Low-Code Platform Requirements for Supporting a Design Thinking Approach

Executive Brief:

Identify the platform capabilities required to implement an iterative, user-centric approach to app design and development

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Design thinking is quickly entering the lexicon of IT leaders. Just a few years ago, the approach was largely confined to industrial design and product design circles. However, enterprises looking to differentiate themselves through custom software development have found design thinking a highly effective means of identifying the right problems to solve, ideating the most impactful solutions to those problems; and iteratively developing solutions that deliver the desired outcomes for their users and business.

Recognizing the value of the approach, Gartner made Design Thinking Support a key product criteria in its “2017 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise High-Productivity Application Platform as a Service.” This was an important step in establishing the connection between high-productivity/low-code platforms and design thinking. However, not all platforms share the same philosophy, or were designed from the ground up to promote core design thinking principles like user-centricity, business-IT collaboration, and rapid iteration.

This executive brief is designed to help guide IT leaders in their evaluation of low-code platforms. You will discover key platform capabilities for supporting a design thinking approach, so you can ensure that your teams deliver applications that are deemed relevant, usable, and desirable by users, and thus realize their intended business objectives.

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Design Thinking: A Brief Overview

IDEO, a design consultancy which adapted design thinking for business purposes in the early 1990s, defines design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”

The design thinking process calls for a high degree of empathy for end users to understand their needs and identify the right problem to solve; a creative, test-and-learn approach to new ideas; and constant iteration toward optimal outcomes. While there are variations in how it’s implemented, a design thinking approach is typically comprised of five stages:

Empathize Develop a deep understanding of users, their behaviors, and motivations. Because people often don’t know, or can’t articulate, these things explicitly, understanding emerges through observing users in context to identify patterns, ask questions, and challenge assumptions.

DefineCreate an actionable problem statement to define the right challenge to address, as well as the set of needs that are important to fulfill. This statement is continuously tested, validated, and refined (or re-defined) throughout the process.

IdeateLeverage techniques such as brainstorming, mind mapping, sketching, or paper prototyping to go wide and brainstorm as many ideas as possible. Most ideas will be discarded, but this process helps the team to narrow in on the most impactful solution.

PrototypeCreate prototypes or even working software to put something into users’ hands and begin to collect feedback. The explorative process of prototyping makes the team think deeply and ask the right questions—in a way that abstract documents can’t.

TestLearn from users’ experience, collecting feedback to uncover new insights and rapidly iterate toward the desired outcomes. Repeat the process as needed until reaching a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Note: these stages aren’t linear. Teams can jump back to the beginning at any point to uncover new user insights, reframe the problem, and continue development with a renewed sense of “why”.

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Low-Code Platform Capabilities that Support Design Thinking

Now that we have established a basic understanding of design thinking, we can outline the essential capabilities a low-code platform must have to effectively support the approach.

While empathy is a crucial first step in design thinking, it’s important to keep users and their needs front and center through the entire process. In the context of software development, this is best accomplished by enabling end users and business stakeholders to actively participate in the process, and collaborate closely with the development team to design and build the application.

While virtually every low-code platform touts productivity advantages over traditional approaches, fewer have been architected from the ground up to embed business-IT collaboration in each step of the application lifecycle. These capabilities help ensure that solutions fully realize their intended outcomes—both in terms of user benefits and business objectives.

Business-IT collaboration

• Social collaboration Social collaboration tools create a shared space for your entire team to communicate and stay up-to-date with the project. In the context of design thinking, the team can share and collaborate on artifacts (e.g. personas and journey maps), as well as solicit feedback through polls.

• Instant app sharingCollaboration is further enhanced with the ability to preview and share live working apps instantly. This enables end users to see, and react to, the app early and often in the process, encouraging continuous feedback and rapid iteration.

• User feedback loopEmbedded user feedback widgets (see Figure 1) enable users to provide instant feedback directly within an application. Feedback is categorized as ideas, bugs, or enhancements, and includes commentary from the user along with metadata captured automatically by the platform. A closed loop brings feedback directly into the development environment, facilitating continuous iteration.

Figure 1

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• Common visual languageBecause they’re easily understood by the entire team, visual models facilitate ongoing collaborationbetween developers and the business. At any point—even early in the process—they can sit together todiscuss and review functionality to gather feedback, validate assumptions, and identify improvements.

Visual, low-code developmentThe success of the design thinking approach hinges upon the ability of cross-functional teams to collaboratively identify, design, and build the most impactful solution. One of the biggest obstacles to achieving the required collaboration is the use of low-level programming languages. Because code can only be understood by other programmers, it perpetuates the gap between the development team and the business stakeholders and end users for which they’re creating an application.

Low-code platforms employ visual, model-driven development techniques (see Figure 2) that enable small, cross-functional teams to iteratively design and build applications. Visual models are used to define an application’s user interfaces, data model, and logic, minimizing or even eliminating the need to write code.

The big advantage of low-code platforms is that they marry the benefits of prototyping with the need for accelerated delivery timeframes. Prototypes can either be discarded without a big investment of time and money, or carried forward, forming the basis of the actual finished application. In the latter scenario, the team can extend the prototype with complex logic, integrate it with other systems, and deploy it at scale. Because you don’t have start from scratch once you enter the development phase, time to value is reduced significantly.

• Rapid prototypingDevelopers and even businessdomain experts can quicklyconstruct functional prototypesfor validation with users. Pullingfrom a variety of reusabletemplates and components,they can assemble screens, andbegin building the app’s logicand data model, without creatingeverything from scratch.

• Rapid iterationBecause development is so fast,and apps can be previewedinstantly, low-code platformsenable rapid iteration, a hallmarkof design thinking. Developerscan make changes in real timebased on user feedback, iteratingcontinuously toward the desiredresults.

Figure 2

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Design thinking promotes creativity as a means of solving new and often wicked business problems. What hinders this approach from a software development standpoint is the need to repeatedly build the same functionality or common UI patterns.

Low-code platforms further accelerate development of prototypes and applications by providing a marketplace of reusable UI elements, functional components, and connectors. This allows your developers to focus on building and iterating on new app designs and functionality, rather than reinventing the wheel. Certain platforms also offer a private app store for sharing and reuse of company-specific intellectual property across multiple, autonomous teams.

• UI ElementsThe platform should provide an out-of-the-box pattern library of professionally designed, ready-to-use UI elements, including navigation layouts, page templates, building blocks, and widgets. In addition, your UX resources should be able to define a company-specific pattern library and design language (see Figure 3) for use within the platform. Reusable UI components enable your team to quickly assemble and iterate on app designs, while ensuring consistent use of UI best practices.

• Functional ComponentsThe platform should also include a variety of functional and technical components, such as authentication, import/export, messaging, and scheduling services. Particularly in the development phase, this ensures that developers don’t have to repeatedly rebuild the same common functionality and can focus on solving new problems.

• ConnectorsLastly, there should be pre-built connectors to common systems (e.g. SAP, Salesforce, Oracle) and cloud services (e.g. IoT, AI, machine learning). These connectors enable developers to leverage data from existing systems, while easily incorporating emerging technologies without needing specialized knowledge in these areas.

Reusable components

Figure 3

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Integrated, user-friendly agile project management

• Create a shared project space for your entire team and define individual roles (e.g. product owner, scrum master, developer, user)

• Collaborate with business stakeholders to capture, refine and prioritize user stories; plan sprints (see Figure 4) and future releases; and manage your backlog

• Automate functional tests tied to user stories, reducing the testing cost and complexity typically associated with iterative development

• Iterate continuously with integrated user feedback that’s brought into the project portal, where it can be vetted and assigned to sprints for implementation

Many enterprises leverage design thinking in conjunction with the agile methodology. Whereas design thinking is an approach for finding the right problem to solve, agile is an approach for building the right solution to that problem. Thus, once the team emerges from the Prototype stage with a clear idea of the intended solution, they should be able to transition seamlessly into an agile development project.

To support this end-to-end process, look for a low-code platform with built-in agile project management capabilities. While it may be possible to integrate with third-party tools, developer-centric tools are often quite complex to use, limiting participation of business users. An easy-to-use project portal makes it easy for the entire team to create user stories, collaborate, and communicate throughout the agile development process.

The capabilities highlighted above are most germane to design thinking, but many low-code platforms offer additional features for building, deploying, and managing a portfolio of apps at scale. Be sure to factor these capabilities into your evaluation, particularly if you’re looking to make a strategic platform decision and support large-scale deployments.

Figure 4

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CIO magazine recently called design thinking “the secret to digital success.” The publication writes that adoption by enterprises is surging, as these organizations look to deliver robust, user-friendly products and services in support of their digital business strategies.

There is ample data to suggest that this approach works. In fact, there is a direct correlation between design focus and business performance. According to the Design Value Index, design-led companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 211 percent, marking the third consecutive year that the index has shown an excess of 200 percent over the S&P.

Low-code platforms can help facilitate a design thinking approach. Ultimately, this requires much more than the visual development capabilities touted by most low-code vendors. It requires an integrated platform that supports the entire application lifecycle, with capabilities that promote user-centricity, rapid iteration, and business-IT collaboration at each step in the process. Together, the right platform and approach can help ensure better outcomes for both your users and your business.

Conclusion

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Learn more at Mendix.com

To learn more about high-productivity / low-code platforms and which is right for your organization, download the following analyst reports:

Gartner 2017 Magic Quadrant for High Productivity Application Platform as a Service

The Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms For AD&D Pros, Q4 2017