Quality, meaningful designs are the result of solid processes. My design process has been honed over the past 14 years and interactions with 129 clients to help us produce the highest quality ideas, refine them in the most efficient manner, and to involve you and your team at the points where your feedback will shape the project most coherently. Using this framework, we’ll think through both the big picture and the details to produce designs that will meet your needs for the long haul. The process below is specific to software projects, but the basic steps apply in a simpler manner to graphic design projects as well.

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  Project Launch Phase

  The big picture matters. In this section we’ll determine the workflows of your product, based on the real-world needs of your users and your business. I’ll document your product vision and key workflows for communication with your stakeholders and dev teams. Depending on the needs of your project, we may utilize user interviews, collaborative brainstorming sessions, live sketching, and workflow mapping.

  Output:

  • Coherent vision for your finished project
  • Understanding of user goals and needs
  • Broad stroke requirements for the final product format
  • Documentation of workflows, concepts, user research findings

  Deposit Due
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  Sketching & Low-Fidelity Concepts

  To start this phase I synthesize everything I have learned and create concepts that I think will accomplish your project goals. I present the concepts and we collaboratively discuss and refine them until we have a solid plan for your project at a medium level of detail. Iterating using low fidelity output such as sketches or wireframes allows us to test our ideas and make changes quickly while focusing on structure, content, and flow. Separately, we’ll discuss the overall look and feel your software should have, and I’ll put together a suite of style options using a key screen.

  Output:

  • Sketches or wireframes illustrating the overall flow of the project with key details in place, potentially in a click-through prototype as needed
  • Basic outline of projected content
  • Style options
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  High Fidelity Digital Drafting

  In this phase it all comes together. I apply the selected style to the low-fidelity content to create high-fidelity mockups, and we begin to finalize your project screen by screen, detail by detail, prototyping key interactions and documenting desired functionality. Expect to be intensively involved in reviewing screens and providing guidance after each successive round of refinement. By the end of the phase you will have a click-through prototype of key screens which can be used by dev teams for implementation or product owners for pitches. Examples in my portfolio are representative of the level of detail and polish we achieve in this phase. All projects include basic Figma design systems to facilitate efficient work. As needed, I can create reusable, robust design systems or libraries in Figma as part of this process.

  Output:

  • Figma file of key screens utilizing a basic design system (at minimum)
  • Clickable prototype simulating key interactions
  • Additional notes and guidance for dev team
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  Final Draft Approval

  As we discuss each screen and agree that it accomplishes our goals, I will ask for your approval and will mark the screen approved in the design editor. Once all the screens are approved, I will ask for final acceptance of the work as a whole.

  Balance Due
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  Project Delivery

  Once the project is accepted, I make a final pass through the files to ensure that they are usable for your team by adding labels, polishing documentation notes, and generally making the file easy to navigate. In most cases I set up Figma so that you own the design files from the start, but if not we’ll transfer ownership in this phase.

  Output:

  • Figma file with everything your dev team needs to implement the screens
  • Figma design system that can be used and extended in the future
  • Final versions of any diagrams, supporting graphics, or other materials
  • If desired, I can write out feature descriptions, user stories, or set up a DevOps backlog for the project
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  Ongoing Design Support (as needed)

  If your project needs it, I can work closely with your dev team to ensure that what is planned is built, and that what is built looks amazing. I have extensive experience working within Agile development teams and managing backlogs in Azure DevOps, Jira, and various other process management and documentation tools.

  Output:

  • Backlog maintenance
  • Ongoing design guidance as the dev team has questions
  • Reviews of pull requests before features are released
  • Updated mockups in response to stakeholder or user feedback