Route · Public Design Atlas
Kick off a design project
To organize a project from day one.
Choose the approach
The perspective you will look at the problem from.
Human-centered design
An approach that designs from the people who will use something: understand their context, involve them, test with them and repeat until it works.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Understand people and their context.
- Propose ideas and prototypes.
- Test with them and start again.
- Avoid
- Calling a project human-centered when nobody has talked to the people it serves.
Design thinking
A way of tackling open problems with design methods: understanding people, reframing the problem, generating many options and learning by prototyping.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Understand and define. Observe people and reframe the problem with what you learn.
- Ideate. Many options before settling on one.
- Prototype and test. Build something quickly and learn from how people use it. If needed, go back.
- Avoid
- Reducing it to a workshop with sticky notes: without research with real people, it’s just brainstorming.
Co-design
The collective creativity of designers and people not trained in design, applied throughout the whole process. It is a specific case of co-creation.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- The design team prepares materials so anyone can create.
- People create from their own experience.
- Together, everyone interprets what was made and decides what to design.
- Avoid
- Inviting people to co-design when the solution has already been decided.
Choose the process
How to order the phases.
Double Diamond
A four-phase process model (discover, define, develop and deliver) that alternates divergent and convergent thinking twice.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Diverge: open up options without judging.
- Converge: choose and narrow down.
- Doing it twice separates understanding the problem from solving it.
- Avoid
- Following it as a rigid waterfall: in practice you go back many times.
Design sprint
A five-day process in which a small team understands a problem, proposes solutions, chooses one, prototypes it, and tests it with five customers.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- A small team meets for five days in a row.
- From Monday to Thursday it understands the problem, sketches, decides and prototypes.
- On Friday the prototype is tested with five customers.
- Avoid
- Running a sprint for small things that can simply be decided.
Lean UX
An approach that applies lean ideas to digital product design: form hypotheses, build the minimum to test them and learn fast, instead of delivering long documents.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Form a hypothesis and how to measure it.
- Build the minimum to test it.
- Learn and decide the next step.
- Avoid
- Using it as an excuse not to research or document anything.
Agile UX
Ways of working that integrate research and experience design into agile development, in short iterations and in parallel with the people who code.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- While one cycle is being built, design prepares the next one.
- What was built in the previous cycle is tested with users.
- What you learn goes into the design of the next cycle.
- Avoid
- Reducing design to decorating what has already been coded.
Understand the context
Who has influence, who is affected, and how to look at the challenge.
Stakeholder map
A representation of the people, groups and organizations that can influence a project or be affected by it, with their weight and relationships.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- List everyone who can influence or be affected.
- Place each stakeholder by their power and interest.
- Connect the relationships and what they exchange.
- Output
- A map of stakeholders and their relationships
- Avoid
- Doing it once and never looking at it again: stakeholders and their power change.
Ecosystem map
A map of all the people, organizations and systems involved in a service and what they exchange: information, money, products or trust.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- List the actors: people, organizations and systems.
- Place them closer to the center the more direct the relationship.
- Draw with arrows what goes from one to another.
- Output
- A map of the actors in the service and what they exchange
- Avoid
- Drawing only your organization: the service also depends on others.
Four broad areas where design acts: symbolic and visual communication, material objects, activities and services, and complex systems or environments.
How it’s used
How it works
- Locate which area you are looking at the problem from.
- Switch and look at it from another.
- Reframe what changes in the problem and in the solution.
- Avoid
- Reading them as a ranking in which systems are worth more than objects.
Agree on principles
Shared criteria for making decisions.
Design principles
A short set of rules, drawn from research and the project's values, that guide design decisions so they are consistent.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- They are drawn from insights and from the project's values.
- Write only a few, clear and easy to apply.
- They are used to decide and to review the work.
- Avoid
- Writing principles so general that anyone would agree (“be easy to use”).
Plan the research
What you need to know first.
In-depth interview
A long, open, guided conversation with a single person to understand in detail their experiences, motivations and way of seeing a topic.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Prepare a guide of topics, not a closed questionnaire.
- Have a conversation following what the person tells you.
- Record and analyze looking for themes and quotes.
- Output
- Detailed accounts of experiences and motivations
- Avoid
- Asking for general opinions instead of concrete stories (“the last time you…”), asking leading questions or selling your idea.
Benchmarking
Systematically comparing how other organizations or products solve the same problem, to find good practices and opportunities.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose references. Which products or services, and with what criteria.
- Explore and document. Screenshots, notes, strengths and weaknesses.
- Compare. Put them side by side and draw conclusions.
- Output
- A structured comparison of solutions, with good practices and opportunities
- Avoid
- Copying what competitors do without knowing whether it works for them.
Analogous inspiration
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.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose the trait and the place.
- Observe and take notes.
- Transfer what you learned to the problem.
- Output
- Ideas drawn from a similar situation in another field
- Avoid
- Going on an outing without knowing what you are looking for.