Design process

Most of my early career has focused on refining and optimizing a single design aspect of a product at a time. However, over time, I have started to adopt a more Holistic design approach - taking into account all aspects of a product, rather than just focusing on one area at a time.

This enables us to always have the big picture in mind, allowing for a more design-driven development, which in turn results in a more user-centered design.

Image credit: Tactile

After trying many different digital tools for my design process, I’ve settled with a select few depending on the design stage.

During the ideation stage, there’s always the trusty whiteboard, accompanied by many different coloured post-it-notes and the “Magic clock” - keeping everyone focused on the task.

After the brainstorming is complete, the ideas are quickly sketched on paper, before being moved over to Figma - where everything is finished off, from low, to high fidelity wireframes.

Having tried Waterfall, Kanban and Scrum methodologies, the Scrum process is what allows us to quickly create a concept and and ship a tested product. Especially by incorporating both Lean and Agile Ux, depending on the project type and stage.

The Scrum process we use is fairly straight forward, with a few exceptions, and is primarily driven by the KISS principle - “Keep It Simple, Stupid!”.

Besides that, the book “Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days” by Jake Knapp, is our main driver.

No matter the product stage, we always prioritize user interviews, conducting user tests as well.

Talking with users directly during the whole process is one of the most important, but unfortunately, very overlooked parts by many companies. Since I’ve worked mainly with B2B companies, in my experience, this always proves to be crucial. The clients love it as well, feeling heard and included!

Before starting to wireframe, I like to take some time and prepare a detailed information architecture. This helps the team to once again see the big picture and how everything works together.

During this stage, we start to place all our ideas into a very simplified UI without much colour, or detailed elements. This helps us get a much better sense of the final product, and we sometimes create very simple prototypes to test and clarify user flows that we’re not 100% sure about.

Hopefully, by this stage, all the main areas of the product have been addressed, and most of the design problems and user pain points are solved.
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In the ideal world, the product could be launched and left alone; however, improvements can always be made, and new user pain points will inevitably arise. Even so, if the whole project was done with a holistic approach, keeping in mind all aspects of the product, it is very easy and safe to add new features, and keep the core design.

After helping create the first Design System I ever worked on, I saw firsthand the impact they can have both on users (consistency) and products (faster development). A Design System that, at its core, solves all aspects, such as future-proofing, accessibility, and consistency, can last for years. This ensures very fast future problem solving, development, and cuts time and resources, while keeping consistency accross different designs, helping current and new users with easier onboarding.
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This is still one of my favourite parts of Product Design to work with, especially thinking of different sides of user Psychology and their perception of Ui elements.

No matter what you're working on, sometimes it's nice to just put on your headphones and create new components 😊.