Summary

The foundation of the design process comes from design thinking, an ideology where solving a problem is to be hands-on, user centric, and innovative. Design processes are organized in either 3 main phases or broken down further in up to 6 steps. Either way, every design process contains the core principles of: Understanding, Ideating, and Validating. More often cyclical rather than linear, processes do repeat some steps. Ultimately, its purpose is to empathize with the user's problem and goals, communicate through a shared framework, collaborate to produce different innovative solutions, and deeply learn the effectiveness of the solution to meet the user's needs.

Takeaway

Establishing and following a design process empowers individuals and teams to tackle the problem at hand with rigor and respect. It takes the ideology of design thinking and materializes it into a methodology for creating solid solutions. A process becomes more valuable and effective when there's an honest reflection to refine the weak areas for the next problem on deck. No process is ever perfect, they're intended to be iterative. Practice makes process.

Design Thinking 101

The Four Planets of Design

Previous

Ethics in Design

More posts by Jon Wood

image for Rethinking Career Goals: Skills and Tools
/images/headshots/wood-jon-h.jpg

Rethinking Career Goals: Skills and Tools

6 Min Read

Liferay.Design

Part of Liferay, IncCode/Content LicensesPowered by Gatsby and Netlify