Understanding Our Design Process for Effective Development

We are often asked about our design and development process. So we put together this little guide on how we approach projects. This document will change and evolve since our process does the same.

Our design process

This document provides an overview of our working design process. Its aim is to bring focus and alignment when discussing design by highlighting the fidelity, purpose, and goal at each stage.

1. Feedback

Purpose: Suggest and propose new flows, features, and design requests.

Goal: Prioritise improvements and enhancements correlating with the user and business needs.

Deliverable: A user story.

Stories can’t move on without —

• A user need or enhancement.
• A visionary or strategic goal.
• Approved, prioritized, and allocated by a team/project lead.

2. Requirements

• The purpose of the new design.
• The goals and objectives of the design.
• Benefits to the user (at least two).
• Scope and fidelity are required.
• Time and resource constraints.
• Target audience(s).
• Metrics (How will we know the proposed design is a success).
• Tech support and requirements (where applicable).
• Dependencies, unknowns, and “Do not” (where applicable).
• Benchmarks (where applicable).

3. Discovery (R&D)

Purpose: Research, exploration, and conceptualization of an idea or prediction.

• Agreement with lead discovery is not required (+1 for experience).
• Clear documentation of findings related to requirements.
• Answers to previously identified unknowns.
• Conclusion and outcomes of the discovery phase.

4. Information Architecture (UX)

1. User test: Does the proposed flow benefit the user (minimum x2) more than what exists?
2. Business test: Does the proposed flow maintain or enhance our business needs/requirements?
3. Brand test: Does the proposed flow maintain the holistic direction of the brand?
4. Legacy test: Does the proposed flow create any legacy, technical, or design debt?
5. Feasibility test: Design review and green light with development (where applicable).

5. Design (Visual)

• Match or enhance global style-guide.
• In line with brand assets.
• Align with information architecture.
• Are we communicating the purpose?
• Copywriting check.
• Documented feedback and review.
• Lead (and/or peer) review and approval.

6. Prototype (Interaction)

Purpose: To refine, enhance, and improve the user experience via interaction and testing.

Goal: Delights and directs purposefully in correlation with project goals and brand guidelines.

Deliverable: Figma, code prototype, keynote (whatever is relevant).

Stories can’t move on without —

• Alignment or enhancement of wireframes/storyboards.
• Facilitating the core purpose within requirements.
• Maintain the high visual design execution.
• The clarity in interaction and guidance outline.
• Internal validation/testing across teams.
• Lead (and/or peer) review and approval.

7. User testing (Feedback)

Purpose: Gather feedback, highlight improvements, and iterate until happy customers.

Goal: Quash bugs, iterate towards intuition, and make people happy.

Deliverable: Integrating and beta tests with customers (subset or all).

Stories can’t move on without —

• Happy team (metric TBD)
• Happy customers (align with feedback/metrics TBD).
• Lead approval/sign-off.

8. Delivery (Review)

Happy team (designers/developers have everything they need to make it live).

Scheduled check-in and support for development.

Feedback/review for future improvement (on process and product where applicable).