Questions to ask yourself to start designing user-centred software with Martyna Grzybek and Daniel Jaros

Many of us remember the days of unintuitive software interfaces and the ‘where do I click’ questions in our heads. Thankfully, with the rise of the human-centric software design, the unintuitive apps are no longer the industry standard.  

However, there are still many companies that need to consider their users more. In this episode, Michał talks to Martyna and Daniel, two user experience designers.  They discuss the question of how to design user-centred software products – both for designing new software and releasing updates to existing apps. They also present a 7-question survey which will show you recommended activities to create user-centred software. 

Michał Grela: Hi, this is Michał Grela and welcome to yet another episode of IT Insights by Future Processing. The topic of today’s conversation is all about software product design. And it just happens so that I have two wonderful Martyna Grzybeks for whom software product design is the bread and butter: Martyna Grzybek and Daniel. Would you be so kind and let our audience know what you guys do on daily basis?

Martyna Grzybek: Sure. We are User Experience Designers, so on daily basis we help our customers create and build comprehensive enterprise solutions. As a UX, my main area of expertise… I’m very interested about the users, so I want to know who am I… who am I designing for? What… what do they need? What pains them? So that’s that. But it’s also important to remember that UX is not a strictly visual role. We also tackle business processes and we facilitate workshops and meetings with stakeholders and, of course, conduct your research. Um, we don’t work in a vacuum. It’s a very much communication role really.

Daniel Jaros: Yeah, that’s true. And in addition, I want to say that our expertise is a very important and we cooperate also with business analysts and technical experts to bring our expertise to our stakeholders, to their meetings, workshops, and everything that is related with product design at every stage of that process.

Michał Grela: So guys, you mentioned software product design and everything around that. How… just to be… to be on the same page since… since the very beginning: what actually software design is? How should we… how should we perceive it? How would you describe it?

Martyna Grzybek: I understand it as a set of factors, you know, this design mindset that each team member has, each cares for a specific role. And… and those factors are, for example, as I mentioned: focusing on the user, their needs, and that’s one of them. Also, there is the technology aspect, so technical feasibility, if what we’re doing is doable. But also very important is understanding and gathering business requirements.

Michał Grela: That’s super interesting and very trendy at the moment. That’s my perception of the situation. But frankly speaking, historically, it has not always been like that, I guess, because I… I personally under… recall situations where, um, there were plenty of, you know, unintuitive interfaces and error messages and this “where do I click” kind of situations or “how do I do stuff”. But this rapidly changed in recent years. What happened?

Martyna Grzybek: Yeah, that’s a good point. The success of tech-leading companies like a Google, Apple, Uber, Spotify has been driven by their strong focus on user-centric design. And nowadays, a rest [of] companies would like to follow them and they also treat more seriously that… that approach, which we can see on the demand for our expertise currently. We’re a department with over 70 people, which is four times increase since 2015. That definitely reflects that there’s something going on on the market.

Michał Grela: So let’s step into the shoes of a business owner or a stakeholder who looks up on Spotify or, I don’t know, Netflix and would like to, let’s say, replicate their success fueled by User Experience Design or software product design in the first place. How do I start? What should I do first?

Martyna Grzybek: So if you want to start this comprehensive design process for your products, you should really start with asking yourself… and yeah, asking yourself a couple of questions that conveniently we will go over today. And the first one is: are you… do you want to work on an existing product or something completely new? Um, this is important because it helps us, the software partner, really decide which activities are the best for you. So let’s say that you’re working on an existing piece of software, a solution, a service, um, and the chance is it has probably been on the market for some time. There has been some users, the business has feedback on how it’s performing, we know what we may want to improve there. So we can get into the data, understand it, and start there. On the other hand, if you are looking to work on a completely new product, then the approach is slightly different. We have to probably start with a whole discovery phase to help us understand your idea, put it into words and thesis and assumptions, and then go through other stages like research, ideation, design, and then validation even before it hits the developers and they start coding it.

Michał Grela: So the first and foremost, I should understand whether I’m doing something from scratch, carte blanche, or already working around the solution that… that has been there.

Martyna Grzybek: Yeah, yeah, that’s uh… that’s right. And uh, let’s say uh… you are working on a completely new solution, new idea. Uh, thing that is to consider is uh… how well-defined is that idea and, of course, whether you have a documentation of… of… of that, right? So basically it’s about how well do you know uh… what your product is supposed to be doing, right? So because you… you may have a knowledge about the gap in the market and you will fill in. So you may have uh… no idea how to solve that, how to answer to that… to that market demand. Or maybe you have a rough idea or even, you know, exact solution for that. Regardless, would be good to have a documentation, kind of set of, you know, artifacts which can represent, depicts your idea to other people to share that knowledge, to share your thoughts, idea, and maybe even start to implement something like a first proof of concept just to check, yeah, how the users will treat your idea, how they will see your concept.

Michał Grela: So as a second and third step, I should properly understand um… whether how tangible or high level alternatively my idea is, where I am in this… in this scale, and then how well documented this idea is. And the more the better. So how do I get the ball rolling then? What’s next?

Martyna Grzybek: Uh, what’s next… The next thing, uh, and of… I think it’s the most important part, it’s considering that if the idea, concept, product can meet business needs and goals. And if this idea also is a kind of response for users’ needs. Because one of the most important factors of success of the product is just meeting the goals of the user. Because yeah, it’s a often situation when the product answer to specific user needs and this is a driver to a business success, right? So of course, you always have to hit two birds with one stone and satisfy the business needs but don’t forget about the users either.

Michał Grela: So we have kind of touched on… on the scope, but as a next step, I guess there’s still vital aspects such as, for example, the timeline of work. Would that also be one of the questions to answer?

Martyna Grzybek: Yes, absolutely. This is important to know: when do you want to start the development? Because it helps us understand which sort of activities we should pursue to, you know, prepare the best we can to optimize the processes, to… to gather all the information to… to start the development. And just to mention here at Future Processing, we have a lot of experience in adjusting to both the client’s timeline and the budget. So yeah, we can definitely work with many solutions and we tailor them to each customer.

Michał Grela: Thank you for… for taking us through this… these answers. It really does… that’s handy to understand uh… where you are. Actually, we’ve prepared something like a tool with an algorithm who can help the potential clients to check their situation, the stage where they are, and propose some recommendations of next steps, maybe activities which can help them design their product. And they can find—our viewers can find this tool on our website futureprocessing.com and of course, uh, it is also available uh… in the description. We will link it in this… in this video as well. So you answer—there’s a tool, an algorithm—you answer all of these questions we just went through and you get what?

Martyna Grzybek: So you get a set of activities that you should consider in your specific case, such as for example conducting user research, like user individual interviews, create mock-ups or create a proto-persona. So there’s a… let’s say a list of suggestions on how you should take… take it from there when it comes to your idea. Yes exactly. So um… all you have to do is answer those six to seven easy questions and after those you will get this set of recommended activities that you should consider in your case.

Michał Grela: That’s… that’s… that’s really interesting. Um, before we uh… we call it the day, I’m still keen on touching the… the aspect you… you briefly mentioned before, namely the analysis and design team. What’s your role in this process and how your team does support our partners and customers on that journey?

Daniel Jaros: Yeah, we have a service we can call… which can cover uh… hold the process from A to Z. So from clarification of the idea by the user research, technical recommendations, so every next step which will be also uh… important like uh… workshops, meetings with stakeholders, which are important [for] the companies to clarify their objectives, the business goals, then requirements gathering and of course implementation of that solution. And even then, uh… when product will be on the market, we can still work closely with our clients to develop that solution, to still improving everything because yeah, we… we are uh… trusted partners for our uh… clients at every stage of the software product design.

Michał Grela: Thank you. Thank you, Daniel Jaros, for… for that answer. So we’re right to sum up this conversation. Uh, I would say that software product design has never been more important but in order to do it right, you have to first and foremost understand where you are. And you can do that quite easily by understanding you know… by answering you know… six… six or seven questions in a… in a tool that you’ve conveniently prepared. But also you should not forget about bringing this additional value… value in the form of external point of view of a partner who can help you benchmark your ideas and understand uh… what’s the best way forward. Wonderful. Thank you guys for this conversation. Was very interesting.

Martyna Grzybek: Yeah, thanks for having us.

Michał Grela: Okay. Thank you our viewers for watching. This is another episode of IT Insights by Future Processing. Bye.