Five prerequisites to starting a user experience journey

The constant growth and implementation of UX through ideas, perceptions, principles and data amazes me. It's like a living creature that learns, adapts and iterates. The one thing however that never changes, is the fact that for an experience to be fulfilled, whether digital or physical, there must be a start and an end. UX for me, has always been the design of processes that occur within that gap.

Processes like user journey mapping, market research, barrier to entry identification, feedback loops etc, play a huge role in creating experiences that delight. But where do we start? For me, there is no right or exact science way, just the five prerequisite points: Data, User, Purpose, Inclusion and Exclusion.

Let's consider a simple experience like walking from one room into another room, through a door. Before I dive into the UX Design process, I build a strong first step by choosing one of the five prerequisites:

1: DATA

I should say, 'existing data', to be exact. Many businesses are exceptional at gathering data. The difficult thing is not gathering data, it's interpreting and implementing. If there is an existing dataset available of the rooms, or the door, or the lighting, or the peoples that walk there daily, then it would be a good place to start thinking of the user experience needed to delight a walker. Use only what you need and focus on the matching the need with the data.

2: USER

Personas, tribes, profiles, audiences, you pick the grouping name. Having a pre-defined user identification is an alternative to data. I have seen many projects start with either data or user grouping. Either way, you still get a result. User profiles in this scenario paint a picture of the kinds of walkers we would see or assume would walk between the rooms. Age, health, income, job, wants and aspirations, all craft a good idea of how to start the delight process.

3: PURPOSE

This is my favourite starting point. If you don't have usable data or defined user profiles, dive into system two thinking and ask, 'What is the purpose?' Why would a person want to walk from room to room? What is the purpose or gain for this individual wanting to get into that other room. Once you dig deeper into the WHY, you get a better insight on how you can provide delight in the most simple way.

4: INCLUSION

So no data, no user profile and the purpose is hazy. Well then, define what you know would be included in the experience. Some businesses have defined colour schemes and expectations. This can be used to state what MUST include. Just the process of thinking what is included gets the creative ball rolling. The rooms must be this colour, the door must have a security mechanism, there must be a sign on the door. This 'must have' list of definitions paints a picture of how delight can fit in around the must haves.

5: EXCLUSION

You guessed it, this is the opposite of inclusion and is a bit more difficult to define. Most of the time, what to include, is found through learnings and implementation, however exclusions may not have been used before. It helps to define what we CAN'T have from a creative point and use that as a base to grow from. The floor can't be slippery if wet, the door can't have glass in it, the walls can't have a distracting pattern. These exclusions give us the negative space in which a positive delight can be constructed.

To conclude, this is not an exact science and every scenario and business need is different, however if you just take the time to think and consider the start, you put yourself in a good position to design a process of user experiences that fine tune the delight result. I have personally discovered that choosing a single prerequisite is a good start, but using a combination of two or three, like user and data, or data and purpose, makes the UX design process and the end delight so much more effective.