Tools change (I'm looking at you, AI). The process remains the same.
This is my design process under ideal conditions.
Explore & Discover
Who are my users, and what problem are they trying to solve? What data can I dig up? Are there experts I can tap into? Who (or what) is my competition, and what can I learn from them—both the good and the please-don’t-do-that? ChatGPT and Gemini have been amazing additions to this part of the process.
Find Opportunities
What pain points have surfaced? Am I iterating on an existing product or building from scratch? How can I make my users' lives easier? Where’s the opportunity to create a little unexpected delight? And most importantly—how do I measure success?
Sketch, mockup, and share
Time to bring ideas to life. Whether it’s quick paper sketches, whiteboarding sessions, detailed wireframes, or high-fidelity mockups, this stage is all about shaping the vision and getting feedback from stakeholders and fellow designers.
Prototype & Test
Depending on the project, I might spin up a functional HTML prototype or a clickable Figma model. These aren’t pixel-perfect or dev-ready (yet), but they’re invaluable for demonstrations and user testing. Intuition < User Feedback < Intuition + User feedback.
Iterate, iterate, iterate
Once testing wraps up, I finalize designs and prep for dev handoff. But the work doesn’t stop at launch—post-release, I analyze data, gather user feedback, and refine as needed. Because great UX is never done—it evolves.