When designing an interface, how many design alternatives do you create?

Question

When I was in a graphic design class, an assignment we got was to create 50 different logo concepts and to avoid creating a single concept and iterating on it 50 number of times. This way you could identify many different approaches, decide the right one (or few), and then iterate on it until the design is right.

So how many alternative approaches do you take when designing an interface? Do you think the idea above applies to UX and UI design?

The reason I ask is for the project I'm working on right now I've taken one design and have iterated on it and received positive feedback -- but I still wonder even though people like it, are there alternative, overall approaches to the UI that I could have explored and that would have been better?

Answer 1

"As many as you need to."

I don't think one could give an integer value answer to this question. You need to iterate broadly to explore various methods, some of which will be obvious dead-ends, others which "feel right". Depending on the task / workflow you are designing for this could be two, or it could be fifty.

The important thing is to always do more than one concept, even if the obvious answer is staring you in the face. This helps me because it either reenforces the right answer, or leads me to unexpected places that either can inform the final solution, or come up with something I hadn't conceived of yet.

Answer 2

I keep going until I have what I believe is an elegant solution to the problem I'm trying to solve. Sometimes I nail it on the first try, other times it takes a few attempts. If I have tons of time to spare, I might try my hand at coming up with a new concept. But, I like to get my designs into a working prototype as quickly as possible so that I can test them and get real feedback.

Answer 3

1. Sketch 6 new solutions for the same problem.
2. Put your first ideas down.
3. If you get stuck try opposite or think about design principles.
4. Pick the most promising ideas from 6 sketches.
5. Sketch one higher fidelity version.
6. Show team members.

Find more here: http://www.slideshare.net/pboersma/good-design-faster-at-ux-sofia