How to Solve Problems with Iteration and Good Design Research
By: Carbon Radio
Tags: UI, UI Design, Design, UX Design, UX

Dave Breske is a UX designer who is passionate about simple, empathetic software. Through his work at Galaxy Digital, he makes software that helps connect volunteers with the causes they care about.

How do you approach your work?

I like to start by solely focusing on the problem, because without a really good idea of what your users actually need, it’s easy to solve the wrong problem. There’s a classic Einstein quote that goes something like “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.” Especially in the corporate world, it’s not uncommon to get handed a project that already has some assumptions stapled on to it, and it can be tough to pump the breaks and spend some time really getting to the bottom of things. But it’s even harder to do that months later when devs are coding, and technical writers are documenting, and marketers are getting ready to sell.

I specifically like to do personal interviews with our prospective users to get as close to the source as possible. Once I feel like I really understand the problem on an intimate level, then I start ideating. From there, you can go back to real users to test your ideas and see what has legs.

What are the most important skills to develop in young designers?

There are a bunch of good answers to this, but one that I don’t see talked about enough is to “think with a paper trail”. And by that I mean that you should do sketching, take notes, make diagrams and charts, and then keep all of it. And there are a few reasons why that’s a good practice. First, it helps justify that you’ve done the work. Sometimes you’ll get challenged on a solution, and you can say “here’s how we got here and why we think it’s the correct answer” with a lot more authority if you can show your work. Second, I’ve often found that there’s something valuable in an earlier draft of a project when I go back and look at my note that I’d forgotten about. Like, you are on concept #10, but you look back on concept #2 and see something you were playing around with a few weeks ago that didn’t quite work. But now it fits in perfectly. I also think that you can get a lot further in less time with pen and paper than you can by going into Figma or Sketch right away, but that might just be because I’m a little old school.

How do you quantify your impact?

This is a really good question, but I don’t know that I have a great answer off-hand. My company is getting better here, but we haven’t figured out a really quantifiable system yet. Luckily, I’m in a situation where they recognize the importance of design and are willing to kind of trust the process, but it’s tough. Ideally, you’d be doing a/b testing and then seeing which designs perform better on key metrics. Like, if you’re working on a new check-out workflow for an eCommerce site, you can track how many clicks it takes for a use to complete the workflow, or how many customers are dropping out of the process before completion.

How do you know when a design or a product is good?

This is another really good question. For me, a good product is the result of identifying a real problem, understanding the people behind that need, and then solving that problem as simply and holistically as possible. Good design is thoughtful about who will use the product, and how the product will fit into their lives. And, importantly, good design is the result of a gauntlet of research, development, and testing. You ideally shouldn’t have to think a design is good. You’ll know because you’ve tested the hell out of it.

How does data inform design?

This is a decent topic in and of itself. There’s a whole industry around tracking everything that your users do, anonymizing that data, and then using that “big data” to figure out where your product can be improved, what do develop next, etc. I’m not an expert on that, but there are a number of fascinating stories to be told there. For example, Netflix uses their algorithms to figure out which types of content their users would be most interested in. They analyze search results, what people watch, how long they watch, and what they skip over, and then go develop original programming to fill the gaps in the marketplace. Really cool stuff, but not my expertise.

I use much smaller data in my day to day. We do user interviews, competitive research, and market research, which we use to figure out where there’s a need, and then we do more focused development and prototyping to fine-tune things.

How do you think about product development and iteration?

Iteration is everything in product development. The goal isn’t necessarily to hit a hole in one, but to win the long game by consistently driving toward the green and making your putts. You’ll get a lot further in a lot less time with a cycle of build-test-build-test-repeat than plan-plan-plan-build, and you’ll start getting crucial customer feedback sooner. Especially with software, the cost of being agile is pretty minimal — it’s not like you have to go spend hundreds of thousands of dollars retooling expensive manufacturing equipment every time you try something different.

What is the role of research? What does good research look like?

Good design research has to be empathetic. Raw data can tell you where an opportunity is or where there’s a problem, but you can’t rely on numbers to tell you how to fix a problem or how to build a product that your users love. That’s why there’s a human in the mix. It’s our job as designers to synthesize the data into something meaningful. And often, the problem that’s presented by your users is only a symptom of a larger need. Really good research can help you find the solution that the user didn’t even know they wanted. Really good research challenges the conventional wisdom about a project, and can help you find the solution that the user didn’t even know they wanted.