Subject :UI/UX
Subject code : BCS456C
CIE marks: 50
SEE marks : 50
Total marks : 100
Credits : 01
Chapter 2 – Design thinking
• Design thinking is a methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s
extremely useful when used to tackle complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown—because
it serves to understand the human needs involved, reframe the problem in human-centric ways,
create numerous ideas in brainstorming.
• Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that can have anywhere from three to seven
phases, depending on whom you talk to.
The five stages of design thinking, according to the school, are:
•Empathize: research your users' needs.
•Define: state your users' needs and problems.
•Ideate: challenge assumptions and create ideas.
•Prototype: start to create solutions.
•Test: try your solutions out.
Design Perspectives
• In UI/UX design, "design perspectives" refer to the
different viewpoints or angles from which a designer
approaches the creation of a user interface, considering
not just visual aesthetics (UI) but also the overall user
experience (UX), encompassing factors like usability,
functionality, and user needs across the entire
interaction journey with a product or service.
Key design perspectives in UI/UX include:
•User-centered design:
•Prioritizing the user's needs and expectations as the primary focus for all design decisions, ensuring the interface is intuitive and easy to
navigate.
•Accessibility design:
•Creating interfaces that can be used by people with diverse abilities, including visual impairments, motor difficulties, and cognitive
disabilities.
•Responsive design:
•Designing interfaces that adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes and devices, providing a consistent experience across platforms.
•Information architecture:
•Structuring content in a logical and hierarchical manner to make it easy for users to find what they need.
•Interaction design:
•Defining how users interact with interface elements, including buttons, menus, and forms, to ensure smooth and intuitive interactions.
•Visual design:
•Focusing on the aesthetics of the interface, including color schemes, typography, and layout, to create a visually appealing and branded
experience.
•Brand consistency:
•Maintaining a consistent visual style across all interfaces to reinforce brand identity and recognition.
User Personas
• A UX persona is a fictional character which represents your target users. Personas are an extremely
valuable UX tool, allowing you to better understand your target audience and make design decisions
accordingly.
• Personas are usually captured in a document or presentation deck, providing an easily
digestible visualization of your target user(s). Personas comprise a mixture of text and
icons/graphics and you can also give them a face.
Typically, a UX persona includes:
1.The persona’s name
2.An image (e.g. an illustration, avatar, photo or stock image)
3.Demographic information such as your persona’s age, gender, family/living situation,
employment status and anything else that’s relevant to your product or problem space.
4.Their needs and goals in relation to your product.
What is Ideation?
• Ideation is a creative process where designers generate ideas in sessions
(e.g., brainstorming, worst possible idea). It is the third stage in the Design Thinking process.
• Participants gather with open minds to produce as many ideas as they can to address
a problem statement in a facilitated, judgment-free environment.
• The sorts of ideas your team must generate and reflect their nature, needs and experience
with ideation. Some crucial ones are:
1. Brainstorming – You build good ideas from each other’s wild ideas.
2. Brain dumping – This is like brainstorming, but done individually.
3. Brainwriting – This is like brainstorming, but everyone writes down and passes ideas for
others to add to before discussing these.
4. Brain walking – This is like brainwriting, but members walk about the room, adding to
others’ ideas.
5. Worst Possible Idea – You take an inverted brainstorming approach, emboldening more
reserved individuals to produce bad ideas and yielding valuable threads.
Sketches in UX/UI Design
• Sketches are preliminary, hand-drawn representations of a user experience—including user
research outcomes, user interfaces and interactions.
• Sketches are typically rough and informal, emphasizing the conceptual over the precise
which allows designers to iterate rapidly and gather feedback early in the design process.
• Sketches act as a visual bridge, fostering a shared understanding among stakeholders by
providing a tangible representation of design ideas. They encourage collaboration, spark
conversations, and facilitate early decision-making by allowing for quick exploration and
identification of potential issues or opportunities.
• Sketching demonstrates how UX designers think, approach problem-solving and illustrate
their design process.
Storyboards in UX/UI Design
• Storyboards in user experience design (UX design) are visual
representations of a user's journey through a product or service.
• These sequences of images outline the user's actions, thoughts and emotions
at each stage.
• Designers use storyboards to understand user experiences, identify pain
points and design solutions that enhance usability, satisfaction—and
more.
Why are Storyboards Important in UX Design?
When designers use storyboards, they create a tangible and visual representation of target user
interactions. This doesn’t just help in the design and development process.
1. Predict User Experience
Storyboards empower designers to anticipate how users will interact with a product over time. When
designers visualize these interactions, they can find potential issues and user needs early in the design
process.
2. Enhance Communication
These visual tools play a critical role as they communicate the user's journey to team members
and stakeholders who may not be familiar with the intricacies of UX design. This makes it easier to get the
team’s vision aligned and understand the user's perspective.
3. Facilitate Ideation and Iteration
Storyboarding isn’t just about prediction; it’s a method for ideation as well. It provides a creative
framework for brainstorming new solutions to user problems for design and development teams.
Teams can rapidly modify storyboards to reflect changes in the design approach.
4. Integrate with Other UX Tools
While storyboards provide a narrative visual representation, teams often use them together with
other UX tools like user journey maps. Storyboards add a visual layer to the textual information in
journey maps. They enrich the overall understanding of the user experience and help guide design
decisions.
