Hello UX enthusiasts! We have a very interesting topic to understand today. It is Affinity Mapping in UX design. This blog is very specific to Affinity mapping and how to use it UX. I would recommend every UX design course student to go through it once.
Before we start, I want to tell you that this Affinity mapping is also known as K-J method. Do you want to know why? We need to dig into the page of history for this.
It was in 1960 when a Japanese anthropologist named Jiro Kawakita invented the Affinity mapping method and since then it became popular with the name of K-J method. That was after Kawakita’s name. Let’s now talk about this method in detail.
What is Affinity Mapping?
Affinity mapping is a visual method that UX designers follow just after completing their brainstorming or research part.
In this method, we categorize similar ideas into groups. These ideas or information come after research part.
Here’s an example for you:
I am working on a project and I have lots of user information after conducting interviews and surveys. But each user has different data that I need to categorized it first. So, I’ll make groups that easily distinguish them.
Therefore, at this point, clustering the information is the easiest option we can select. Using this we can find the steps that can help us improve user experience.
Affinity mapping can be used by both teams and individuals in the strategical phases of the design cycle. It is really a good way of enhancing our understanding of our users’ needs.
So, when is the right time to use Affinity Mapping? Here’s the list for you:
- After Brainstorming session, you can directly start affinity mapping process on gathered information.
- Problems usually come in also all stages in UX design process. So, you can consider going for K-J method especially in most complex one.
- Multiple ideas also demand for data management and this method is helpful in it.
- Creativity requires you to think outside of the box and Affinity mapping is help in it without any doubt.
Simple Steps to Create Affinity Mapping
To go through the process of affinity mapping you must follow the steps below:
Step 1: Gather information
The first and foremost step is the research phase because if this phase goes wrong then even the insights you get is basically without full information. Therefore, gathering the information is usually the priority.
Step 2: Transfer all the info on sticky notes or whiteboard
After the first step, you have got all the related information. Now is the time to write all the ideas hands-on in sticky notes. You can also go for online whiteboard tools like Miro where you can access your notes anytime.
Remember in this step, you are not grouping the ideas. You just have to write them on sticky notes and pin them on any pinboard.
Tip: Use different colors of notes so it will be easy to categorize them afterwards.
Step 3: Categorize the information
After pinning your ideas randomly on pinboard in the last step, now you will group the notes into relevant clusters in this 3rd step.
The main goal is to group data into similar themes and add some main tags to remember the general themes covered in each cluster.
You can follow these steps on whiteboards or walls, divide the portion by sticking the general heading at the top and placing your sticky notes with related information under each relevant heading. Then, for the next sticky do the same. You can add new headings or stickies if needed.
For example, notes like ‘SOS alerts’ and ‘Real-time’ location will go under “new features” theme.
Remember, if you get notes with similar ideas then it is completely normal and you can stack them together.
Step 4: Extract insights
It’s time to extract useful insights from your clustered data. A way to do this is to continue sorting. You now can group your clusters into larger groups as you move forward and find broader connections.
These sticky notes will answer the common questions related to your project, note down the ideas, questions, solutions for further use. Also take some pictures of the sticky notes wall to share with your team members.
Some apps that help with the clustering methods:
- Figma – Figma software also offer a whiteboard like Fig jam that is usually used by many designers for clustering as it offers its own sticky notes online. It provides templates for clustering.
There is a dedicated Figma course on ADMEC that covers all bolts and nuts of application. You must check it if your Figma skills are not polished.
- Miro– It is one of the most popular whiteboards, because of it easy-to-use UI In this you can create your own sticky notes, categorize them into different groups and also create links between different clusters. It also provides affinity diagram templates.
- Canva– Like above whiteboards you can use Canva’s whiteboard to build affinity mapping. There are multiple templates of various affinity diagrams. These are very much helpful to get started. Each template offers tags that you can use for keeping some notes for ideas on them.
Conclusion
So, I hope you got the concept cleared on using affinity mapping. It is an easy and effective method to extract insights from large number of ideas and data by grouping them into relatable themes.
It helps the designers like us to identify issues, strengths, features etc. We can implement this method on our wall with sticky notes or in online applications to save it for future. Clustering can be conducted in a team or by an individual. So, you are always free to start into it.
About the Author
Aditi Guleria has been an amazing student of ADMEC Multimedia Institute. She’s learning UX design online from our experts Ravi sir. So far, she has shared her knowledge on different topics. Aditi has worked on various designing projects as well. You can check Aditi’s work on Behance for a better idea of her skills.
