#1 Tell Me About Your Design Thinking Process
Companies often want candidates to explain their design process using not only results but drafts. During my time at Samsung, I worked extensively on every stage of the design process from research to shipping, but due to NDA issues, I no longer have access to the drafts since I left the company. However, because I understand the value of drafts in conveying the design thinking process, I will use the drafts from my Master’s and personal projects.
The design process for product designers is driven not only by user insights but also by technology and business data. During the design process, product designers must determine that the problem objectively affects the user experience and identify possible technical solutions and the business outcome that results from each solution. Technology and design work hand-in-hand throughout this process; tech is applied to the design proactively, and if any tech limitations arise, UX design bypasses these limitations by exploring alternative solutions to ensure improved user experience.
Double Diamond: Iterative approach
The Double Diamond is one of the most common design process models although it can be adapted depending on the type of project. For example, a company may have slightly different processes depending on whether they are hardware or software oriented. Compared to other companies, hardware companies require a more iterative approach because since they are producing physical products, modifications are not as easily made in the later stages of the design process.
The Double Diamond model consists of four stages. The first stage is research including desk research and user research. Desk research consists of competitive research including the analysis of the market and social trends, while user research focuses on predicting and analyzing user behavior and experience. The next stage is designed where we define the user scenarios and personas to determine how we can deliver value to users. In this stage, we also design user flows including navigation stacks and UI design based on information hierarchy. Between the design and prototype stages, we sketch key screens from which we then make prototypes. Prototypes can range from low to high fidelity depending on the project, with low-fidelity prototypes that are more realistic and allow for user interaction. For making quick and cost-effective decisions, some companies have front-end UX engineers who design actional prototypes. Finally, at the last stage, we conduct a usability test to ensure the feasibility of the feature from a holistic perspective. Personally, I think the research phase is the most important step of the design process. Whenever I have to make a difficult decision, I review this research data again and present it to stakeholders when trying to convince them of a design.
Another Diamond — Localization
Sometimes a project may require a second diamond for localization flow. For example, when Samsung launches a global product, they may need to localize the product based on a country’s specific social trends and user needs. As such, they may collaborate with local telecommunication companies in a specific country to design an additional flow for localization that is different than the global flow.
1. Research: understand why and define how (Understanding the Context)
Product designers conduct research in order to better understand the context surrounding user needs and their environment. Research is crucial in preventing bias and enabling product designers to think about projects objectively and validate their designs. The direction of the research depends on the purpose of the project, which can be divided into three categories:
1) Discovering emerging fields, which is more generalized research that seeks to identify what areas are currently gaining a lot of traction.
2) Deep diving into 2–3 fields. This type of research is generally used for projects that have already launched products and require a more specialized analysis of specific pain points or social trends.
3) Finding UX patterns, including app layout and interaction. While some projects will require all three stages, others can skip certain stages depending on how developed the project is or its specific purpose.
I will use three projects I worked on at Samsung to further explain each research category.
With the bended display project, we didn’t have any prior user scenarios, so we had to conduct research at stage one in order to identify emerging fields that could help us better understand how to use and integrate the bended display on our platform.
For the smartwatches project, we already knew the relevant emerging fields: safety and mobility. Therefore, we moved to research stage two, which was a deep dive into safety features.
Finally, with the Multi-Windows project, we already had the necessary research for stages one and two, so we focused on stage three and heavily analyzed and researched app layout designs. This included collaboration with second and third parties and even other platforms.
>> Field Research & User Interviews
To better understand user context, I will often conduct field research and user interviews to gain a better understanding of user behavior and context in daily life. For example, when designing a product to be used by patients with chronic disease to take their pills, I needed to learn about their behavioral patterns and how they communicated with their caregivers in order to best meet their pill-taking needs. For this project, I did field research as well as quantitative research with a survey and qualitative research with one-on-one interviews.
2. Design: Find Right Solution and Build it
After conducting research, I integrate insight from three areas into my design: user needs, pain points, and UX patterns. The design concepts and goals are determined by user needs. Through analysis of pain points, I refine user flows. Finally, UX patterns, both company-specific and generally popular UX trends, influence the component and layout design.
Designs are generally sketched in the design phase with two goals in mind. First, to communicate with stakeholders through visualization and second, to elaborate on ideas. With design sketches, designers not only expand their thoughts and ideas, but also work with stakeholders to determine which elements are the most important and which elements may be missing. This design sketch process can be divided into three phases based on the level of precision/intricacy: low-fidelity, mid-fidelity, high-fidelity.
The main purpose of the low-fidelity phase is idea generation so designers use paper and pencil or Balsamiq tool to sketch the design. Given the low effort expended on each design, this stage is meant to be easily modifiable; designers and stakeholders can discuss and revise the designs with ease.
The second phase is the wireframe stage that uses idea embodiment tools including Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, and Invision. During this stage, UX designers create the user flow, key screen, and user chart using the company’s design and platform principles, while software developers determine whether or not programming is workable, and the usability team detects any potential user problems.
Finally, high-fidelity is the idea implementation stage that uses Framer, Protopie, and Principle tools. This is the final stage before development, so everything from software, visual aspect, and animation is finalized. At this point, no major changes can be made; only minor adjustments based on any final issues detected by the usability team can be made.
3. Prototype: Verify Possible Solution
The purpose of prototypes is to provide a cost-effective and time-saving model of the final product to aid with decision-making. While design and prototype are similar in that they both involve using visualization to brainstorm ideas or detect possible issues, design narrows down ideas generated from research, while prototypes evaluate 1 or 2 design candidates and expand on those designs. Furthermore, design is a graphic presentation without much functionality, while prototypes are workable models that connect between screens and are therefore better suited to test the functionality of a product.
Depending on the project, the prototype can be created by one of three teams: design, prototype, and/or software. Design teams typically create the prototype during the process of making design sketches for checking user flows and the positioning of UI elements/components. They will create a high-fi prototype near the end of the last design round, after UI elements/components have been finalized on one or two design candidates. Sometimes, low-fi prototypes such as paper prototypes using a POP tool are made for earlier design rounds to aid with decision-making. If a special transition or code is beyond the capabilities of the design team, the prototype will be tasked with either a prototype or a software team.
The prototype team is able to create more sophisticated effects by basing screen transition and component effects on user flows and user scenarios rather than the given platform effects that the design team uses.
Sometimes a project will call for actual data or require interaction with another application in order to confirm compatibility, and this is where the software team comes in. Using actual data, the software team creates a workable model that is very similar to the actual product. This prototype can interact with other applications in order to generate actual data that can be used to detect serious problems and to suggest further changes to the design or user flow.
During my time at Samsung, I worked on projects that required collaboration on the prototype process with many other teams. One project I worked on was for a magazine application that needed sophisticated transitioning between screens and onboarding experience, so I had to collaborate with both a professional prototype team and a GUI team in order to meet the needs of the client.
In the case of the Multi-Windows project, I worked with a software development team. We created and provided a prototype that would enable us to analyze how the product would affect the overall platform. Using this prototype, the design team was able to modify the product in order to overcome any issues detected by the prototype.
4. Usability: Validate Solutions
The purpose of the usability stage is to validate the product from a holistic perspective. Because UX designers are not users, they need to stay objective and be able to verify the design from an outside perspective. Every user flow and component needs to be supported by reasonable data and withstand any critiques.
This stage can be divided into two phases: 1) the design and development of the project and 2) the shipping of the products or launching services.
There are two methodologies for conducting usability tests: white box and black box. White box tests are usually conducted by the internal usability team during the design process. Using guidance and codes from the design team, they focus on detecting “unimplemented” or “misimplemented” defects while ensuring consistency with other apps and across the entire platform. Black box tests are usually conducted by both internal usability teams as well as external usability teams from branches of global corporations that need to customize the product for their region. Black box tests focus on functionality and quality testing and can be conducted both during the design process and after shipping.
Samsung has many usability teams, both domestic and overseas, that are well-organized and can work with tight deadlines. UX designers often work with projects that challenge them to think of novel ideas and from different perspectives. When a concern is brought up by the usability team, UX designers must negotiate and explain their design until the two teams come to an agreement. This negotiation continues until all issues are resolved, sometimes taking up to a year. From this experience, I’ve learned how to think from a usability perspective and proactively check for issues so that I can make adjustments and prepare data in response to any concerns from the usability team. This has not only strengthened my persuasive abilities but has streamlined the process by reducing usability concerns. This experience has proved invaluable in providing me with criteria and metrics so I can assess and evaluate usability concerns even when I do not have a usability team at my disposal.
Final words
The Double Diamond Design process is very common, and although some people say that the process doesn’t always guarantee good design, I still think that the process is valuable for providing a framework in which designers can expand their ideas and then converge on one or two design solutions. In order to have a good design, however, collaboration is essential. Throughout this process, internal stakeholders must always ensure that they are on the same page and provide continuous constructive feedback. The process is important, but ultimately it is the collaboration that guarantees a good design.
