UX Design Guides
Iterate on the Design

This step is about continual improvement on your product or service, based on new information discovered through validation.

You iterate on a design in order to:

  • Act upon current understanding of known and evolving user needs.
  • Address failures with the current design solution.
  • Make improvements based on current priorities.

Recommended Approach

Plan for continual improvement

  1. Accept that your product isn't perfect (it will never be perfect).
  2. Determine the success criteria for your product or service, from both users' perspectives and the business perspective.
  3. Determine how you will evaluate success. You can use:
    • Log and usage data.
    • Periodic user studies.
    • Periodic contextual inquiry.
  4. Plan for both periodic and ongoing collection and analysis of the data.
  5. Have a process for putting iterative project work into work schedule.

Respond to data

  1. Based on latest data and findings, recommend opportunities for improvement.
  2. Prioritize recommendations into logical groupings that cover known user workflows and address known pain points.
  3. Prioritize an MVP for the next iteration.
    • What are the workflow(s) your product can support that will provide known user value?
    • What issues with the current product need to be solved in the next iteration?
      • Consider both user needs and technical debt as you map out work.
  4. Begin a new cycle of UX work.
    • Start back with Understand step and go through the process.
    • Focus your work through each step to the scope determined for this iteration’s MVP.
  5. Plan for the next iteration
    • What data will you need and how will it be gathered?
    • When will you do the next iteration?
    • Who is responsible for pushing the next iteration at project resourcing meetings? (Service Team, Service Owner,...)

Common Pitfalls

Lack of foresight

  • Not scheduling for iteration. If it isn't planned, it likely never happens.
  • Failing to set up necessary data collection to inform the next iteration. This is especially important with log data.
  • There is no organizational support for iteration. Always a push for new features or products.

Useful Resources

Iterative Process

Data Gathering