It's hard to give specifics, because every project is different, but here are some of the common elements to my design process.
I typically try to work with ONE stakeholder during the early stages of the design. It's much faster to iterate with a single person, and it helps reduce unrelated politics. However, you need to make sure that the stakeholder you're working with is knowledgeable, connected, and respected. The first allows your resource to act like a proxy SME; the second ensures that they can connect you with the real users/SMEs as needed; the third helps the other stakeholders feel comfortable that someone they trust has vetted the design. I always start with lo-res mockups, even with existing designs, because they are so fast to create and change. This also allows the stakeholder to pull up a pencil and do some direct editing, which saves much time and miscommunication. It's not uncommon for me to create three competing paper mockups, eliminate one immediately, and iterate one the other two designs 3-10 times before moving into a high-res stage. When we're in a rush, this can take as little as a few days. Again, working with a single stakeholder is what makes this so speedy. All but one design has often fallen by the wayside at this point, though sometimes alternative elements are preserved until we get to usability testing. Occasionally I'll do usability testing at this stage, especially if there are major areas of uncertainty -- however, as almost none of our end-users are local, I usually have to wait until I have an electronic version. My high-res stage is DHTML, because in our software we've usually got moving parts (added rows, modal windows, specialized menus) and they're impossible to really evaluate until you see them in action. This also allows me to run useful usability testing remotely, and I'll usually also run some tests internally as a means of illustrating where the design is and soliciting constructive feedback. The DHTML prototypes are usually in a halfway state between wireframe and "decorated." I've got an existing HTML template with some realistic images and colors that I use, and I'll also fill in whatever styling is important to the task, but I do not spend hours on icons or the styling specifics. Creating the prototype typically takes a few more days, depending on how complex it needs to be. iQuery has been a *huge* time-saver here, as has building up a set of templates for common page types. Somewhere around this stage is when I start shopping the design out to other people who need to approve it. The advantage of this is that the major kinks have been worked out and I often have some usability test results to validate that the design is serving its purpose. There are often a few open issues that I'll get feedback on, but very few back-to-the-drawing-board problems. These approval meetings are usually with only one or two people at a time, because I've found that I get better feedback that way. You mention that you're working in a (semi-)agile environment. I have been working on agile teams for about 5 years now, and in my experience, design has to happen at least one iteration before development. The only exception to this is when creating pages that are 90% similar to others in the system (e.g., creating a new form, when you already have a form template). I'm happy to talk more about this offline; ping me if you want to continue the discussion. Regards, Sarah Kampman ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
