A History of UX Design

A history of wireframes

Looking at the history of wireframes, they were created for deliverable purposes. Navigation charts, mockups, site maps and specsactually put a real value to UX.

But focusing too much on deliverables doesn´t help when it comes to designing UX (user experience). Furthermore, producing documents was in part useless to development, as most documents were quickly obsolete and thrown away.

An obsolete method for a new industry

The old way of doing UX is a time-consuming process that is divided in 5 different stages:

- Defining and agreeing (with stakeholders and clients) technical specifications through site maps and flow charts.
- Designing and approving (with stakeholders and clients again) using mockups, and wireframes.
- Writing the specs, get them validate (again, by the same people) and give it to programers.
- Testing the applications through usability tests.
- Deploying the application.

This process can be pretty long, varying from weeks to several months. Unfortunately, this process is not adequate to a rapidly changing industry.


A new, more agile UX

This new process put deliverables on the side and focuses more on the user interactions. Long, detailed documents are taken over by short, iterative cycles gathering feedback from everybody involved. Close and maintained collaboration is the main argument of this agile workflow.

Iterations

The process is now more iterative with shorter iterations:

1. concept (mockups and wireframes)
2. prototype (functional prototyping)
3. customer feedback
4. user feedback (user testing)
5. repeat the process

The objective is not to come up with business-focused design but rather to iterate until you get the best user experience. The short life cycle of iterations leads to a more user-centered product. Short iterative cycles leads to more collaboration between all the people involved, empowering the group as whole and not the lonely designer.

A collaborative process-

Closer collaboration helps to align both the user experience and to the business rules. Rich interactive prototypes give a clear path to developers and speed up development.

Gain in time and productivity-

While the old UX consumed a lot of resources, this short iterative process ensures a better productivity. High fi prototypes mixed with user testing guarantee the efficiency and relevancy of the project.

Forget about documentation... prototyping is the answer

While a written document is relevant to follow the development process, it's often not easy to read and doesn't help to get a clear idea on a future application. On the other side of the spectrum, prototypes really improve internal communication and bring together technical and more business-oriented profiles. "Looking and feeling" the future app, everybody can get a grasp of the design and interactions. Prototypes are also very useful for user tests, as they can give instant feedback while using and testing the HTML prototype. This emphasis on users and not just on clients speeds up the design as the users are actually leading the user experience.

Prototypes are slowly replacing wireframes as a key point when it comes to crafting the UX.

A brand new UX designer

This new methodology, relying more on collaboration and users, forces the UX designer to change his vision. He becomes more of a "vision keeper", stepping back to have a more distant, clearer look at the picture. Numerous iterations and different opinions from user feedback make it hard to stay focus on a clear direction. Despite many iterations and diverse user feedback, UX designers must embody the core vision of the project.

UX evolution

This agile methodology is a mere evolution to the original craft and it doesn't even require big changes in the workflow.

Anyway, the mentality has to change from a mere validation of deliverables to the focus on user experience. A change in mentality will not be easily achieved but collaborative workflow and result-oriented tasks will lead more people to adopt these methods.