Process & Methods
How I move from a fuzzy problem to a shipped product — an iterative loop across four phases. Research and definition inform each other, as do design and development, and the whole thing cycles as I learn.
Explore & Research
- Targeted user(s), customer interviews
- Stakeholder interviewsInternal teams · executives/founders
- Data analyticsLooker · Google Analytics · Mixpanel
- Surveys, market researchCompetition · reviews
- Documentation
Iterate & Define
- Whiteboard/sketch ideas and concepts using research dataWith product management and engineering
- PrototypingFeature flow maps · low-fi prototypes
- Present to stakeholdersInternal teams · customers, design partners · gather feedback
- Conceptual signoffFrom team leads, executives, customer
Design & Prototype
- High-end UX and UI designs of feature flows
- High-end prototypesFor visual styling · for feature functionality
- Break into components
- FeedbackPresent initial presentation internally, perhaps to customers for reaction
Develop & Test
- Working closely with engineering
- Provide styleguide on visual and functional
- Test, test, test
- Release!
- A/B test, review traffic data, etc.
A map, not a track
On a good day the work runs straight through, one to four: research leads to definition, definition to design, design to development. Clean and linear.
More often it loops. A shift in business requirements, a new goal from leadership, a competitor's move, or a piece of customer feedback can send me back a phase or two — re-researching an assumption, redefining scope, or reworking a design mid-build. Pressure comes from inside the company and from the market outside it, and the process has to flex to both.
So I treat the four phases as a map rather than a fixed track — a shared language for where we are and what's left, moved through in whatever order the problem, and the people around it, actually demand.