), there are principles in every part of the process that have to be custom designed for the specific project.
UX Process Overview
At its core, every UX process should consist of the following 5 key phases:
1. Product Definition
One of the most important phases in UX design is actually done before the UX design process even starts. Before you can build a product, you need to understand its context for existence. Product definition phase sets the stage for the success of a product. During this phase, UX designers brainstorm the product at the highest level (basically, the concept of the product) with stakeholders.
This phase usually includes:
- Stakeholders interviews: Interviewing key stakeholders in a project to gather insights about their goals. Defining the goals and values of the product that you would like to build is a key driver for a results-driven process.
- Create value proposition: Value proposition maps out the key aspects of the product: what it is, who it’s for and when/where it will be used. Value proposition helps the team and stakeholders create consensus around what the product will be.
- Concept sketching: Creating an early mockup of what the team is looking to build.
- Project kickoff meeting: The kickoff meeting brings all the key players together to set proper expectations both for the team and stakeholders. It covers the high-level outline of the product purpose, who is involved in designing and developing the product, how they will work together, and what stakeholders expectations are (such as KPI and how how the success of the product should be measured).
2. Product Research
Once the product idea is defined, product research (which naturally includes user and market research) provides the other half of the foundation for great design. Good research informs your product and the fact that it comes early in design process save a lot of resources (time and money) further down the road (as fewer adjustments will need to be made).
The product research phase is probably the most variable between projects – the phase varies based on the complexity of the product, timing, available resources and many other factors. This phase can include:
- Individual in-depth interviews (or IDI): A great product experience starts with a good understanding of the users. Not only do UX designers want to know who their users are, but designers want to dive deeper into their needs, fears, motivations, and behavior.
- Competitive research: A comprehensive analysis of competitor products maps out their existing features in a comparable way. Research helps UX designers understand industry standards and identify opportunities for the product in a given area.
3. Analysis
The aim of the Analysis phase is to draw insights from data collected during the Product Research phase. Capturing, organizing and making inferences from the “what” users want/think/need can help UX designers begin to understand the “why” they want/think/need that. During this phase, designers confirm that the most important assumptions being made are valid.
This phase usually includes:
- Create hypothetical personas: Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types that might use a product in a similar way. The purpose of personas is to create reliable and realistic representations of the key audience segments for reference.
- Create experience maps: An experience map is an important design tool to understand the product/service interactions from users’ point of view. An experience map is basically a visual representation that illustrates user flow within a product/service. A basic experience map just follows one path (one user, one goal, one scenario) even when the product/service allows multiple path variations.
4. Design
When user expectations from the product are established (it’s clear what their goals are and how they like to operate with it), UX designers move to the design phase. An effective design phase is both highly collaborative (it requires input from all team players involved in product development) and iterative (meaning that it cycles back upon itself to validate ideas and assumptions).
The design phase usually includes:
- Sketching: Sketching is the easiest way of visualizing our ideas. Drawing by hand is also the fastest way to visualize a concept – it allows the designer to visualize a broad range of design solutions before deciding which one to stick with.
- Create wireframes: A wireframe is a visual guide that represents the page structure (hierarchy and key elements). Wireframing acts as the backbone of the product – designers often use them as the skeletons for mockups.
- Create prototypes: If wireframes are mostly about structure and visual hierarchy (look), then prototypes are about interaction experience from it (both look and feel). A prototype is a simulation of the product, commonly using clickable wireframes.
- Create a design specification: Design specifications usually consist of user flow and task flow diagrams which outline the functionality and style requirements of the product. Design specifications describe the processes and graphical assets needed to make a working product.
5. Validation (Testing)
Usually, the validation phase starts when the high-fidelity design is fleshed out. A product is validated with stakeholders and end-users through the series of user testing sessions.
Similar to the product research phase, this phase is also variable between projects. Validation phase can include:
- “Eat your own dogfood:” Once the design team has iterated the product to the point where it’s usable, testing it with the product team is a great low-cost validation technique.
- User testing sessions: User testing sessions serve as a validation of design, based on tests with real users.User testing sessions have a lot of forms, some of the most popular are usability testing, focus groups, beta testing, A/B testing, and surveys.
- Create user diaries: User diaries are great at capturing an information from real-world users. Using Google Docs, UX designers can create a simple template and then include open-ended questions such as:
- Where were you when using the product?
- What tasks did you hope to achieve?
- Do you have something that frustrated you?
- Metrics analysis: Numbers provided by an analytics tool about how a user interacts with your product: clicks, navigation time, search queries etc. Metrics can also “uncover the unexpected”, surfacing behaviors that are not explicit in user tests.
- Working with feedback from users: Feedback data such as support tickets, bug reports, and other analytics are able to drive product refinement.
How To Improve UX Design Process
Now you’ve seen how each phase is connected to each other, let’s consider some helpful tips for improving the UX design process:
Consider Overlap Between Phases and Iterations
It’s important to understand that UX design isn’t a linear process. The phases of the UX process often have considerable overlap and usually there’s a lot of back-and-forth. As the UX designer learns more about the problem being solved, the users and details about the project (especially, constraints), it may be necessary to revisit some of the research undertaken or try out new design ideas.
The Importance of Communication
Communication is a key UX design skill. While doing great design is one thing, communicating great design is equally as important, as even the best concepts will fail if they don’t accept by the team and stakeholders. That’s why the best UX designers are great communicators.
Processes Morph To Fit Projects
UX designers should be flexible with every project – the process employed should be tailored to fit specific project needs, both business and functional. A process tailored to the capabilities of the business and the clients proved to be generally effective.
Conclusion
When it comes to UX design process, there’s no one fits all solution. But whether your UX process lightweight or it’s full of a lot of activities, the goal of each UX design process is the same – create great a product for your users. Thus, use what works the best for your project, get rid of the rest, and evolve your UX process as your product ev
