Reflection of My Design Process
Sharing some thoughts regarding my own design process so far
Designers are often asked what their design process or approach to a particular process is when being interviewed, or even just when casually chatting over coffee.
I have been thinking about this question for a while now, reflecting on how I complete projects and what my hands-on experience has taught me, as well as everything I’ve learned from my peers in the industry.
Most designers are well aware of Double Diamond by the British Design Council and Design Thinking Process by Stanford d.school. These two frameworks are practically golden formulas for a lot of design practitioners, not to mention to the students who just stepped in the realm of UX. Generally speaking, there is no standard approach to tackle one project just like there is no only one way to make a certain dish. That’s why people who love foods create recipes and each recipe has slightly different methods to make the same plate.
Let’s have a look
Stage 01: Understanding
When taking on a new project, the most important step is understanding the direction that should be taken. Asking questions, reading briefs, and listening to stakeholders to determine these three main factors: Time, Context, and Resources.
Time — can change the design process in terms of how much effort can be spent on research and testing.
I want to spend as much time as possible on research and testing to ensure the best possible result; however, if time is limited, I will try to estimate a result that is as accurate as possible.
An analogy could be shooting at a goal when playing football. When doing a penalty kick at a goal, the player will have as much time as possible for aiming. However, during the normal course of the game, players will kick as soon as they see an opening with the best aim possible.
Context — the nature, scope, and requirements of the projects. Determining the definition of success in the project is important here. If I don’t do this, it will become impossible to know when I’ve finished the job. A design task might go on and on without any clear guideline of what is necessary to mark the assignment as completed so that I can move on.
Resources — knowing what is at my disposal is important for the direction. There might be people with valuable information about the project, perhaps there are components I can and should reuse or style guides I should follow.
Stage 02: Research
Once I have a good understanding of the project, I start doing my research. This can mean any number of different things depending on the nature of the project.
For example, if the design I am working on is user-facing it might be beneficial to do user interviews if time allows. Focus groups and surveys might also be used in that case.
Competitive analysis might be useful if the design is centred around a specific User Experience problem, for example, users not being able to easily navigate a particular page on a website.
If applicable, I conduct interviews and make sure to listen not just for the sake of listening, in other words, I try to find out the cause of the problems for the person I’m interviewing, not just the symptoms. After an interview, I might conduct a design activity such as Rose, Bud, Thorn to help find the underlying issues. In the entire design process, defining the problem through understanding the research is absolutely the most important among others.
Getting perspective from other people is important at this stage, to reduce my bias and prevent tunnel vision.
Feedback
Once I have conducted an initial round of research, I gather my initial assumptions and write them down (usually in the form of slides). Once I’ve gotten some relevant ideas, thoughts, and images, it’s time to get feedback.
Without validation, there is no way to know for sure if I am on the right track.
Based on this initial feedback, I would likely go back to doing more research to further refine my design.
Stage 03: Ideation
Working with the research I’ve done so far, having a good sense of what design problems I am trying to solve, I start the ideation process.
This means coming up with several different solutions to the design problems in order to explore the possibilities. The potential solutions can be a series of visual components that optimise the experience of the products, revision of existing workflow, or reconstruction of the product architecture. Once I have confidence in a solution, I test it.
Having a design system to set up and come up with rapid mock-up is always an advantage. It will inevitably save time and increase consistency.
Stage 04 [A]: Test
I conduct usability testing, using either lo-fi or medium-fi prototypes. When conducting usability testing, I conduct an interview with a relevant stakeholder. I brief them about the project, show them the relevant artifact, and have them complete certain tasks. The results of this type of test will inform me on whether the solution I am proposing actually solves the problem.
Did the results meet my expectations? If not, I ask questions to determine the cause.
The purpose of testing is not only to validate your research and design but also to learn from the missing gap between the proposed solutions and the actual problems in order to spark new ideas.
Once I’ve synthesised the results, I go back to the Ideation step to come up with more ideas based on the data I’ve gathered.
“Testing one user is 100 percent better than testing none” — Steve Krug
Stage 04 [B]: Delivery
Delivery can be very different depending on my role on the team. My delivered result might be a brief including my research outcomes (including feasible and infeasible solutions) or it might be high fidelity prototypes using Sketch or Figma.
Delivery could also be any number of different things depending on the context, and how to deliver the result might be a separate project altogether. Launching a product through bootstrap could be some designer's job though it is supposed to be done by the engineering professionals.
My experience in a proper team, designers usually come up with executable blueprints so developers can manifest the design. However, a designer’s job does not end right here. Working closely with the development team through stand-ups or meetings is a way to make sure the product development is the track.
Conclusion
Looking at my design process, you can easily find similarities with common design frameworks such as Double Diamond or Human-Centred Design.
For most beginners in the realm of UX, those frameworks are considered golden formulas. However, I’ve started to realise that these approaches do not always completely fit with every problem that you encounter. It mostly depends on the nature of the project and different priorities.
As a UX designer, you are the problem solver who involved in analysing, designing, testing, delivering, and again
These approaches might not solve the problem every time, but they give you a certain mindset — a set of tools to work with that can be applied to problems on a case by case basis.
Alrighty
This is a bit of my sharing regarding my design process. I certainly look forward to learning and grow further. This is my first UX article on Medium, any feedback or recommendations are welcome!
Thanks for reading!
[ Hi ] I am Jesse Ting, a Product Designer based in Sydney, Australia.
