My UX Toolkit: Research Synthesis and the Double Diamond Methodology
My UX Toolkit is a series of posts exploring different tools and techniques used in the user experience design and research process, my understanding of them, and when they can be applied. UX is a broad and varied space that can range from quantitative statistical analysis to graphic design, from branding and content strategy to storyboarding. Here I am trying to scratch the surface of how UXers UX, share my knowledge and further my own understanding of this vast career field.
Back when user experience design as a practice originated, experts in the field generally followed the Waterfall Development Method while working through a UX project.
In the waterfall method all the work flows linearly, in one direction, and the next step in the process cannot be started until the last is completed. The waterfall method focuses on planning first, then development, and is generally worked on by one team at a time with minimal communication between teams.
This was a deliverables focused method, that changed the focus and goal of UX designers from creating amazing user experiences to delivering deliverables. This is fundamentally not what the UX ideology sets out to do. Generally throughout the waterfall process approval and validation is constantly needed from a potentially large team and stakeholders. This method could take anywhere from 4 month to 2 years.
In today’s tech world, and for startups particularly, that length of design cycle is not really acceptable. Even worse, if something holds up one of the phases of the project, the work cannot continue until the issue is resolved.
These days, user needs and the competition evolve at a breakneck speed, and UX designers need to be able to create at the same pace. It is possible that even within a 4 month project, the initial project might be out of date by the time it is delivered.
Enter the Agile approach, related to Lean UX. This approach focuses on working in short 2–3 weeks sprints, in cross functional teams consisting of 5–9 people. The team usually consists of clients, designers and developers working on small changes or a minimum viable product (MVP), constantly iterating on products.
For UX specifically, these sprints can follow the Double Diamond Approach. This is a design process that starts with a problem or issue you want to address. You take what you know about this problem and begin researching to broaden your understanding of the problem and the people who are your target users. You then synthesize all the information you have gathered, narrowing it down to gain a more pointed and nuanced view of the original problem you were addressing.
From here you begin to brainstorm solutions to address the problem you have uncovered in your synthesis, and lastly you test your solutions to verify and iterate on the designs and deliver a final product.
And here finally we get to the focus of this post!
Synthesis
Synthesis is an important stage in UX Research and in the overall UX process. In the double diamond methodology it is the second step, that comes after research. Without synthesis, the information gathered in your research will have less value. If the research has more of a quantitative focus, this synthesis could look like data analysis or statistics, crunching the numbers to reveal patterns and trends.
If the research done is more qualitative, say for example user interviews, synthesis might look more like affinity mapping or other exercises that find patterns in the information gathered. Once you gather up the key insights distilled from your interviews, you can really get the ball rolling creating problem statements, which will lead to how might we questions which will eventually lead you into the next step in the process, ideation.
