Modelling Business Processes can boost your UI/UX career
Performing user research is crucial to successful design and modelling business processes at the start of your design journey may add new tools to your analytical arsenal as a Designer.
This relatively simple task can boost your understanding of business and user pain points at the start of the design process, save valuable time and effort over the duration of your project and help maintain focus on the outcome needed from both user and business respectively.
The creation, gathering and documentation of business requirements is central to great UI and UX. In today’s case, we’ll focus on UX. Of course, the two are intertwined but for an enhanced, optimal and successful user experience, the UI/UX Designer,
Product Designer, business and any other key stakeholder must acknowledge that a clear, coherent understanding of business processes is central to the successful implementation of optimal UX; even if this step was never explicitly acknowledged. Therefore, a good understanding of business processes could boost your UI/UX career, both short and long-term.
According to the Georgia Institute of Technology the four common phases of UI/UX design are:
1. Requirements Gathering
2. Design Alternatives
3. Prototyping (low and high fidelity)
4. Evaluation
Each of these phases is of course a vast realm in and of themselves. For today we will focus on number one. It is in this phase as Designers, we understand the user and the business and what their goals are.
We also understand the current practices of both, the “problem space” and most crucially we present tools and techniques that allow the user and/or the business to explain their issues. It is in this last step in particular, the mapping and documentation of business processes lends the most value.
The assimilation of this information is the bedrock in which a successful UX solution can be built. Your aim as a Designer is to ensure the end user at the end of the process is delighted with the solution you have created. Therefore:
You must have the analytical tools to be able to translate the user and or the businesses needs into simple, clear, well-structured models and business process models are a great way to begin.
Before we go further, lets explain business processes and business models in a bit more depth.
What Are Business Processes?
Business processes are the methods in which an organization conducts internal operations and delivers its products and services to its customers. Some reasons for creating business process models include:
· Understanding how the current processes work: A Designer can be brought into a situation that requires transformation or rebranding. Illustrating the current or “As-Is” process illustrates this.
· To establish consistency: If an organization has too many disparate processes, alignment and consistency may be an aim. Consolidating various processes into a single or a few streamlined practices or processes may need to be mapped.
· Identifying strengths and weaknesses: The ability to identify strengths and weaknesses within a current process allows a business to allocate sufficient resources accordingly, this stems from an accurate description/depiction of business processes.
Business Process Models
Being able to model processes, journeys and flows allows the necessary information to be communicated diagrammatically, a picture speaks a thousand words for a reason. Once we see how something works it can help us understand the process quicker as opposed to writing the process down in tabular or linear form.
A typical business process consists of five key aspects:
1. Tasks that make up the process
2. Process Flows
3. Decision Points
4. Actors
5. Outcomes
A Process Flow captures a lot of info in a tight structure
This process outlines the necessary steps for a customer to call a taxi. The Actors are represented via aspects we refer to as ‘swimlanes.’ Each swimlane represents an individual interest. There is one start point in which the journey starts, various tasks or processes and a single end point. A process-flow can contain multiple end points based on what is being modelled, but there should only be one point of origin.
In terms of UX, having a clear outline before prototyping will enhance clarity between business and designer because the important processes are outlined from the outset.
In the example above, the Designer knows who the main players are, knows how and when they interact with each other, potential pain points (wait icon in customer swimlane) and has a high-level sequence of events depicted. All this information deduced from a simple process flow.
It’s surprising how little this practice is adopted in the world of UI/UX and design in general.
Prototyping
Modelling business processes via a standard BPMN (Business Process Model Notation) process flow will enhance your prototyping experience, often making the process much more efficient and accurate from the start; thus saving valuable time and resources and will help you reach high-fidelity protypes much quicker than before.
Whilst working on a complex build as a Business Analyst, I decided to equip the UI/UX Designer with a series of process flows at the start. Doing this prior to prototyping tremendously enhanced the Designer because there was a clear sequence of both user and business needs clearly expressed in a systematic and structured manner.
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash
Capturing processes via a process flow is a step that is surprisingly understated and undervalued and is not really seen as an accepted part of the prototyping process within the UI/UX world.
Of course, there’s no complete set of rules to doing anything, especially in the vast world of UI/UX design. However, certain fundamentals are and have become industry standard and if Prototyping is a firm and accepted step in UI/UX design, then modelling business/customer processes could be a welcome addendum to this crucial step.
Business process flows also embrace full discussion from the whole team, from Product Managers, Business Analysts, Designers, Product Owners, Stakeholders and more; each with a unique stake in the product/project outcome.
Customer Process Modelling
Business process maps/models are not designed or intended to remove the user from the experience or replace a standard customer flow.
This is not the case at all. The name does suggest a focus on business as opposed to user, but the models are only in relation to servicing the end customer. The focus is very much on the user.
Business process models can support customer journey maps not replace them
Process models allow all relevant stakeholders to understand how their good or service reaches the end customer and this information allows Designers and the business to have a consistent focal point throughout the build, whether it’s Prototyping, High-Fidelity mock-ups, Testing or presenting the finished design; using the process models throughout the design will enhance your understanding of what your client wants, what your user wants and help to maintain focus.
Successful design has been achieved for years without incorporating new techniques, but marginal differences to workflow, work habits and best practices are sought after by so many, just read Producthunt for the latest “productivity-hack” or “efficiency tool.”
Embracing business process models is simple and a relatively understated method in which a lot of value can be derived throughout the design process without that much work done upfront.
Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
Most projects/product teams have Business Analysts, Product Managers, Project Managers, Requirements Engineers or other specialists whose focus is on understanding, challenging and Analyzing current practices and creating ways in which to optimize this.
Utilizing this existing tool could be a subtle enhancement to your workflow as a Designer and the effects could have huge positive implications for your end-user, clients and your personal work as a Designer.
Start your next design project with mapping business processes and see what a difference it makes to the outcome for both you your client and the end user.
