Welcome to Yuanyuan's design toolbox!

This is a place where I reflect on and share what I've learned about design. It's just the beginning, and more will come :)



Double Diamond

Designers all know how to design by themselves, but there are many times we need to explain the process to others. This model may looks dated, but it's widely accepted and does its job.
Image source: https://www.testingtime.com/en/blog/double-diamond-process/

Dual-Track Agile

Dual-Track Agile splits discovery and delivery—researching user needs and defining solutions while building and releasing features in parallel for continuous, user-focused value.
Image source: https://www.goodrebels.com/rebelthinking/ux-in-agile-better-with-dual-track-scrum/

Round Robin Brainstorming

I really like this method for brainstorming because it force people to think through each other's ideas and develop ideas together.
How can we let team members build on ideas rather than just Criticism is a huge topic. We also use the "Yes, and... No, but... " method.
Image source: https://www.mural.co/templates/round-robin

Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation is very quick and cheap, but it can identify most usability problems. The most common system we are using is from Nielsen Norman. I also like the "UI Tenets & Traps".
Image source: https://uxplanet.org/how-to-conduct-heuristic-evaluation-85548a355dca

Affinity Diagram

I was surprised that just putting similar things together can be a design and research method. After using it many times, I found it is always a good starting point to make sense of tones of qualitative data and finding patterns.
https://uxdict.io/design-thinking-methods-affinity-diagrams-357bd8671ad4

Paper Prototype

We have so many prototyping tools, from sketchy to Hi-Fi. Do we Do you still need paper and a pen? Absolutely!
There is no copy and paste on the paper. Whenever I draw a similar interface, it gives me another chance to think about it again.

Back Casting

Limitation and current context are friends of designers, but its easy for teams to get lost in fixing endless bugs and finishing the next and next release. Backcasting from the future can help us clarify what is the most important things rather than the most urgent -- they are not always the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UshLmJ5uW6U

Value Proposition Canvas

Once we have a good understanding of the user, this value proposition canvas can help us quickly come up with new ideas. While developing ideas, it's still beneficial to keep them in minds and to keep our offerings align with user's needs.

Multi-Level Perspective

The Multi-Level Perspective model helps us understand a system from landscape, regime, and niche level. It also shows that we have different ways to interact with the system and drive change.
https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_JIE_025_0211--the-inventor-s-perspective-on.htm

5 Whys

Many designers had experience of giving the wrong problem to solve. These Five Why help us understand what is the root cause of a problem also help our client understand what they are trying to solve.
https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/root-cause-analysis/root-cause-analysis-5-whys-technique/
© 2021 | Designed and developed by Yuanyuan Hu