My Process
LEADERSHIP | USER EXPERIENCE
Research
I believe all good product design starts with a deep understanding of our users and their unique problems and needs. During this part of the process, a research brief is created to determine the goals and methodologies to collect insights. This could be contextual inquiries, surveys, competitor analysis or interviews.
Ideation
Design is problem solving. In this stage, I like to come up with several solutions using insights from user research. Design thinking workshops are a great way to bring together a cross-functional team and work through solutions together. I have facilitated anywhere from one hour sessions to multi-day. This sets the stage for what we want to prototype and test.
Prototyping
Now it’s time to bring the idea to life with an interactive prototype. Prototypes are a great way to test initial concepts with users and get stakeholder buy-in. Discovering awkward interactions or confusing copy in a user testing session before a feature gets built can save frustration and engineering churn.
Validate
Validating (or invalidating) assumptions early and often with users ensures you are building the right product or feature. By getting feedback early, you can identify and correct points of frustration and confusion to produce a better end product.
Design Delivery
Now we have a validated experience, it’s time to break it down. Collaborating with product and engineers, we break down the experience into smaller deliverables, focusing on the final details of the feature and creating design specs.