8 solutions for implementing your UX projects remotely

Remote work has become a central activity in the organizational priorities of modern businesses. The confinement period we are experiencing has pushed, even forced, many organizations to quickly adapt to this working method. Thanks to Insign's historical presence across multiple sites (Paris, Lyon, Tournon-sur-Rhône, Los Angeles, and Dakar), we had already implemented remote working methods to coordinate the various teams.

However, the exceptional situation pushed us to challenge ourselves, especially to continue working with our clients. We needed to find quick and effective solutions, particularly in the field of UX, where it's crucial to provide an optimal user experience by receiving regular feedback, organizing workshops, or conducting collaborative work sessions. To tackle this unprecedented situation, we tested new platforms and also adapted the use of tools we were already employing.

↳ Klaxoon: the online solution for your workshops

Before sketching, there is an entire ideation process: finding an idea, creating a mood board, conceptualizing, and imagining a customer journey. It is often beneficial to do this work collaboratively, sometimes even with the client. We tested Klaxoon for you, a highly effective online solution for this kind of use. In a shared digital space that is updated in real-time, various tools allow you to create boards, sticky notes, charts, and interactive word clouds. It’s like simulating a virtual space where you can cover the walls as you like and rearrange your ideas at will. You can even designate a moderator for a session to make the use more structured if many people are participating. Therefore, Klaxoon is perfect for any ideation work or mood board creation.

↳ Figma: the collaborative tool for your sketching phases

Gathered around a table, paper and pencil in hand, ready to sketch all the ideas that come to mind. It's the ideal setup for brainstorming an interface. Fortunately, there are some handy tools for remote work. Replacing paper and pencil, Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD need no introduction. When it comes to collaborative work, Figma and Adobe XD remain the most comprehensive.

Figma has even based its concept on this challenge. You can share files, collaborate in real time, and even view a colleague’s screen directly from the app. It’s extremely useful for quickly showing what you have in mind and adding live suggestions.

Adobe XD closely follows Figma in terms of collaborative features. Its advantage? It seamlessly integrates into the Adobe suite. Since this suite is widely used in these industries, everyone quickly finds their bearings when using XD. Moreover, you can, of course, switch from one Adobe software to another. XD dynamically supports Photoshop and Illustrator files.

↳ Miro: a tool at the intersection of sketching and communication

Finding alternatives to paper sketching might not be enough. It’s essential to communicate in a group to be truly effective. Miro appears to be an ideal tool as it allows sketching, screen sharing, and oral communication with partners simultaneously.

↳ Hybridize your everyday tools to optimize your time: Google Suite, Trello, Dropbox

There are many tools available to simplify remote sketching. However, they are not easy to start using: they need to be downloaded, and time is required to learn and become efficient with each tool. In a crisis situation, it’s crucial to optimize this time. Hence, we brainstormed and tested hybrid methods that allow sketching and sharing ideas without wasting time getting trained. How? By using and repurposing tools already widely used by many companies.

Even before discussing tools that you likely already have, let's revisit Klaxoon. Indeed, it has editing tools that can easily be used for zoning tasks. You can create geometric shapes, text zones, and color areas. Although it's not its primary purpose, it’s a clever way to optimize the tool. An entire team can complete the initial significant steps of a project.

But in other instances, we prefer to rationalize resources we already have. For example, Sketch didn’t allow us to share ideas in real-time, and we couldn’t spare the time to transition everyone to Figma or Adobe XD. So we "hacked" Google Slides. With short steps, it’s simple to achieve an optimal outcome. One slide (switch to portrait mode for a mobile format) shared with all collaborators, creating rectangles and text zones, and we quickly have a satisfying zoning task. Need to share feedback orally? No need to look for a software that does everything, just combine two different tools. In our case, we “sketched” on Google Slide and communicated via Hangouts Meet, using Hangout’s chat to share external sources.