Get Started with Methods
Author: Andy Braren | Last edit: July 31, 2024
When to use Methods
There are many different ways to visualize the research & design process, from double diamonds to sprints to möbius loops and even board games. None are perfect, but within Red Hat UXD we’ve found it helpful to describe two complementary categories/mindsets — Discovery and Delivery — with methods supporting each.
Identify where your team is currently at in this loop, and which areas you may have gaps. Ideally every team should be regularly practicing at least some of the methods in each area of the loop. For example, if your team has already delivered a solution but hasn’t set up any metric collection to track its success, that would be a great area to focus on first.
The method or part of the process you should focus on depends heavily on a wide variety of factors, including:
Timing
Certain methods are more natural at certain times in a product’s lifecycle. For example, when a product team is just starting to form and its future roadmap is very murky, Discovery methods can be very helpful to inform the product’s direction. If a product has already been shipping for a while, focusing on Delivery methods and improving product analytics to inform improvements and future user interviews may be a good area to start.
Investment
Consider the amount of time a method will take, whether it will require involvement from others, and whether the output will be useful to the team immediately or in the longer-term. Some methods have a quick turnaround time and can help teams with their immediate deliverables. Others may take longer, but investing in them can pay dividends and influence the product’s direction. Consider and balance a mix of both.
Appetite
Product team dynamics and stakeholder expectations can vary widely. Some may always be in fire-fighting mode and never seem interested in discovery methods, while others may want to ensure they identify the right solution before building anything. Identify what the team’s expectations are, challenge them if you think another method’s output would be more valuable, and work with the team to ensure that everyone is interested and invested in the results.
How to choose a method
Step 1: Understand the context
Whenever you join a new project or are asked to design a major new feature, consider the following:
- Do you understand the business problem that the product team is trying to solve, and how solving it supports the company’s strategy?
- Do you understand the product outcomes and goals that the team is targeting?
- Do you know who the target users are, and how the solution you’re working on will help them?
If you struggle to answer any of these questions, a quick Problem Framing activity (template here, Method coming soon) can help you gather up the foundational knowledge needed to inform your next best step.
Step 2: Consider the circumstances
Choosing the right method or methods to apply depends on timing (where you are in the product life cycle), the investment that will be required by you and your team, and the team’s appetite for the final result.
The table below offers some suggestions based on various circumstances, but if you’d like help determining which method or approach might work best in your situation, feel free to ask in our #uxd-hub Slack channel!
Discovery | Delivery | |||
Phase | Research - understand the problem | Ideate - identify opportunities | Design and evaluate - refine the solution | Gather feedback - measure impact |
When you need to | Figure out what the problems are that you could solve Determine how people feel at the current time | Understand opportunities and gaps, see which problems matter most, or map out current trends, behaviors, and sentiments Compare possible solutions | Ideate on and deliver solutions that address user needs See how people will react to something Evaluate usability of proposed solutions | Understand why people feel the way they do Establish metrics to measure the impact of changes |
Some methods to consider | Problem framing Surveys Secondary analysis Job/User stories User outcome survey User Interviews Qualitative data synthesis | Journey mapping Flow diagramming Competitive Analysis Solution brainstorming Assumption test A/B concept testing | Journey mapping Flow diagramming Tree jack test Card sort Stakeholder review Mid-high fidelity prototyping Usability test | Defining success metrics Sentiment survey (e.g. NPS, SUS, etc.) User outcome benchmarking Product analytics Telemetry/Log Analysis |
Step 3: Try new things!
Every designer and researcher at Red Hat is always encouraged to try out new techniques, frameworks, and methods so that we can continuously improve the way that we create better product experiences for our users.
There is no one approach or process that’s perfect for every situation, and we’re constantly inspired to try new things from a wide variety of sources, including:
- Tony Ulwick’s Jobs-to-be-Done and Outcome-driven Innovation framework
- IBM’s Design Thinking Toolkit
- Marty Cagan’s product discovery
- Teresa Torres’ Continuous Discovery Habits
- Red Hat Innovation Labs’ Open Practice Library
- Jared Spool’s “leaders of awesomeness” community and practices
- Nielsen Norman Group’s courses and articles
UXD Methods are our own small collection of repeatable processes that include Red Hat-specific examples, resources, and tips to help our team more easily navigate parts of the product design process at Red Hat. They help us save time when setting up activities and ensure some consistency when needed, but they are not strict rules to follow, and they’re also not a comprehensive set of the methods we use.
Innovation requires experimentation, and that applies to processes as well. Use these methods as a helpful guardrail if you need one, but never be afraid to try something new!
Share your experiments and experiences with these methods in our #uxd-hub Slack community, and learn how to contribute to this collection!
What are the Methods?
Discovery
Understand the problem
Method | When you need to… |
Problem framing (coming soon) | Quickly understand what the business needs, what product outcome/goal the team is targeting, and what assumptions are being made about the target user. |
Understand user needs
Method | When you need to… |
User interviews | Understand the “why” underlying user behaviors, preferences, or survey responses via a semi-structured discussion. |
Qualitative data synthesis (coming soon) | Identify themes across multiple user interviews or many written survey responses. |
Secondary analysis (coming soon) | Quickly find new insights within existing research data we have in EnjoyHQ. |
User outcome survey | Help a product team prioritize based on the top unmet needs that users care about most. |
Surveys | Quickly gather information from a large sample of users for quantitative analysis. |
Job stories | Explain the context and motivation for a user’s behavior, focusing on the situation they’re in rather than the persona they fit. |
Journey map (coming soon) | A visualization that shows where users experience friction when completing a task today. |
Identify opportunities
Method | When you need to… |
Solution & assumption brainstorming (coming soon) | A workshop to collaboratively brainstorm solution ideas and identify key assumptions that should be tested with users. |
Competitive analysis | Review competitive products to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. |
As-is user flow diagramming | Quickly identify areas in the current product experience that may confuse users or prevent them from completing tasks. |
Assumption test (coming soon) | Quickly test key assumptions that must be true for a solution idea to succeed, rather than the entire solution concept itself. |
Solution concept test (coming soon) | Understand user preference between two or more low-fidelity solution concepts to inform product direction. |
Graffiti wall activity | When you need to collect rapid feedback on a concept, question, or idea. |
Delivery
Design the solution
Method | When you need to… |
To-be user flow diagramming (Miro, Figma) | Quickly iterate on the steps a user will take to complete a task with the product. Usually created before mockups. |
High-fidelity prototyping (PatternFly & Figma) | Mock up what a future solution could look and feel like to facilitate discussions or use for user testing. |
Usability testing | Test whether users will be able to successfully complete tasks using the new solution. |
Treejack testing (coming soon) (Optimal Workshop) | Measure how effectively users are able to navigate a menu to find the right place to complete a task. Useful to test a proposed information architecture (IA) prior to implementation. |
Card sorting (Optimal Workshop) | Understand how users think about and group together a set of words, concepts, tasks, or ideas. Often used to inform information architecture of user interfaces. |
Stakeholder review (coming soon) | Share progress on a solution’s design with other decision-makers (product and engineering). |
Measure impact
Method | When you need to… |
Defining success metrics (coming soon) | Prioritize which metrics to track based on user outcomes & product outcomes. |
User outcome benchmarking (coming soon) | Measure how a user’s satisfaction in their ability to achieve a user outcome changes over time. Useful for determining whether new solutions are improving the user’s experience. |
Collect in-product feedback (coming soon)
| Measure user satisfaction with a product experience over time and whether it helps them achieve their desired outcomes |
Product analytics | Track in-product user behaviors to determine where improvements may be needed. |
Product telemetry (coming soon) | Find and learn from usage data collected by our products. |
Contributing UX Methods
UX Methods is an open community project where anyone can contribute new methods that will help with user discovery, solution ideation, or design validation. Methods should be prescriptive and tell readers both why the methods is useful and how to do it. Including one or more examples that illustrate how the method can be used in-practice can also be helpful.
If you are interested in contributing to the UX Methods library, start by reviewing the backlog of methods requests on our UXD Hub Jira. You may decide to work on any unassigned request in the To Do list or decide to work on something new. If you have an idea for a new method, begin by opening a new Methods request and tagging it with the component name “Methods.” This will bring your idea to the attention of the UXD Hub maintainers. Alternatively, you may just reach out to us on #uxd-hub on Slack. We will review your proposal to ensure that the new method is aligned with our goals for the UX Methods library and , if approved, give you the go ahead to start drafting the method.
See the template and style recommendations below for drafting your content. We recommend first drafting your method as a Google Doc and posting a link to the #uxd-hub Slack channel for review. This will make it easy for people to leave comments and solidify the contents of your method before it gets transferred into UXD Hub.
Writing Methods for UXD Hub
Follow this format for authoring UX methods. This will ensure a consistency in approach for methods documentation written be multiple authors.
General formatting recommendations
- Title and headings should be in sentence case. For example, “Here is an example title with a Proper Noun”
- Links should be labeled informatively, meaning they should give context to their destination.
- Use bold type, italics, and color sparingly to call attention to important information, such as new terms, special considerations, and other critical information.
- Major sections should include the following, in the listed order. Add a new “content section" for each list item:
- What: Define the method being covered and some of the basic use cases and resource requirements.
- Why: Expand on the importance and relevance of the method.
- When: Describe the situations in which this method may be appropriate to use.
- If relevant, include a distinction between this method and a different one in a subsection. For example, “when to use x method vs why”.
- How: Provide ordered instructions for using the method. Include inline links to relevant internal-only UXD resources when needed. Separate concepts into well-titled subsections to create a clear information hierarchy.
- Examples: Provide visual examples of the method. This may be images, text, or videos.
- You may wish to include examples of both proper and improper use.
- Additional resources and links: Additional websites, documentation, or videos that offer supplementary information.
You can also utilize the “Resources” section in the control panel, which will automatically place any included links in the right sidebar. This is best for essential supplementary information that adds significant value or context for the reader. You should not include all of the links from your own “Resources and links” section here – just the most relevant. For example, related templates, internal presentations, example results, etc.
Adding the new method to UXD Hub
Once your methods content has been reviewed and approved, it is time to add it to UXD Hub. To do this, you will need to log into the Control Panel and perform the following steps:
- Select Entries and the Methods from the left-hand menu to see a list of existing Methods entries.
- Select New Entry to create a new blank entry.
- Give it a Title, a short Method card description, and select one or more Categories for finding this method.
- Set the entry status to Draft.
- Copy and paste content from your Google Doc draft (or author directly in UXD Hub) into the Expression Engineer editor. Each Row in the document represents a section the will appear in the documents table or contents. The Heading for that section will be a H2 heading and display in the document's table of contents. to create a sub-section, click Add Row and use the Sub Heading field add your section title. This will create an H3 heading in the table of contents that will be nested within the last major section immediately above.
- When done, save your work and preview it by clicking the Preview button at the top of the screen. You can continue to make changes and iterate after seeing how your content will appear when published to UXD Hub.
When you have finished drafting the new content in the Control Panel, post a message in the #uxd-hub Slack channel indicating that your method is ready for final review. A member of the Methods maintainer team will review your contents and publish it when ready.
Note: You will need to be enabled as a Methods author to perform these steps. If you do not have access to Methods entries after logging into the Control Panel, please reach out to the UXD Hub Admin team to get your UXD Hub account upgrades to include this capability.
Get in Touch!
Spotted a typo? Any feedback you want to share? Do you want to collaborate? Get in touch with the UXD Methods working group using one of the links below!
Drop us a message on the #uxd-hub Slack channel
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