During this phase the UXer will spend time researching competitors, past analytical data on existing digital property, brand guidelines and user groups.

Data acquired from Google analytics will help facillitate ideas of what currently works and what doesn't, competitive analysis will aid in finding out other companies' strategies and be able to build solutions that will differentiate Elkay yet keep the company competitive.

UXers will find it helpful to conduct short user tests on existing competitor digital properties to get a better grasp on what is working for them and if taking similar route would make sense for Elkay and if time permits, shadowing user groups to get a sense of their lifestyles and habits during product purchasing will aid to build up on user flow sketching and user testing in the next phases of the process.

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FRD is a document that defines a system, its main functionalities and use cases/user tasks. Functional requirements document gives UX designer an overview of main purpose of the layout they are designing and their alignment with the business objectives and user flow. Functional requirements also serve as an overlay of use cases and existing functionalities to aid in accomplishing main user tasks. This gives a UX Designer a better I idea of what the current system entails and what may be needed in order to enhance the interaction between the layout and the user. UX Designer can then start brainstorming ideas of how the main user flows will be designed into a more aesthetically pleasing and user friendly system.

Once the UX designer starts obtaining a better idea of the functionality of the new system, he/she can start organizing sketching and brainstorming sessions. The first session consists of analysing use cases and user personas. UXer will gather stakeholders from prospective departments to help out with defining user groups/cases in more detail, using color coded sticky notes to build an affinity diagram with wanted features, user constraints and needs.

The user group and use case analysis sketching sessions are then followed by user flow/Lo-Fi prototype sketching sessions. The main purpose of these sessions is to gather valuable user data and bounce off ideas between stakeholders from departments involved with the user flow process and get them involved in sketching of how they see the end users to go through the process and interact with the system to accomplish tasks in the process.

After the sketching sessions, UXer will analyze sketches and start building lo-fidelity prototypes in UXPin, while imitating user interactions. These prototypes will serve as a tool for initial user testing of interactions without brand guidelines added as well as reference for developers on how the functionalities will be layed out.

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User Flow Sketching Template Lo-Fi Sketching Template - Browser Lo-Fi Sketching Template - Tablet Lo-Fi Sketching Template - Mobile Interactive Lo-Fi Prototype Example More Templates To Download VizyDrop - FREE Data Visulization Tool

Upon an inquiry of brand guidelines, sketches, brainstorming notes and results of low fidelity interactive design prototype testing, UXer will make necessary changes to low fidelity prototype and work on implementation of brand guidelines to the layout and interactions. This will be done with design Adobe products for graphics and UXPin as a prototyping tool. The simulated interactions will have aesthetics applied to them for additional user testing to analyze the effectiveness of visual design within the UI.

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During sketching sessions of the user journeys and lo-fidelity wireframes, UXer can collect valuable information on the personas that will be using the layout in oder to complete main tasks to find what they are looking for. These tasks will be tested during user testing sessions. UX designer will get group of testers to conduct user testing with. These testers will then perform main tasks using the lo-fidelity and hi-fidelity prototypes and answer questions about the fluidity of the user experience within the UI tested.

Testers will be given main tasks to complete while using the prototype and filling out a feedback template with usability scale and additional notes about the effectiveness of interactions, navigation and aesthetics they used to complete them.

The testers may be recorded during the sessions, depending on their level of comfort.

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Collaboration with development teams is essential from the beginning. From FRDs to building the digital property, UXers are essential in communicating the layout specifications defined in Lo-Fi prototypes and making sure they are feasible, time relevant and cost effective. Testing lo-fi prototypes helps to determine if the user interactions can be implemented and will benefit the company by staying aligned with business model as well and existing and new functionality.

Development is an essential part of making sure the layout is user friendly for diverse screen sizes and UXer's understanding of this will help to make sure their designs make sense from development persepctive.

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Design eforts are always ongoing, even after a major launch the performance of the digital product has to be carefully measured to provide further suggestions and feedback in enhancing its layout. Google Analytics is useful in determining usefull patterns in user behavior and interpret it to reasess product's efficiency and usability.

At Elkay we continuously gather this data to keep making informed enhancement decisions.

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