Hello, it’s ​Aneta​ here 👋 

This is issue #01 of UX Design Express where I share insights on bridging the gap between ambiguous UX project experiences and compelling UX portfolio stories.

Illustrating the kick-off of ambiguous projects in your UX portfolio

Leading my first UX projects were like being at a crossroad. Time, budget, different project stages, pressure from stakeholders, projects not based on an ABCD framework… We’ve all been there. Deciding what is the right thing to do next - to research or not to research. I feel the struggle! I was also taught that I should do:

• Step 1 - Research

• Step 2 - Ideation

• Step 3 - Testing

• Step 4 - Delivery

I didn’t know which direction to take. Should I start with some research first? Or just dive straight into sketching? I was worried that if I skipped the research phase, I would not look like a professional UX Designer. Not mentioning that I would struggle with crafting case studies from these projects.

The struggles?

• Balancing different needs

• Deciding what I should do first

• Feeling that I’m doing the right thing

• Building confidence to lead the project

• Finding the feel of control over the project

• Not stressing that this mess won’t fit to my portfolio

Eventually I have found methods that now help me lead any ambiguous UX project and then easily present it in my UX portfolio. This is what you will read about in next issue of UX Design Express. Let’s dive in!

5 methods for understanding project context 🛠️

01. Identify what you need to learn with brain dump method 🧠 

A mess in a UX project is a part of the game. Businesses are living organisms and stakeholders are not our friends. Before jumping into executing on any project task, I always need to get a sense of what is the status of the project. This means asking myself questions like

• What has happened so far in the project?

• What is happening right now in the project?

• What is planned to happen in the near future?

If this isn't my first project with the team, I might know a thing or two already, but if it is, I'll need to do a lot of learning. The goal for the first step is to get present - evaluate the past, understand the present and look into the future. In this the key part for me is to find the knowledge gaps - insights that I need to gather and find them.

Here's my method ✨

Places and people to check on:

• customers

• competitors

• research ops

• stakeholders

• design system

• my teammates

• support tickets

• industry reports

• all the guidelines

• product presentations

• business presentations

• closely related projects

• maybe potential customers

Learnings to find out about:

• project goals

• project scope

• design components

• project outputs so far

• business & user needs

• all relevant assumptions

• customer segmentation

• business & user problems

• user’s behavioural patterns

• business & product strategy

• competitors’ solution patterns

• user insights from other projects

02. Scan the library with secondary research 🔎 

So, the easiest way to uncover some useful insights is to talk with colleagues and explore existing artefacts. That's my go-to strategy! Whether these are concepts in Figma or biz presentations in Power Point, there's usually a treasure trove of info that can enhance your project and fill out your knowledge gaps. It’s the first thing I do when I join a new project - I do secondary research.

Last year when I joined the organisation I work for now, I got a small project to do but with a lot of constraints, from no time for research to limited access to users. The first thing I did was talking with my colleagues. The second was to browse the files.

Where did I look for those files? 👀

• Sharepoint - to look for some user insights

• Figma - to get the gist of the design solutions

• Confluence - to learn more about the guidelines

• FigJam - to check any analysis and workshop artefacts

But, it wasn’t just the design and research artefacts that I was looking for. As designers we can learn a lot from other professions so I also dug deeper into:

• Confluence - to get deeper into product strategy

• Power Point - to check any business presentations

I scanned for:

• Customer segments

• Workshop artefacts

• Customer journeys

• Business strategy

• Design system

• Product vision

• User insights

• Archetypes

• Guidelines

• Metrics and many more!

But I also checked some online libraries:

• Competitors products

• Industry patterns

• Market reports

03. Get all the facts with 5 Ws journalist’s questions 🕵🏻‍♀️

The 5 Ws method is honestly one of my favourite list of questions for getting the gist of the project. The method is not only used in design but also journalism or police investigations. The 5 Ws are like the go-to questions for journalists because they help get all the facts about the situation and this is always my goal when I kick-off a new project.

The 5 Ws are questions are ✨

• Who

• What

• Where

• When

• Why

Here are some examples:

Who

• Who are we trying to help?

• Who is struggling the most?

• Who is experiencing the problem?

  → Example: Blue-collar workers from selected markets

What

• What is the problem?

• What do they struggle with?

• What is problematic for our users?

  → Example: Blue-collar workers struggle to report incidents on time

Where

• Where does the problem appear?

• Where do users experience the problem?

  → Example: When they are on a shop-floor, busy doing their work

When

• When does the problem appear?

• When do users experience this problem?

  → Example: During usual work hours when an incident happens

Why

• Why does this problem exist?

• Why is this problem important?

  → Example: This decreases the workplace safety and contributes negatively to blue-collar workers safety habits

04. Understand the context with this project information 🚧

In every UX project there are some parts that always help with getting present. Project limitations Boundaries help settle the ground. I already know what is mandatory and what’s not.

What might project limitations include? 👀

• Goals 📍 
  Business and users

• Scope INs and OUTs 🔍
  IN - User problem A that we aim to solve
  OUT - Problem B that we won’t solve in this sprint

• Constraints 🌐 
  Technical, legal, time, budget, and business constraints as the guidelines for creative UX solutions

• Requirements 🗒️
  Product requirements as the North Star

• Dependencies 🤝 
  Collaborative work with relevant teams to ensure good global user experience

• Risks 🔥 
  Thinking holistically, not only in systems but in a timeframe can help prevent from failures

05. Understand business ecosystem with business strategy 👨🏻‍💼

Yes, business is for designers. In my experience it’s actually a really fun part. Information about business strategy, company’s objectives, KPIs always help me build a better perspective on the project. This knowledge not only contributes positively to your confidence in navigating UX projects but can be also beneficial for your career growth.

When I started with UX Design in 2018 I was mostly focused on gathering UX knowledge, talking with designers and reading just UX books. In 2020 I changed my approach to:

• Understanding how the business is winning the market → competitive advantage

• Knowing all the connections between what, where, how, why → ecosystem map

• Understanding how competitors are winning the market → competitive power

• Knowing products of main competitors and more → direct, indirect, potential

• Knowing mission, visions, goals, how we define success → OKRs, KPIs etc.

• Talking more with non UX Designers → developers, product managers etc.

• Reading books outside of the UX profession → product management etc.

• Being aware how the business make money → business model

Getting to know all this information usually takes time and requires effort. For most of us business is a new language and as anything new, to learn it, it requires time and effort. We need to learn how to

• Pick up relevant information from business presentations or talks

• Know how to communicate in a business language

• Understand the connections

But when I have this knowledge, even on a very general level, it gets easier to lead UX projects. This knowledge helps me move forward. By connecting my design tasks with the organisation I also feel more secure - I feel that I do the right thing if I see that all the dots are connected.

4 inspirations on presenting project context for your UX portfolio 🖼️

Getting the gist of the project often includes filling out knowledge gaps with a lot of information. When we open our working files, it can get overwhelming. But we can’t just take all this content and copy it to our portfolios. It would be just too much. In my experience the best way is to distill the information and just show the essence. Below you can see some great snippets of project contexts.

01. Case study title that is precise

02. Intro to vision, users and business goals

03. Short and sweet about a designer’s role

04. Showcasing project mess in a nutshell

Juicy resources 🧃

Context in UX projects

• Need a kick-off project template ASAP? I got you cover. Here is a handy template in Miro made by me

• Struggling with presenting your research insights? Check out this template from the Fountain Institute

• If you want to practice 5W method, then this book will be perfect for you

• Lean business language with this awesome free book

Context in UX portfolios

• Learn how to distill information to show a project context with a CODE method

• Build titles that are outcome oriented by reading this article

• Start at 2:12 of this video to learn that business context is key

• Watch this video to understand that artefacts alone are nothing without a context

One question before we’ll wrap up

That's it for today!

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I’m back in two Fridays with another edition of UX Design Express where you’ll get much more practical frameworks for smashing your UX portfolio, still around topic of context 👋

Keep designing ✨
Aneta Kmiecik