It is very easy to be stuck with only one design. Or come up with many designs and get too attached with it. Design critiques can also be hard sometimes. Moreover, with rapid prototyping it is easier to miss out the details in the designs.  

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In such situations I like to"Break my design".

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Before I show the designs to my team , I like to run through my designs with possible tasks of the users and see where my design breaks or could be made better. The catch here is to not select just any tasks, but :

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• The most important and critical tasks of the user which they would accomplish with the designs

• Doing the above tasks in different scenarios e.g, when the user is in a hurry or in a different environment like noisy airports.

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This helps in two ways:

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• Firstly , it makes the designs more robust.

• Secondly, when you start seeing loopholes in your design it will make you less detached with your designs.

• Thirdly, it will help in designing for details. 

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Why design for details?

 

Complex software applications, require us to think deeply about every possible user interaction. Taking a dive into the designs also help in communicating them to the development team who are wired to think about multiple user scenarios before starting their implementation. Being thorough also gains their trust that the designs have not been made on the fly. 

 

It is also good to sit with the development team or the product manager and think about the details. Keeping them in the loop helps in better collaboration, and yes, many a times the development team help in coming up with good ideas and scenarios which we could have been missed.

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Example:

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The following example are from the project, YPM - Project Management Tool , and how I try to go into the details of it and break my own designs: