My Design Process

As a UX Designer with a strong focus on User-centered design (UCD), I believe in a collaborative and iterative design process that prioritizes user needs. Here’s a breakdown of the key steps I follow:

1. Discovery & Research:

• Understanding the Problem: I begin by immersing myself in the project goals and business objectives. This involves stakeholder interviews, competitor analysis, and market research to gain a holistic understanding of the challenge.
  
• User Research: Empathy is key. Conducting user research through methods like user interviews, surveys, usability testing, and ethnographic studies to understand user needs, pain points, and behaviours. Both Quantitative and Qualitative methods. Define ‘real problem statement(s)‘ once the users are in the loop.
  
• Assumptions: A key for me is to understand what is an assumption and what has data/evidence and facts behind it, so that assumptions can be grouped and treated as such and validating them as required. We are not the ‘User’.

2. Define & Analyse:

• Persona Development: Based on research, I create user personas that represent key user groups. This helps me empathize with user needs and tailor solutions accordingly. I have a special interest in persona development that cover accessibility and believe that mental models are a key to get right in Persona’s.
  
• Information Architecture & User Flows: I develop a clear information architecture (IA) to organize content and user flows that map user journeys through the product or service.

3. Ideation & Design:

• Brainstorming & Sketching: This is where my creativity thrives! I facilitate brainstorming sessions with stakeholders and team members to generate a wide range of ideas. Low-fidelity sketches and prototypes help us explore potential solutions quickly.
• Wireframing & Prototyping: Based on the chosen concept, I create mid-fidelity wireframes and interactive prototypes to test user interactions and gather feedback.
• Back to problem statement(s): It is always good to revisit the problem statement(s) to always focus on the users needsduring the design process.

4. Validation & Iteration:

• Usability Testing: Usability testing with real users is crucial. I observe user behaviour and collect feedback to identify usability issues and refine the design iteratively.
• Data Analysis & Refinement: I analyse quantitative and qualitative data from user testing to identify patterns and areas for improvement. I do synthesis to show results and directions. The design is then iterated upon based on the findings.

5. Implementation & Launch:

• Design Handoff: I create comprehensive design documentation, including style guides, asset libraries, and user interface (UI) specifications, to ensure a smooth handover to the development team. I have a great ability to talk to developers on their level with my knowledge of development and standards. I prefer walking through the handing off with the technical team and stakeholders.
• Post-Launch Evaluation: The work doesn’t stop at launch. I track key performance indicators (KPIs) and user feedback to identify areas for further iteration. I also work with live A/B testing to optimise imagery, labels and content. Confirming meeting the user problem statements or to do further work to learn and improve further.