Serious designers have a clear sense of their own design process. They understand how to start from zero and develop ideas into something concrete that can then be validated and constructed by the team at large.
A design process is about creative problem solving. Understand the problem, then experiment to arrive at a great design solution. I differentiate between a design process and a development process, which is about execution; efficient, quantifiable, execution.
To design an interface for a technical system, you follow some basic steps regardless of whether you are creating an innovative new product, or an incremental change to an existing solution.
| Define | Understand | Create | Document |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Goals
Audience Known Constraints |
Audience Goals
Environment Opportunities Customer Journey |
Multiple Design Concepts
Evaluate the Designs Redesign Repeat |
Interactive Prototype
Annotated Wireframes Interaction Flows |
Here are a few questions I ask when designing a new technology interface:
- Who are we designing for, and do we know enough about them?
- What do they want (that our system is going to support)?
- How do we know when we (and they) are successful?
- Is this the best solution we can make given the constraints?
- Do all stakeholders and team members understand the design; are we all on the same page?
If you’d like to discuss design methodology more, or see some examples of my work, please reach out.