UX design framework is the nut and bolts of designing and documenting the user experience design. Lean UX, Double Diamond, and other design frameworks can aid in project delivery, and the Fogg Behaviour Model and Hooked Model can be used for individual features to accomplish desired results.
Framework basically acts as a tool that can be used while designing solutions for a particular problem. Frameworks help organize the project by maintaining the deliverables and process followed by designers.
In this article, we’ll be looking into 10 different UX design frameworks and their usage.
What is a UX Design Framework?
A design framework creates a basic structure and foundation that focuses and supports designers on problems they’re trying to solve. It is a guide that can be taken as an approach to solving a problem. Frameworks can be considered as outlines or layouts for a project.
Frameworks act as a set of tools, protocols, and processes to guide the UX design process. It is very helpful and handy for the time when you’re hiring new members in your team as design frameworks assist in transferring roles or onboarding new employees. The familiarity and structure of the process help new team members understand where they are in the design process and how to complete the project.
A design framework offers:
- Clear outline and structure to a problem
- Guide the design process
- Easy to understand and implement
- Helps the team to reach a consensus
- Saves designer time and efforts
- Helps to maintain the deliverable for a project
In simple words, a framework doesn’t force any specific process, rather it guides the team based on the systematic path that could save time and effort for a designer and focus on the solution.
Need For a Design Framework
A design framework gives a systematic path, it breaks the complex design process into small baby steps that are much easier to follow and manage. As it is much more granular and manageable, it evokes creativity as designers get the freedom to work based on how they want to work. Also, it saves a lot of time such that work which is completed in 1 hour can be easily done within 10 mins.
Let’s look into some core benefits of using a design framework:
- Spread consistency among teams
- Makes it easy to manage deliverables
- Ease the collaboration and communication among engineers, product and designers
- Aid designers with an approved set of tools, techniques, and guides to solve a problem
- Save a lot of time, effort, and money
- Fewer errors and quick turnaround
- Maximize efficiency with fewer bottlenecks.
10 Best UX Design Frameworks For Web Designers
There are many different frameworks available that you can use and as time goes on and design evolves there is a high possibility of having many more frameworks in the coming years. But for now, let’s see what are the best UX design frameworks that you should know
1. The Design Thinking Framework
This framework is one of the most popular and basic frameworks among all others. Every designer must have heard about this framework once at least. It consists of 5 phases that are iterative and follow the user-centric design as follows:
- Empathise: In this phase, we discover “What the User Needs”.
- Define: In this phase, we define and determine the “Problem to be solved”
- Ideate: In this phase, we “Ideate solution, brainstorm all possible scenarios that can be explored”
- Prototype: In this phase we “Design – including low fidelity and high fidelity wireframes, final UI designs and create a prototype”
- Test: In this phase, we “Test and validate” whatever has been designed till now.
The design thinking process is an iterative process so all 5 phases keep on revolving until the expected results are achieved.
To check and meet the expectation, designers need to create a design strategy document that includes the following question, which needs to be answered before rolling out the design.
- Context of implementation of design
- What are the constraints – Tech, legal, and organization level
- Does the project meet the organization’s key objectives
- What are the success metrics and anticipated results/outcome
- How the success would be measured
Once the designs are ready, to check whether the designs are meeting expectations as well as to validate the usability all the above-mentioned questions should be clear.
2. The Double Diamond Framework
Double Diamond framework that encourages design innovation. It eases collaboration and creativity during the process when it is being followed. A streamlined collaboration among engineers, products, and designers along with amazing innovative ideas.
As the name suggests, Double Diamond is similar to the shape of this framework. There are 2 diamonds placed together. Each diamond is a dedicated stage.
The framework is divided into 2 stages, mentioned as:
Stage 1 – Presentation
- Discover: In this phase, the pool of problems is collected at this point. Problem discovery is done in this phase before making assumptions, practicing empathy, and conversing with real people.
- Define: Once after understanding the problem, and the issue to be solved now in this phase designers start thinking about what can be done to solve the problem. What would be solved through the design is something defined and decided in this phase.
Stage 2 – Prototyping
- Develop: This phase is purely dedicated to idea generation, brainstorming, and solution exploration. The team combines together to work in this phase. It is a good idea to work on a few concepts that would be later tested as a potential solution or not.
- Deliver: In this phase, it’s time to test out the solution you have created. Iterations and validations are carried out to refine the solution. Rejected ideas are discarded and not taken up for further iteration and gradually from many ideas only a single solution is proposed to be final.
Following the double diamond framework, the whole process at the end comes out to be an outcome. Including multiple iterations, and seamless collaboration.
3. The Lean UX Framework
Lean UX framework is a detailed and collaborative framework that focuses on the outcomes over deliverables for a project. Refer to the detailed article on the Lean UX guide(attached link here). The lean methods are extensively leaner towards problem-solving because it eliminates the features, process, and elements from a product that is no longer required for the core functionality of the app.
Lean UX framework majorly operates on the following 3 stages:
- Think: Here the designers are free to think about the outcomes, make assumptions, carry out research, validate the data, and analyze it for further use.
- Make: This stage purely emphasizes designing and making things real. All wireframes(low and high fidelity), final visual designs, and prototypes are drafted.
- Check: Once all the making step work is done, the test and validation based on the hypotheses start. Usability testing, product validation, and user feedback are done to test whether the product is fulfilling the core needs.
4. The Agile UX Framework
The Agile UX framework was initially a non-design framework, which later evolved and now design is a part of SDLC(software development life-cycle) as well. Design is also now given equal and fair importance while considering developing a product.
The Agile UX framework is based on the 12 core principles of agile:
- Core experience
- Making Use of Technology and Impacting Life
- Sustainability
- Simplicity
- Involvement of cross-functional teams
- Good use of resources
- Adaptive collaboration
- Flexible teams
- Effective communication
- Product development under-motivated goals
- High-class competitive benchmarking
- Technical Excellence
5. The BASIC Framework
The BASIC framework is comparatively new and focuses on the design interaction guidelines. As the name, this framework is based on 5 different steps that are acronyms of BASIC:
B for Beauty:
The key focus here is the aesthetics and beauty of the application. An amazing-looking application is generally perceived to be more user-friendly when added with good usability as well. While talking about aesthetics as a designer keep in mind the following question:
- Do the visuals of the app are aesthetically pleasing?
- Does the layout align appropriately?
- Does the app follow a defined style guide or follow the design system well?
- Do the visual elements like Imager and icons high quality?
A for Accessibility:
While designing the app, always and foremost importantly think about the people with disabilities and how they would use the app. Everyone should be given a clear chance to use and interact with the app. Keep in mind the following things:
- Is the app accessible?
- Is everyone able to use and interact with the app?
- How will people with disabilities use the app?
- How easy would it be to be compatible with other platforms and devices?
S for Simplicity:
It is well said that when we are taking machines, apps, and tools into our lives we want to have the work done easily and without any extra effort and time. Make sure the app itself is very simple and solves the purpose for what it is being used. It should make life easier than before. For example, if the app says to make sleeping easy and would give users relief it should do it. The app should include soothing music and should cut all distractions so that users can relax and sleep. Keep in mind the following when designing for simplicity:
- Does the app get things done easily and quickly?
- Are all the functions easy to understand and perform?
- Is adding a certain functionality necessary? Will it add value along with balancing the simplicity of the app?
I for Intuitiveness:
When users are able to relate and enjoy the app that’s when they feel the app is intuitive. No one likes to wait, so give the control to the user’s hand so that they can play, pause, mute, or skip the content whenever they want. Keep in mind while designing for intuitiveness in the app:
- Are you able to achieve the goal quickly?
- Does the app solve the purpose of using it?
- Does the app predict the outcome as per what users are expecting?
- Does the app fit well in the user’s mental model?
C for Consistency:
Everyone likes things to be consistent and predictable. A brand’s identity is known over a long period of time based on the consistency its product shows. Like Amazon – everything product by Amazon is very well related to the brand’s look and feel. Also, not just brand identity but also consistency helps in remembering things for a long time. Placement of CTA, size, and color of buttons and navigation are also a part of consistent UI. Keep in mind the following points while designing for consistency:
- Do the visual elements place consistency as the user expects them to be?
- Do all the elements work in the same way as expected?
- Is the app based on a consistent repetitive pattern?
6. The Hooked Model Framework
The intent of building this framework was to create something that can produce “Habit-building products”. ea was created by businessman Nir Eyal, who wrote about it in his book “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.”
This framework is a 4 stage model, including the following stages:
Trigger:
-
Triggers can be both internal and external. Here designers try to understand what triggers users to act upon or simply take an action. To understand what triggers users, it is of utmost importance to know-
- What emotions, and behavior does the app evoke in users – Do they like the app, how do they feel when using the app, etc
- What features can be added as an update to solve user problems in the current app or situation?
Action:
-
Based on the triggers, what makes the user act? The main greed/ requirement of any action is what reward a user would get. The intent of taking an action is:
- What rewards would users get after performing a certain action?
- What could be the easiest path/simplest action to get that reward?
Variable Reward:
- By variable, it can be anything, like a monetary reward(i.e. cashback through scan and pay), Bonus points(that can be utilized within the app to make in-app purchases), etc. The reward should be something for which a user should keep coming back to the app. It is not like an addiction but more like a leisure and actual reward-based satisfaction should be the right expectation for the app experience.
Investment:
- The investment would be the coming back metric or the conversion rate of the application. How many users keep coming back to the app – called loyal users?
It is a path where the user is “triggered” to take an “action” which leads to attaining a certain “reward” for which the user keeps coming back – that is an “investment.”
7. The Behaviour Model Framework
This framework is based on pure human motivation, prompt, and behavior systems. Designers working while using this framework get to know the core aspects of human psychology from start to end. Starting with how the motivation to do something comes, to be able to take action and then get the required result. The behavioral model follows a simple formula that can be very simply understood, such as:
Human Behaviour = Motivation(What makes them do it) + Ability (How they can do it) + Prompt(They are doing it).
For example, talking about the CRED app. Their motivation would be either to pay bills or to earn rewards and make in-app purchases. The ability is to have a credit card to get started. The prompt is when they pay a bill, they get rewards through which they make in-app purchases, etc.
The ability is something that can be from How hard it is to do to how easy it is to be done, and that works based on the user’s motivation whether it is high or low. Rest it the action line that leads to rewards.
The behavioral model framework is also known as the Fogg behavioral model. The strategy is to follow baby steps to achieve a goal.
8. The UX Honeycomb Framework
Honeycomb UX is a holistic design framework that offers 7 different steps, which makes the user experience soothing and positive. The steps are placed in such a honeycomb shape, that justice to the name itself.
Here are the 7 core principles for this design framework, which says that design should be:
- Useful: It says that the product must be useful, that solve the core requirement of the user. Any app in the market that is popular and has a consistent user base is because the app is fulfilling the core expected need of the user through the app. For example, Swiggy – solves the core need of users to order food online. If the user sees that potential in the app, they’ll stick around and interact with the app.
- Accessible: Design should be widely accepted irrespective of society, and most importantly among disabled people. Designing an app that serves the disabled would only add value to the other segment of the users. The app should be easily accessible to anyone who’s using it. For example, adding a speech-to-text functionality to the app would not be helpful to people with disabilities but to other people as well whenever they feel the requirement.
- Desirable: The design should be aesthetically pleasing and desirable. The focus is on how appealing the design is, and how much it pleases the user when you use the product. It is believed that a pleasing and aesthetic app would give an enhanced user experience.
- Valuable: It says that the final product should deliver all the core expected requirements to the user. When a product is valuable, that means users are sticking to it and they are coming back to the product. The loyalty of the user base is measured based on the valuable aspect of the app.
- Usable: It is about the intuitiveness and usability of the product. When designers mention the app is usable they simply mean to say that it is easy to use and would be easily understandable. Users would be aware and confident about the application and how the app would help to solve the purpose.
- Credible: The credibility of the product is measured based on the trust within the user. Users should be able to trust the app, its content, and its purpose. The trust would eventually come based on the spread of word by the regular users, ratings, and reviews of the application.
- Findable: It says that the app navigation and search should be clear. Users should be able to properly and comfortably navigate, search, and move within the app. This allows users to reach the target with fewer clicks. More clicks or difficulty in reaching a target would lead to drop-off, so as a designer, one should keep in mind the easiest way to reach the target.
9. The Hierarchy of UX Needs Framework
This framework is based on Maslow’s pyramid of needs, but the only addition or update is the user experience. It is a popular and widely used design framework.
It consists of 5 different elements, starting from the availability to product desirability such as:
- Site Availability: For any app, website, or product to be used, it is very important to have easy accessibility and availability of the product. Any product that is not available to use for the users, would not be evaluated based on how it is performing. Evaluation would be based on certain metrics like conversion, bounce, and drop-offs for which the user’s input is needed.
- Usability: Usability is always measured based on how simple the navigation system is, whether CTAs and buttons are clear or not, etc. Usability also comes based on how consistent the visuals are along with the whole app. Consistency is based on brand colors, and typography basically the overall language of the app.
- Supportive features: Supportive features include having guides, onboarding, clear notifications, and FAQs. These features help new users properly onboard the application. Also, these features help users to connect more with the app through notifications, and FAQs there is very less chance of confusion and being unclear about something while using the app.
- Confidence: Confidence comes based on trust, and how comfortable users are while using the app. By comfort and confidence, I mean that there would be no more misleading buttons, dark patterns, and loopholes in the architecture of the app. When a user takes action by tapping on a button they would land on the expected page, rather than getting trapped into ads or dark patterns.
- Product desirability: Desirability comes based on the user’s first impression. When the users are comfortable and feel confident about the app, desirability comes on its own. People come back and stick to the app based on how comfortable they are while using the app, do they feel the app is aesthetically pleasing, and most importantly does the app solves the core purpose of their using the app.
10. The 6 Levels of UX Framework
This framework helps designers to prioritize the workflow. It acts like a To-Do list for designers such that they move from the most abstract ideas to the most concrete ideas.
It includes 6 levels that are moving from the abstract level of ideas to the concrete level ideas. Let’s look into 6 levels of the framework:
- Proposition: The most abstract level focuses on what value the product/service or design adds or serves to the users. Here the problem is identified and understood such that designers are clear on what core values are needed and how they would impact users.
- User Case: In this level, the designer tries to understand what problems are users currently facing, and what are the core user goals that they want to achieve.
- User Journey: This phase focuses on the overall journey a user has to complete to achieve a certain goal. Designers have to think about how a user would move from one point to another. Also, the user journey determines a lot of opportunities, user behavior, and steps a user takes to complete a goal.
- Information: Focuses on what information on a page would be there, and what information is required to take a certain action using that a user navigates through the app. A designer needs to think about how much information should be required, and how much information is too much. Avoid mentioning too much or too little information that would aid an action.
- Architecture: This phase is more inclined towards how the information would be organized, making it easy for users to move through the application. Navigation is the key to using the app, good and clear application architecture is necessary. As a designer, you need to think about how to organize content and what would make the navigation simple for users.
- Visual: This is the most concrete level of this framework, where after finalizing the flows, navigation, and information it’s time to focus on the aesthetics of the application. Visual elements like color, typography, and imagery are added to enhance the look and feel of the product.
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Conclusion
Design frameworks are the less complex steps taken toward achieving a good end product. All the above-mentioned frameworks were the top 10 best UX design frameworks and these frameworks are a benchmark that can be taken as a reference to work on your projects. These frameworks will help designers navigate the design process, make informed decisions, and ensure that the resulting products or services meet user needs and expectations. Hope this article helps you know and explore something new, keep learning!
FAQs on UX Design Frameworks
1. What are the best UX Design Frameworks?
There are numerous UX Design Frameworks but here are the Top 5 UX Design Frameworks-
- The Design Thinking Framework
- The Double Diamond Framework
- The Lean UX Framework
- The Agile UX Framework
- The BASIC Framework
2. Why do we need UX Design Frameworks?
We need UX design frameworks because they help us create better user experiences. These frameworks provide us with a structured approach to design, so we know what steps to follow and what activities to do. They help us understand our users, their needs, and their behaviors, which is extremely important for making designs that they will love.
3. Can I combine multiple UX design frameworks?
Absolutely! Designers have the flexibility to mix and match elements from different frameworks to create a customized approach that fits their specific needs and it is possible to combine elements from multiple frameworks to create a customized approach that suits your specific needs. Many designers actually do this and come up with their own unique hybrid approach.