HOME / UX Tools & MethodsUX Tools & Methods
The following are the tools & methods I incorporate into my design process in order to ensure the UX Design I do is as beneficial and accurate to the user needs as possible. However, in many settings you don’t always have the ability to perform or follow a set group of standards, fires come up, and priorities shift - in these realistic situations you also have to work on the fly and follow intuition and your knowledge of your users and design system..
Wireframing for one User Flow for the FAD Admin Tool, worked on in conjunction with Orium
User Journey, showing pain points and insights along the users journey
Example of a Persona done for the Analog Social Media Project
Research analysis from a Competitive Analysis of how different groups interact and spread content on different social media platforms.
Figma prototyping to test a specific user flow.
Overview of Tools and MethodsUnmoderated Testing | Assistance and experience in setting up unmoderated testing in PlaybookUX - developing questions and tasks that can help identify user issues and needs. Ability to analyze user testing videos and gather insights and feedback to create solutions that are best for our users. User testing in healthcare is very complicated because of regulations, privacy, etc. so often you are working with users who aren’t going through the things many of our patients are when using our products - it’s important to be very careful when analyzing results to consider that some insights might be different if it was an actual patient who was using the tool.
Example in use: Health Library A-Z Experience - used to identify key features on competitor sites that users liked when using search and glossary functionalities. These insights helped us set up our initial designs.
Moderated Testing | Assistance and participation in setting up Moderated Testing, accompanying UX Researchers on testing sessions, helping develop research questions and task guidance. Again analyzing studies to gather insights that guide solutions for products and components.
Example in use: FAD Admin Internal Tool - extensive moderated testing with doctors to identify pain points with the existing Admin tool as well as verify initial prototypes built.
Personas & Journey Maps | Not too often used in my current role, but good for identifying new user types and finding their pain points. Although I don’t use these too often, I do find them helpful in illustrating and explaining Research Insights to key Stakeholders and Products Owners so they can gain a deeper understanding of user empathy towards their users.
Example in use: Analog Social Media Project - used to visualize and magnify pain points that may seem minor, but do impact the user’s experience.
Wireframing | Developing, using, and working from wireframes to aid in initial design sketches and understanding user flows for different products. Healthcare often contains complex and diverse requirements/user needs due to the nature of the industry, this gets reflected in user flows. Wireframes are pivotal in laying out these requirements and in ensuring the complex requirements are met before moving forward.
Competitive Analysis | I will often use competitive analysis for identifying inspiration points for new components, as well as identifying new ways of structuring user experiences within our products. I think competitive analysis is a great way to get started on tasks and identify inspiration and potential pain points before user research - especially if you don’t have time or resources to do the user testing you would like to. Studying a product similar to yours that clearly did proper testing can establish guides on how to approach new designs, quickly and efficiently.
A/B Testing | Used often by me, designing several iterations of a product or component and then testing to see which users prefer. I often like to create various iterations of a design because often a solution doesn’t have just one correct answer, deciding to test and compare two iterations can help identify which of these designs I have done is the proper one to pursue or if they can be combined to create an impactful user experience.
Example in use: Health Library A-Z Experience - another designer and I tested two different designs to gain perception on different features and functionalities, giving us a deeper understanding of users preferences and reactions to two solutions. In the end, we ended up combining both solutions into one, creating an experience that met all of the user feedback and fit seamlessly into our design language.
Figma/Figjam | Used 24/7 by me, I have years of experience designing responsive components, prototypes, and interfaces within Figma. Also organizing and using Figma for Design System management. As well as using Figjam for planning & research organization.
Zeroheight | Used to build design systems for Content Architects & Developers. I built the Internal & External Email Design System within Zeroheight.
Storybook | Developers’ storage of design system components, familiarity with organization and QA of components published here. A great way to keep code consistent and not have to waste effort on Design QA for consistent styles like we had to do before having Storybook.
Accessibility Tools | Use of SiteImprove to identify Accessibility issues, as well as color contrast tools, accessibility research, etc. to ensure our site adheres to AA Accessibility standards.
Other Tools & Methods | Azure Dev Ops, Agile/Scrum, Miro, Heap Analytics, Google Analytics, Ceros, Trello, PlaybookUX User Testing, SiteImprove, etc.
Continuing educationAccessibility | Leading multiple initiatives to ensure better testing with disabled users and continuing my knowledge on how to do so. One such initiative involved attending CreativePro’s Design & Accessibility week-long summit and brining back key standards we could start to engage in.
Furthering User Research Skill Set | Engaging in more direct User Experience Research through more involved testing with components and unmoderated and moderated test studies done in PlaybookUX.
Design System Organization | Education on continuous improvement on how we can organize our documentation and components within Figma - especially as the Design System continues to grow past it’s current infancy stage.