My route

Observing a situation from another field that shares a trait with the design problem; for example, waiting at an airport to rethink waiting at a hospital.

Systematically comparing how other organizations or products solve the same problem, to find good practices and opportunities.

A method in which people are observed and asked questions while they carry out their tasks in their own setting, like an apprentice beside a master.

A pack of materials with open-ended tasks, such as postcards, maps, a camera or a diary, that people complete on their own over a few days and then return to the team.

A method that asks a group of experts through questionnaires in several rounds and, between rounds, gives them back a summary of what the group answered so they can revise their opinion.

Participants record their activities, experiences or emotions over a period at the moment they happen, using text, photos or audio.

Studying a group by spending time with it in its own setting, observing and taking part, to understand its practices and what they mean to its members.

Researching with both typical people in the audience and people at its extremes, to discover needs and uses the average user doesn't show.

A conversation led by a moderator with a small group on a specific topic, to learn their opinions and how they build them by talking to each other.

A diagram that places a change at the center and, in rings, its direct consequences, the consequences of those consequences, and so on.

Kits of materials (images, words, pieces) that people use to create collages, maps or models to express experiences, feelings and ideas that are hard to put into words.

Accompany a person during an everyday activity in their own setting, like shopping or getting around their neighborhood, and talk about what happens in the moment.

A method that starts from a task's goal and divides it into ever more concrete subgoals and operations, along with the plans that say when and in what order each one is done.

Systematically and continuously looking for and reviewing signals of change in the wider context (technology, society, economy, politics, environment) to anticipate what may come.

A long, open, guided conversation with a single person to understand in detail their experiences, motivations and way of seeing a topic.

A standardized method that quantifies the resources a product consumes and the emissions it generates at every stage, from raw materials to end of life, and estimates its impact.

A trained person poses as a customer to experience a service and evaluate it against defined criteria, without the staff knowing they are being observed.

A research method in which the team uses real services, their own or competitors’, and notes what works and what fails.

An observation method in which you accompany a person for a period, like their shadow, to see what they do, with whom, and why.

A representation of the people, groups and organizations that can influence a project or be affected by it, with their weight and relationships.

A questionnaire with the same questions for many people, designed to measure in numbers how many think, do or prefer something.

A method for detecting, organizing and explaining changes in behaviors, values and consumption, and anticipating how they may affect a product, brand or service.

Writing each research observation on a note and grouping the notes by affinity, bottom-up, until the themes that connect them emerge.

A nine-block template that describes how an organization creates, delivers and captures value, from customers to costs.

A method in which people group and name cards with content items to reveal how they mentally organize information.

A futures studies method that analyzes a topic on four levels, from visible data to the worldviews and myths that sustain it.

A diagram of words and arrows that shows how variables influence each other and which loops reinforce or balance a system.

A map of all the people, organizations and systems involved in a service and what they exchange: information, money, products or trust.

A template divided into zones, such as what the person says, does, sees, hears, thinks and feels, that the team fills in with what it knows about them to put itself in their shoes.

A technique for finding the root cause of a problem by asking “why?” several times in a row, each time about the previous answer.

A method for representing a person's path through a service, step by step, with their actions, touchpoints, emotions and pain points.

A method that asks, for each feature, how the person would feel if it were there and if it weren't, and uses both answers to classify it by its effect on satisfaction.

A board, physical or digital, that brings together images, colors, materials and typefaces to express the tone and character a design will aim for.

A method for summarizing research in a few fictional characters, with a name, goals and context, who represent groups of users.

A framework for thinking about long-term change with three horizons that coexist: the current system, the future that is starting to appear, and the transitional innovations between them.

Short descriptions of something a person needs, written from their point of view, used to discuss and plan work in agile teams.

A map in which the person's activities are arranged from left to right, like a story, and under each one go the user stories that make it possible.

An experiment in which people are randomly split between two or more versions of a product and a metric is compared to see which version works better.

A method that starts by describing a desirable future and, from there, works backward to find which decisions and changes would be needed to reach it.

A group session to generate many ideas about a problem, leaving judgment for later.

Brainstorming in writing: six people write three ideas in five minutes and pass the sheet on so the next person can build on them.

An intensive, collaborative workshop, often lasting several days, in which design teams and affected people propose, present and revise solutions in rapid cycles.

Fold a sheet into eight panels and draw a variation of an idea in each one, at one minute per sketch.

An ideation method that looks for similar problems in other fields, like nature or other sectors, and transfers the structure of their solution to your own problem.

Showing people many concepts in a row, as storyboards or short scenes, to compare their reactions quickly and without building anything.

Each person spreads a limited number of dots (stickers or marks) among the displayed options; those with the most dots move on to the next phase.

Four questions for redesigning an offering against its industry: which factors to eliminate, which to reduce, which to raise and which to create that nobody offers.

A technique for turning a problem or an insight into an open, optimistic question that invites ideas: “How might we…?”

A workshop method in which each person answers a question by building a metaphorical model with LEGO bricks and then explains what it means.

A diagram that starts from a central topic and opens it up into branches of related ideas, from the general to the specific.

A method that breaks a problem down into its dimensions, lists the options for each and explores the possible combinations in a table.

A short meeting in which the team assumes the project has already failed and each person writes down why, to uncover risks before starting.

The team, and sometimes users, act out a situation with simple or cardboard objects to imagine how a product or service would work.

A list of seven questions for generating ideas from something that already exists: substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, and rearrange.

A method for building several plausible stories of the future and checking which decisions work in all of them.

A way of running a group discussion: everyone adopts the same mode of thinking at once, represented by a colored hat, and they switch it as they go.

A group creativity method that uses analogies and metaphors to move away from the problem and come back to it with new ideas.

A card game in which players combine a type of future, a place, a kind of object and a mood to imagine a specific object from that future and discuss it as a group.

A template to see whether an offer fits a customer type: on one side, their profile (jobs, pains and gains); on the other, the offer’s value map.

A systematic review of a site or application to check whether it meets accessibility guidelines, such as WCAG, and where it fails.

Ideating in the real place, or a similar one, and acting out the situations and ideas there with your body, instead of imagining them from a meeting room.

An inspection method in which a team goes through a task action by action and, at each one, asks whether a person using the system for the first time would know what to do.

A short set of rules, drawn from research and the project's values, that guide design decisions so they are consistent.

A set of reusable components, rules, and criteria that a team shares to design and build consistent interfaces.

A scale prototype, made with cardboard, building pieces, or figures, on which the team moves the characters step by step to rehearse a service from start to finish.

Any setup, in any material, that lets a person experience firsthand what it would be like to use a product, a space, or a service, instead of just seeing it explained.

A static, high-fidelity picture of a screen or product, with its final color, type, images and content, that shows how it will look before it is built.

A method that sorts requirements or ideas into four groups for a specific release: what must be in (Must), what should (Should), what could (Could) and what won’t this time (Won’t).

A tree diagram: the desired outcome at the top; below it, opportunities (needs, pain points and desires); under each, its solutions, and under those, tests of their assumptions.

Building quick, incomplete versions of an idea, from a paper sketch or a cardboard mock-up to something that works, to answer a design question before developing the idea.

A diagram that shows, step by step, the actions of the person, of frontstage and backstage staff, the support processes, and the physical evidence of a service.

Drawing ideas in a quick, cheap and open way to explore many of them and discuss them before committing to one.

A sequence of panels that shows a person using a product or a service in context, step by step.

A ten-statement questionnaire answered right after using a product, giving a 0 to 100 score for how easy it was to use.

A test in which people get search tasks and go through a site's structure as text only, level by level, to choose where they expect to find each thing.

A method in which real people try to do specific tasks with a product while being observed, to find out where they get stuck and why.

A diagram that shows the steps, screens and decisions a person goes through to complete a specific task in a digital product.

An outline of a screen or page that shows what it contains, in what order and how you navigate it, without the final visual design.

A prototype in which a hidden person, the “wizard,” produces the system's responses by hand while the participant uses it as if it worked on its own.