There’s more to User Experience Design than mockups and prototypes. Compiled below are the time-honored tools and techniques of our trade, passed on from generation to generation. If you are unfamiliar with a technique, you can read a brief description or follow links to learn more from experienced professionals. Are there missing tools or techniques? Let me know, and I’ll add them!
The tools are organized alphabetically within the Lean UX framework of Think > Make > Check. During the Think phase, you research and, well, think to better understand your users and the problems you are trying to solve to come up with hypotheses to test. Then you Make the quickest representation of a potential solution you can. Finally, you Check the solution against your hypotheses and learn.
Testing your site or app with real users doesn’t mean you have to hunt them down in person. With nearly ubiquitous access to the Internet, you can easily observe and interview users interacting with your website or app from their own home.