today I want to talk about design process and process is so important I think process is actually the difference between a professional who knows what they're doing.
hey have a structured way to solve a problem and somebody who is I guess an amateur because he's like well I'll just figure it out or I'll just give it a try and they don't know what are the steps that they're gonna take and they're not really sur.
that the outcome is well so actually I think that the process is what makes the difference between when you're just starting out and when you're you're becoming a pro so I want to share with you the process that I do literally to design anything.
this process that I'm gonna explore with you right now I use it to design website to design product to design brands anything that I do I do in this way obviously there are different actual steps and tactics for each you know platform.
that I'm designing from but the core structure of this process is the same so let's get started basically it's a four step process and the first step in the process is to actually understand.
1 Understand :
what we're trying to solve and I think a lot of people skip that step somebody comes to you and they're telling you well we need to have a website and you're okay let's yeah and you're going to write into the actual design and arranging the information on the page but you have to take a minute to really really understand.
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| Design Process Understand |
what is the problem what is the goal of the project what they're trying to achieve with it who is the audience who is the competition and really really understand.
what are you trying to do here and how will a success will look like so the way to do that is basically by doing two things you do "research and you do interviews" I guess interviews as part of research but there's I do it them differently.
Research I can usually do on my own sitting next to the computer browsing the internet reading about the company reading about the competition reading about the market you know look at how their website looks like currently
what is the messaging what their competition is saying what other people are maybe talking about the product or brand you know online and social networks trying to immerse myself in that world of my client.
the problem and learn as much as I can about it and by interviews that can be either interviewing the the people who work in the company.
so trying to see from their perspective what do they think the company does what they' retrying to do what their goal is for the project sometimes you get different perspective from different people and some interviews might be with customers of the company.
that you're working with so what are you currently frustrated in how do you feel about this Brendon when you're doing that as an outsider a lot of times people will tell you stuff that they won't be telling if you know somebody from the actual company would interview.
them so I get started on this kind of you can call the discovery or research phase but the goal of this first phase is to really really understand what you're trying to do here the second part of the process is
2 id8 :
that means brainstorming and coming up with lots of ideas and the way to get the idea is flowing I've been talking about this a lot of the channel is you know remove your barriers about.
I only need to come up with good ideas and just bring a lot of ideas and it's very important to come up with a lot of ideas because a lot of times we're you know we have the first idea
we fell in love with it and was like yeah let's try that but you need to explore a lot of different solutions and a lot of different ideas because you know a lot of things come after you're kind of marinated in the project for a while I like to break.
this ideation process over a couple of days so I try to bring up some ideas I go to rest or I take a break from a project for one or two days then I come back to it with fresh eyes with fresh brain and try to come up with a lot of ideas so if it's logos I'm just sketching it in my notebook if it's you know wireframes for a website I try to sketch it out a few different layouts a few different flows and just come up with a lot of ideas obviously.
the next step you have to kind of narrow it down pick up the something that you feel at this point will best solve the problem that you've understood at step one.
step three is taken the kind of rough idea that you have been trying to validate it and by validating I mean you actually present it so you do a present if it's a client work you do a presentation you show them the work and you're saying here it is here's why I did this here's the process that I went through I did the research here's what I discovered and I went through.
a lot of ideas and I chose this idea because I feel like X Y Zed helps to you know solve the problem that you've talked with me about so you present this can be in a scenario of client presentation.
another if you're in working in a product company then the validation might be showing this to potential customers letting them try the prototype or something like that doing kind of a user research with your you know with your rough ideas.
the goal of this part is to get feedback so if you think you got it right the first time you hurt you're not gonna do a good design you have to understand
you came up with a lot of assumptions this is the first you know out of a lot of ideas you came up to you think this is the best but that's just your opinion now let's see how the people whose problem is supposed to serve feel about this.
so your goal here is to get feedback not just to show it to people and tell them ha that's ready no your goal is to listen and hear feedback.
so that you can improve and the fourth step of the process is after you've listened and documented that feedback is actually to refine your design and improve it and make it better then it's ready after you've got feedback.
that it's good ready to release it or finalize it or lunch it or whatever you're doing that's basically the four-step process of course the refinement you know refinement validation might might be more than one loop you might want to do this a couple of times.
until you feel like the result really solves the problem really resonates with the client or you know your target audience.
honestly you know I really I feel like you know even though we launched our products we send them to print we put them online the truth is that real design is never you know finished or completed.
once it's out there you can really start again and seeing how can this being proven you can go through the whole process from the beginning again actually you should product go through you know versions and improvements and even brands over the year are improved because you've got some learning to do so you now you're doing the research again .
I dating again and you know going through this process again and again and every time the product gets better gets renewed gets fresher and you know you get a better design in general.
that's basically my four step process that I use for everything that I do if you have a different process let me know in the comments below have a super day
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