Design for the user journey
Know your users' experience
For a quality user experience, research how your users need to interact with your current service and any problems they have in doing so. If you're creating a new service, you can use wire frames or prototypes to test how they interact with your design. As well as looking at digital interactions, you should find out about any of their non-digital experiences such as by phone, post, and face to face.
Consider the end-to-end user journey
A user's journey is the steps and touch points that the user needs to go through from the start to the end of their task. It also includes any offline interactions such as by mobile or face-to-face.
To understand users' journey, you should understand their:
- goals
- motivations
- current pain points
- outcomes they want to achieve.
Every interaction they have should take them closer towards their goal. A user journey can reflect a current or a future state.
Map the users' journey
You can use a mix of journey maps to examine the user's journey through a product or service such as:
- real customer experiences
- user needs
- how a user interacts with the service environment.
Look for points where customers get frustrated and use them to focus on creating better user outcomes.
Mapping can help you understand:
- the different ways (both online and offline) that users complete the task
- the users' pain points when trying to complete the task or achieve their goal
- where the service fits into the larger way people currently interact with NSW Government
- where Artificial Intelligence and machine learning may be used to improve the customer experience
- what metrics will best show how well the service is meeting user needs at each step of the service
- how different platforms and services are connected and how to optimise user authentication and handoff so customers only need to communicate their information and preferences to government once.
You usually create user journeys towards the beginning of a project after you know who your users are. You can also use them when looking at the functionality of your service in more detail.
customer journey mapping
Define your hypotheses
First, understand the insights from your journey map and prioritise your users' main pain points. You can then develop a problem statement or hypothesis around each problem.
Problem statement
We believe...(your user)
Needs a better way to...(do what they're trying to accomplish)
Because... (of the problem they are facing).
Generate ideas
Use your hypotheses to generate different ideas for how you can solve your users' problems.
Explore many variations of an idea quickly. Don't get stuck in the details. Use rapid sketching to come up with as many ideas as you can. For example, divide a paper into eight sections and spend 30 seconds on each section sketching out a potential solution.
Get feedback on your ideas with at least five potential users before you build anything.Their feedback will help you learn what works and what doesn't.
Create prototypes
Create prototypes to explore and test your designs with users. They are a fast way to learn whether you're on track to building the right thing.
Create physical prototypes like a paper sketch, storyboard, model or role playing. You can also create digital prototypes that are clickable, demonstrative or interactive.
Ask the NSW Digital Community of creators what types of tools they use.