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UI/UX Design: Project Ecosystems
An extensive guide on project ecosystems, what a project typically involves, and how to get a firm grasp on what you’ll actually be doing.
Overview
Whether you’re starting off a brand new project, or coming into an existing one, you’ll more than likely need to have a keen understanding of its particular ecosystem.
Today, we’ll be examining:
- What project ecosystems are
- The four major project categories
- How ecosystems can affect your project, and
- How to design your product to work well within its ecosystem.
What is a project ecosystem?
Generally speaking, no project exists in a vacuum. This is to say that there are a variety of tangential processes and considerations that must be taken into account when approaching your project.
A project’s ecosystem is everything that surrounds, influences, and impacts a project’s functionality, design, development, and final outcome.
The following is a list of questions that I like to ask in order to get a better idea of both what the project is, and what its ecosystem will look like:
- What kind of project is it?
- What are the project’s goals & objectives?
- Who are the intended user of the end-product?
- What are all of the user types and work roles that
will interact with the product? - What departments are involved?
- What are the user requirements?
- What are the business requirements?
- What systems and technology will be used to build it?
- What constraints is your project operating under?
- What other technologies does your project rely on to deliver results?
All of these questions can be used to get a much better picture of what your project’s ecosystem actually is, and how these factors will more than likely impact your project as you design for it.
