Approach

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This outlines the approach I take to find the most appropriate solution for every design problem.

The process is not linear and some steps may be skipped depending on the project needs.

Define Why

I define how this project or feature aligns to the goals of the business, what the use cases are, who the users are and ultimately ensure that I have a deep understanding of why a particular project is being worked on. This is a critical part in the process because:

  1. It illustrates what is being built to help achieve the overall business’s vision.

  2. If you do not know what you are building, how are you going to find the correct solution?

Research

I conduct many types of research to help inform the problem that has been defined.

  • Review existing quantitative data to help gain insights about the problem.

  • Document and analyze analogous and competitive software research. Understand how others have solved this problem and gain inspiration on how to improve.

  • Review the existing product to see how this may fit in to the overall ecosystem and architecture.

Ideate

Ideation is the part in the process that I find the most creative and enjoyable. I take on the concept that no idea is a bad one. I explore all of the ways I can think of or have found to solve the problem. I do this for both UX and UI solutions. Therefore, the product of this may be sketches, user flows or wireframes. I analyze these ideas and narrow down the options based on which ones are the strongest.

Test and Iterate

After ideation, I show my design or designs to many different groups of people. If I am doing user testing, I will create a research document to help outline what my goals are, who I am going to talk with and a brief script. I will create any design deliverables needed to conduct research including prototypes and wireframes. From testing, I will conclude my key insights, iterate and test again or move forward to final implementation.

Implement

I will finalize the solution and send deliverables to engineering including InVision inspect for UI specs, flow charts to map out edge cases and GIFs to show animation. Before engineers ship a feature, I am involved in QAing the design to ensure that what is being released is held up to high design standards.

Monitor

I am a cheerleader for post release monitoring. I want to understand how the team and I measured up against our key performance indicators (KPIs) so that we can learn what worked and celebrate it or what did not work and learn from it.