Computing & IT
Collaborative UX Design
by Toni Steimle, Dieter Wallach
Software is increasingly designed in cross-functional teams. The individual members of a team working together over time contribute expertise from different areas to joint product design workshops. In the workshops, current project constellations are clarified, progress, barriers and risks of the project phases are identified, (interim) results are developed and next project steps are planned. The authors provide the reader with a compact and easy-to-understand basic knowledge of collaborative methods of UX design. They describe the selection and use of cross-disciplinary UX methods and illustrate their interlocking in a process model based on workshops. The collaborative approach presented is rooted in human-centered development models, design thinking, and lean UX, and emphasizes an agile, hypothesis-based approach. The technical presentation is illustrated by a real-world project throughout in which the reader meets Tim, an experienced UX designer. Tim leads a project team faced with the challenge of optimizing a performance tracking software module. In the project work, the team goes through a problem-solving process that is mapped in the process model to seven UX workshops with related content: scoping, synthesis, ideation, concept, prototyping, validation, and finally MVP planning. On a website accompanying the book, the reader will find templates for applying the methods addressed in the book, a glossary, and an interview with Tim, the project manager of the case study. In the continuously updated interview, Tim comments on current developments in the UX environment. Furthermore, a set of slides on the workshops in the book is available for use in courses.
