My design process is a classic double diamond with a discovery phase where team agrees on direction, and an iterative design phase where team signs off on a solution. User research runs parallel, end to end.
Discovery
Tech stack and product roadmap ground discovery. Research is done in the market and around our audience: competitive landscape, best practices, and products built for our ICP. It shapes candidates tailored to our target, which are reviewed with team to pick a direction for design iteration.
Design
After discovery, rounds of design iteration are run with team and stakeholders. Designs are refined with each iteration until they can be tested before delivery.
- Iteration starts from the direction agreed in discovery, with constraints already mapped.
- Design iterations run in rounds of team review and feedback, sharpening the work until everyone agrees to move on.
- The agreed direction is put in front of real users and tested before being shipped.
- Refined designs are then delivered to engineering, with design support through build and QA.
User research
Research runs alongside the process: at each stage there are methods that can resolve the team's doubts with real user feedback. Where there are none, established patterns can be enough.
- Ideas & concepts / Interviews, concept tests, card sorts and tree tests — what problem are we actually solving, and is this worth building at all?
- Content / Copy tests, five-second tests, comprehension and naming — does the wording land the way we mean it, and do our words match theirs?
- Design & prototype / First-click and preference tests, design surveys, live prototype tasks — do they start in the right place, and can they complete the journey?
- Before release / Live website tasks, usability passes, accessibility checks and unmoderated studies — does it hold up on the real build, and does it work for everyone?