Two Paths To Determine a Direction for a Design

The following questions are representative of the two paths in User Experience to determine the direction for a design.

Architecture

1. What are users’ primary goals, and how can they achieve them using the application?
2. How do users get from place to place?
3. What rules exist that users have to work around?
4. How are product features and components branded?
5. What is the optimal scope of the application’s feature set?
6. How does the UI roadmap and product roadmap position the application?
7. What is the application’s search mechanism?

Interaction

1. What layout pattern would work best?
2. Which features and information are of higher importance, and how do I draw users’ attention to them?
3. How should I incorporate the user feedback I am getting from user research, user surveys, and formative and summative usability testing?
4. What behaviors occur on dragging and dropping, on mouse over, etc?
5. How can I communicate the strengths of a feature or application?
6. How can I satisfy users’ primary needs and support the tasks that let them achieve their goals?
7. How can I draw on users’ intuition to get them to the next step?
8. How can I ensure users are aware they’re performing a subtask that’s part of a greater task they’ve started?
9. How can I use the UI components that are available to me—such as grids, tabs, and panels?
10. How can I maintain consistency throughout the application?