Design at its highest form is invisible. There are objects and systems and services all around us that someone, somewhere designed. When it is apparent one has to do something that is either uncomfortable, inconvenient or non-intuitive the design is probably not successful. When something happened and you were un aware of it's existence or that it is an interface then it is probably a successful design.

Ideally when designs are aesthetically pleasing they seem like art. The difference between art and design is that design is about creating things under constraints. These are constraints that are either created the the materials or technology, the business purpose or by the purpose or function the design is trying to solve. Art is about creation and exploration and can be without end. Design can be iterative but at some point design ends and something virtual or physical is made.

01 Ideation + Discovery
The team thinks big at this point and explores all possibilities. Its best to have one person working ahead of the project gathering inspiring materials and researching the topic. Things to look at are the obvious competitive and consumer research but other things to look at are general technology trends, social trends and the cultural norms of the people you believe you designing for. These ideas are gathered together and a focused brainstorm session using a multidisciplinary team commences. Lots of ideas will be generated in a short period of time and collectively these ideas are weighted.

The team examines and identify what constraints from a technology, hardware or experiential standpoint we need to design for. This is done by by working with your technology team or by collaborating with hardware teams and industrial designers. We learn about what the “mental model” users have about the product the team is designing.Use sketches, clay models, modified photos, short videos whatever gets the idea across. This soon will be consolidate this into several driving ideas and usually two to three possible high-level directions come out of it.

Activities: Kick-off meeting, brainstorming sessions, checkpoint and formal presentation, develop initial visual mood boards.
Deliverable: Document findings, develop a design principle statement that drives the product design and development moving forward

02 Exploration
Start by developing use scenarios. Start to imagine what the experience would be from the time one first encounters your product or service to the time they start to use it and craft what should happen at all points of use. Use sketches, clay models, create wire frames (solid working documents on which to establish the language, content, and structure of interactions users will have with a given experience) and create high-level interaction models or “parti-diagrams” that sketch the structure of an application and visualize the users mental model and orientation within a device, website or software application.

Develop low-fidelity (rough design without visual design applied) prototypes as working examples of how you want the software, device or site to behave . Ideally this process will include feedback from users in what I call “collaborative design sessions”. This method of user research is different than a usability study because rather than testing specific functions, the team validates concepts and inviting users to “co-design” with you. Incorporate their feedback and modify the design early in design process.

Activities: Collaborative Design Session, Design of first draft wire frames and Development of prototypes, Checkpoints with development team and presentation of visual mood boards
Deliverables: Medium Fidelity Prototype (rough design without visual design applied this might be an html click thru or a flash/keynote document)

03 Refinement
Continue to refine specific scenarios and describe interaction for a larger group of use cases. Use motion design to perfect and fine tune transitional points and work in higher degrees of visual or coded fidelity until you have a “high fidelity” prototype that you can use to deliver to the development team or manufacturer to use to create the end product. I recommend keeping a UX Specifications Document that outlines the visual style, behavior of components and functional details of screens applicable to the device, software or website.

Activities: Develop high-fidelity prototype, start to write UI Specifications, Checkpoint meetings with the development/technology team.
Deliverable: High-fidelity prototype and UI Specifications for development/technology team

04 Production
Design does not stop at production, the designer should be available to answer questions and ensure the product is developed as designed and to help with making decisions on compromises or modifications if they are needed. .
Deliverable: Final product

05 Package + Delivery
As production is happening, the design team can create documents or other user experience documents that can be used to describe the user experience and assist with any user assistance guides or communications.

cv/resume