Design process

This design process is not a mandatory process. It’s a suggested process to help you design the best possible product.

From data to product

The design process should always have the end user in mind:

• Who is the product for?
• What will they do with the data?
• How can the product help them get what they need from the data?
• What health story is being told ?

The design process can be imagined in 3 phases:

Research and explore

In this phase, you:

• prepare and explore the data
• determine who the audience is
• get an understanding of the tasks people want to accomplish with the data
• figure out what are your best data visualization and data storytelling options to enable people to complete the data tasks

This phase should result in a “product roadmap” that details your findings and helps you go through the next phases.

Design and test

In this phase:

• you produce a solid mockup, based on findings from the research and explore phase
• we start building the product in the Infobase, based on your mockup
• if possible, we conduct usability testing to confirm the product actually helps people complete their tasks and adjust the design if necessary - this is especially important for high priority files
• all parties collaborate to get the best possible design and needed approvals
• we prepare for launch and perform some checks (code validity, accessibility, metadata, etc.)

This phase should result in launching the data product live on the Infobase.

Measure

A robust performance measurement framework is put in place to ensure a continuous improvement of the data product.

In this phase:

• web analytics and feedback are monitored
• further usability testing can be performed
• regular improvements are made to the product, as needed

In essence:

• build the right thing - something that actually addresses people’s needs
• build it the right way - use good design and test the products
• measure - make sure it actually works in real life

Product roadmap

As part of the design process, try to get all parties to discuss and align on audiences, objectives and tasks, and document the decisions. It will help you design better products that align with user needs.

We created a Data Product roadmap you can use:

• Data Product Roadmap

This roadmap covers the following:

Product roadmap

Section	What it covers
Summary	overall idea desired outcomes
Internal and external goals	audience(s) organization goals value for users user tasks
Data	data collection format data dictionary data maintenance and updates
Product development	type of product key insights from the data data visualization options mockup development product lifecycle
Impact and outcomes	performance measurement communications