Is there an Industry-Standard UX Design Lifecycle, or Formal UX Design Step-by-Step Instructions?

Question

I'm currently looking for formal instructions (i.e. what is involved from start to finish) for the UX Design process.

The best example that I've found so far is this:

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/11/images/FiveCompetencies.pdf

... which is great for showing categories of tasks, but it doesn't describe everything in a step-wise manner, which is really what I want. It is also 8 years old, and I am unsure of how relevant the diagram still might be.

Can anyone point me to something fairly industry-standard as far as UX design steps go? I would like to get as much detail as possible for the overall process.

Thank you kindly.

Answer 1

I don't think there is an industry standard nor do I believe there should be one. I personally look at User Experience design as a set of tools that I can use dependant on the project I am working on.

Some clients won't have enough time or budget for me to do extensive research, therefor I need to adapt my toolkit to what their needs are and what we are trying to validate/build etc.

Yes there are multiple websites/books/articles that all offer advice on what is "best practise" but this once is again is up to the practitioner and client. We need to adapt to the needs of our client and the problems we are trying to solve, not follow a rigid step-by-step process.

That being said, I really love this UX Checklist as a great introduction to some of the "tools" we can use.

http://uxchecklist.github.io/

Answer 2

I do think that there is much that can be learnt from thoughtful application of a quality flexible process. The best practice for this that I have come across is the "User Centred Design" (UCD) approach. The UCD practice is not prescriptive, but supplies enough structure and guidance in order to formulate a beneficial sequence of UX tasks.

So the question becomes whether you want to take a process as guidance on your organisations custom process (such as this information on UCD from W3C ) or have detailed and strict practices (such as ISO 9241)

In my experience, strict practices (whether ISO standards or not) tend to embed mediocrity and high costs and thus should be avoided.

Having knowledge of tasks and effective processes enable one to be Agile and select appropriate steps for the design challenge at hand.

Answer 3

You can take a look at http://www.theuxbook.net/ , the book contains the steps, tools and methods used in each step, and detail explanation of them. It's up to practitioners how and to what extent they will use these tools and methods, depending on the product, the organisation they're employed by etc etc. but the book gives a good detail overview of a UX process. What I particularly like about this book is to differentiate between UX and usability what in most other processes (e.g. UCD) is missing.

Answer 4

Below I will describe what should be started in my opinion. I recommend trying the following steps:

1. to familiarize yourself with the principles of the user interface, such as color, balance, contrast, balance, typography, consistency;
2. to explore the creative UX-process, consisting of four stages - to identify, identify, develop, deliver;
3. to create your own look at design;
4. to read daily design articles;
5. create test samples;
6. to learn the latest tools for UX-design;
7. to find a mentor who can see your work and comment on them.

Good luck!