Design is an Evolutionary Process

Darwin’s theory of evolution says that small changes over generations, accumulate over time to create substantial change. Design has a similar process called iteration. Iteration is one of the most significant processes in UX Design.

Iteration should take place at various stages in your design process. This can be in your pen and paper sketches through to your comps and indeed at various points in a live product.

At STV where I work, we are about to launch an iteration of the Article Display Page. This is the first of many iterations over the coming month we are going to A-B test. We expect to see our small changes improve Click-Through Rates and subsequently, Session Times and Page Views.

It’s very important that you can measure the effectiveness or otherwise of your iterations. This is because iteration is fundamentally a learning process. As I said at the outset, you’re not expected to get everything right first time. A successful iteration process should give you a deeper understanding of your design and your audience – a deeper understanding that provides answers, more questions and more intelligent designs… and so the cycle continues.

I’ll write a follow up post illustrating the changes we made and the outcomes of our iterations. In the meantime, you should read what Jared Spool had to say on Iteration.