User Experience Design Services

Project Kickoff Meeting

We kickoff User Experience design projects with a meeting of all team members involved in the project from both Seamgen and the client team. This kickoff lays the groundwork for the project ahead and all stakeholders for the project should be present.

Sometimes our project kickoff meetings are online and sometimes we have in-person kickoff meetings where we will travel to our clients' place of business.

During the kickoff meeting we spend time setting expectations, walking through dates for deliverables, reviewing our process in detail, and establishing a schedule for meetings, including daily communication, stand-ups, etc. needed to establish a successful project framework.

The rest of the meeting we walk through initial feature expectations and begin identifying key performance indicators (KPIs).

Stakeholder & Competitive Analysis

During this two week phase, both sides continue to discuss individual features for project workflows. Defining each feature is a very important part of the development process ensuring all stakeholders throughout the business are on the same page.

Prior to the kickoff, we take time to review and document each feature and all  functionality. Our goal is to have a firm understanding of the stakeholders desires. We also use this time to form any questions we may have for the stakeholders. 

Example Project Feature List

Click here to download a PDF version of this project feature list example.

Example Stakeholder Interview

Click here to download a PDF version of this stakeholder interview example.

Once the kickoff is underway, we are able to finalize our questions and approach, build a schedule for interviews, as well as document the technical and database requirements.

User Shadowing & User Research

User shadowing consists of scheduling time to evaluate 5-8 different users of each corresponding user group. We also conduct individual interviews of 1-2 hours each to gain more insight into roles, responsibilities, overall workflows, areas for improvements and efficiencies.

Example User Persona Card

User personas play a crucial role in gaining deep insights into clients' users and aligning with project business goals.

User personas help teams understand and design for the specific needs, behaviors, and goals of real users.

This is our way of completing an “open forum” type of interview to gain insights required to discover habits not captured in a group or survey setting. 

Follow up interviews are set depending on the quality of responses. 

Information Architecture Planning

We create an Information Architecture based on the prioritized feature list. Based off that, we begin to draw correlations and dependencies of features. This is how we are able to comprehend individual features and create successful implementations across the platform. Finally, we rework the architecture to reflect our latest feature set and decide upon deliverables.

Example Information Architecture Diagram

We plan a clear, strategic framework to ensure features are organized and optimized into the application providing the best possible solution for your customers.

A site map provides a visual representation of the hierarchical structure of a software application enabling a better understanding of the project.

User Journey Map Example

With information gathered while interviewing stakeholders and users, we produce user journey maps to have a better understanding of how users interact with apps and how they might be affected.

It is extremely important your team is able to provide input and verify details of the Information Architecture. We see this process as a foundation of the programming and development to come in later phases.

Designing Wireframes

Once we have acknowledge the flow of information and user journey, we begin to create detailed wireframes that will map out the overall design and layout of your application.

A majority of design time goes into this step to get a big picture idea of the layout and functionality of the application before we work on final designs. We work at a fast pace, testing with prototyping key interactions whenever is necessary. At the start sketches and low fidelity mockups evolve into higher fidelity wireframes as interactions are defined. Frequently testing prototypes allows us to test new workflows.

Wireframe Example

Wireframes provide a clear vision of how the pages and screens of a mobile or web applications will be organized to optimize later stages of development.

Wireframes depict various elements and their interactions within the UI of a web or mobile application.

We continuously evaluate our layout and design across multiple devices while engaging our development team in daily internal reviews. This iterative process relies on ongoing feedback, testing, and refinements, with bi-weekly stakeholder reviews to ensure alignment and quality at every stage.

UX Prototyping & User Testing

To effectively validate our assumptions from the wireframing stage, we will develop prototypes. Prototypes are designs that can have linked elements and triggers to simulate navigation and functionality and allow stakeholders a better idea of how key interactions will function. Prototype enable real-time user testing and feedback from selected participants.

Prototype Example

Below is a UX prototype example. This provides an opportunity to test key interactions and gather real-time feedback to validate design assumptions.

Prototypes are simulations of an application to help the project team and stakeholders have a better understanding of how the finished project will feel and function.

This phase of the process will take more time depending on the number and complexity of the prototypes needed for the application.

We recommend a week of time per round of prototyping. During each round we gather both in-person and online feedback to ensure thorough evaluation.

Final Design & Handoff

Once wireframes are completed we create final designs for targeted screens and a UI kit for the project. These are tools for the development team to reference as they programming the application. The designs contain design patterns, forms, and other UI elements to be handed off to the developers once all is approved.

A detailed UI kit is a critical component for the development team to execute the vision laid out during the design process.

Example UI Kit

We have create detailed UI kits with defined patterns, forms, and UI elements to help the project come together faster and provide guidelines to the development team.

A flexible and modern UI Kit designed to streamline product development and ensure visual consistency across every screen..

Example High Fidelity Designs

Below is an example of final designs. These offer our clients a clear preview of what the the final application will look like before any programming occurs.

Visual Designs allow developers to produce a functional product meeting requirements for great design.

User Stories Developed

User stories are housed in Seamgen’s Project Management System. User stories are assigned to specific tasks as part of development. Each User Story includes expected behaviors and assumptions as well as links to technical requirements and sub tasks needed to accomplish the task.

Example User Stories List

Below is a list of example user stories...

Organized user stories keep teams aligned, focused, and moving efficiently from idea to implementation.

Example User Stories Detail View

Below is a detail view of an example user story.

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