Making the complex beautifully clear

When creating an experience, whether it includes a website, a mobile app, or an entire branding system, there are fundamental ingredients that go into making a positive solution. Consistent consideration of the functional, emotional, and cognitive qualities, all within the broader context of an experience, is paramount to making an experience that serves the intended audiences well. 

As a designer, it is a mindset that must always be 'on'. Without a doubt, process and activities can drive toward solving a problem, but it's up to the designer to ensure solutions, while exquisite in every detail, solve both the user and the business challenges.

process

Every project is different and no single process will consistently yield the best solution, but that said, there are general steps that can be followed. The steps shown here are flexible and are adapted to each project’s unique requirements and context. It's important to understand that creating the very best products, or brand systems, is a journey that requires continual thought and efforts.

Discover is about understanding the problem and context. During this phase, it's about gathering information about customer needs, business goals, and technical constraints. Activities include user and stakeholder interviews, heuristic evaluations, customer profiles, workflow analysis, competitive audit, and technical assessment. 

Strategy is about truly understand the problem and an approach towards solving it. It's a time to set what we know about the problem being solved, and form a hypothesis about the solution. Early concept testing can drive iteration. Activities may include: concept design, storyboards, importance-difficulty matrix, needs prioritization, vision exhibits, and a design brief.

Design is based on strategy. This is the time for broad exploration of design solutions against the well defined problem. The work can begin with low fidelity flow charts, site maps, and wireframes, and then move toward creation of multiple high fidelity designs. The process requires full engagement from all members of the team, as informed critique can often be the essential driver towards the strongest work coming forward.

Build is the phase where the design comes to life. Whether using Agile of Waterfall methodologies, the smart collaboration between engineers, designers, content producers, and stakeholders is critical for success. As with all phases, continuous testing should be done to validate, or invalidate, the design in implementation.

Analysis is the careful examination of how a solution performs against the objectives and desired results. Additionally, this is another chance for new learnings to be revealed. Activities can include quantitative and qualitative measures such as NPS, performance data analysis, and user interviews.

Because successful products and brands continuously grow and evolve, this process is perpetual. Some iterations of the process may take only a few days, for larger iterations, it can take months. The critical action is to consistently work to improve the customer's experience.