What is the UX process? 🤔

You can google this question and you’ll probably find an answer. But the purpose of this page is to help you better understand my personal approach to the UX process.

Keep in mind, that this is just a general UX process. There are times when we can’t do all these steps due to projects having constraints and limitations, so be kind to yourself and work with your team. My process will also continue to evolve as I learn and grow as a Product Designer and as a person 😊. Let’s begin!

 1. Understand the Problem

Before you start any project, understand the problem you’re trying to solve. Do you know why we are doing this project? Who are we solving for? What problems are we trying to solve for our users? What will be the business impact?

And don’t leave it at that. Understand what the constraints and limitations are.

Keep in mind, that these questions are not for you to answer on your own. Collaborate with your team members (Stakeholders, Product Managers, and Engineers).

 2. Research

You now have a better understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve. What’s next? Depending on the project – this project could have arisen because of user research, or you have no data yet and you need to collect quantitative/qualitative data to help solve this problem.

At this stage, I always write down a list of what I want to learn that will help us work toward a solution.

Depending on your resources and time constraints, you may not be able to talk to users and conduct interviews. If you can, great! I usually write up a script and start scheduling Zoom calls with our customers, but if I don’t have access to them at the moment, I speak with the internal team to gather insight. Customer Support/Customer Success teammates are very helpful and they know a lot of what the customer pain points are.

Competitive and non-competitive research is also very valuable. What is out there on the world wide web 🌎? Test out features from your competitors, what’s working, what’s not?

3. Draw and Share Insights from Collected Data

I know it’s easy to get all excited and want to jump into designs. But hold your horses 🐴, it’s always best to share the insights you’ve gathered with the teammates who are working on this project with you. Sharing the findings with them will help them align with you and understand what the solutions will be. I’ve found that my teammates always get super pumped and excited about the project when they can see why we need to make certain decisions.

Source: Unsplash

4. Designs

Start with user flows to get a holistic view of the experience. This helps me understand which wireframes we will need.

Next, I tackle the lo-fi wireframes. Sometimes, if the designs already exist and you only need to make small updates, working off the high-fidelity designs makes sense. But keep in mind that this depends on the project. With more experience, you’ll feel more confident to make decisions on your design process.

During the design phase, communicating with the Engineers and if you can, sharing designs earlier will help them align and set expectations.

5. Test Prototypes

Testing your prototype with users or the internal teams will help validate the solution before you hand off the designs to engineers. If you’re able to test your prototypes, then 100% do it! But it’s also important to know that sometimes, there are time constraints or not enough resources to do so. This step is pretty important and shouldn’t be missed.

6. Handoff

Designs are ready for handoff! Have a handoff meeting with the Product Managers and Engineers. From my experience, doing a thorough walkthrough of tickets and the designs has been super helpful. It gives everyone a chance to align and ask questions regarding the experience.

7. Validate and Gather Feedback

This is a crucial step in this process. This helps everyone understand how the released work is performed for users. Similar to step 2 of the process, there are a variety of different ways to track and gather data:

  • Analytics This is one of the quickest ways to see how the project is performing. Are users interacting with this new feature? Have you seen an increase in revenue? Etc. As a designer, you should also be tracking the quantitative results.

  • Usability Testing I like to conduct another usability test, similar to the one I did at the start of the project. This way, I can see if we solved the user’s pain points and perhaps identify other areas we can continue improving.

  • Talk to the users who provided this feedback Want to build a relationship with your customers who provided the input? Show them that you listened and took action.

Conclusion 🎉

First off, thank you so much for taking the time to read through my UX process. Enjoy and learn from each project you tackle. Get your hands dirty and grow 🌱.

There sometimes might be constraints where you can’t do every step on here. But try your best and remind yourself of the ultimate goal: provide your users the best experience for your product.