10 New Methods: Design, UX and Research

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Structuring Information

Information Architecture

Information Architecture is the art of organising and labelling content so people can actually find and use it. Think of it as the invisible scaffolding holding your digital product together. When IA works well, nobody notices. When it fails, everyone gets lost.

When to use it:

• You're building a new product and need to define structure before wireframing
• Users can't find features they need despite them being in the product
• Your navigation has grown organically and no longer makes sense

Card Sorting

Card Sorting lets you watch how users naturally group information. Hand participants a set of cards - each labelled with a feature or content topic - and ask them to organise them into groups. Open sorting lets them create categories. Closed sorting tests your existing structure. Either way, you get real data on mental models.

When to use it:

• You're designing or redesigning navigation and want evidence, not opinions
• Your team disagrees about where features belong
• You need to validate category labels before building them into the product

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Design Feedback

Design Critique (Brainstorming)

Design Critique (Brainstorming) structures the feedback session that usually devolves into "I don't like the colour." Instead of open-ended reactions, participants brainstorm around specific questions, then compare solo and group responses. The format separates personal taste from useful feedback.

When to use it:

• Your design reviews generate opinions but not actionable direction
• Junior designers get overwhelmed by unstructured feedback
• You want to involve non-designers in critique without losing focus

Design Critique (Four Causes)

The Four Causes Design Critique borrows from Aristotle. It breaks feedback into four rounds: Material (what is the design made of?), Formal (how does it flow?), Efficient (can we actually build this?), and Final (does it serve the user's real purpose?). Each round keeps the team focused on one dimension at a time.

When to use it:

• Feedback keeps jumping between "this looks wrong" and "this costs too much"
• You want a complete critique that covers aesthetics, feasibility, and purpose
• You're running a critique with a cross-functional group and need structure

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Setting Visual Direction

Brand Brief

A Brand Brief documents the core elements of your brand - mission, personality, target audience, values, and visual identity - in a single reference document. It's the thing your team and external partners point to when they ask "who are we?"

When to use it:

• You're working with a design agency and need to communicate brand direction
• Your marketing output feels inconsistent across channels
• You're launching a new product line and need brand guardrails

Mood Boards

A Mood Board is a curated visual collage - images, colours, type samples, textures - that communicates how something should feel before anyone designs how it should look. It's deliberately imprecise, which is the point. Direction first, pixel-perfection later.

When to use it:

• You're starting a new design project and need to align on aesthetic direction
• Stakeholders keep asking "can you just show me something?" too early
• You want designers to explore without committing to a single comp

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Mapping Experiences

Service Blueprint

A Service Blueprint maps the full experience of a service - what the customer sees (frontstage), what happens behind the scenes (backstage), and the support processes underneath. It's the method that makes invisible work visible and shows where breakdowns actually happen.

When to use it:

• Customer experience breaks down at handoff points between teams
• You need to redesign a service and don't have a shared picture of how it works today
• Support costs are climbing and you need to find the root cause

User Stories

User Stories capture requirements from the user's perspective in a simple format: "As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [reason]." They're the building blocks of an agile backlog and force teams to think about who benefits from a feature and why.

When to use it:

• You're writing requirements and want to keep the focus on user value
• Developers are building features without understanding the user need behind them
• You need a consistent format for breaking work into small, deliverable chunks

User Story Mapping

User Story Mapping arranges user stories along two axes: the horizontal axis shows the user's journey from left to right, and the vertical axis shows priority from top to bottom. The result is a visual backlog that shows both the big picture and the release slices.

When to use it:

• Your flat backlog has lost all sense of context and flow
• You need to define an MVP by drawing a line across the map
• Stakeholders need to see how individual stories fit into the overall experience

User Feedback

User Feedback covers the structured collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative input from real users. It's not just "asking people what they think" - it's designing the right questions, choosing the right channel, and turning raw responses into prioritised actions.

When to use it:

• You've shipped a feature and need to know if it's working
• Your product decisions are based on internal assumptions, not user input
• NPS or satisfaction scores are dropping and you need to understand why

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What's Next

The Information Architecture → Card Sorting → User Story Mapping sequence works well when you're structuring a new product. Define the IA, validate it with card sorting, then map the stories that will bring it to life.

For design feedback, run a Mood Board session before jumping into critique. It's much easier to give useful feedback when everyone agrees on direction first.

Got a method you'd like to see added? Let us know on the feedback page.