Do You Really Understand the Design Process? 5 Misconceptions

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A lot of people have misconceptions about the design process. Not all, but a lot. It’s a real pet peeve of mine. Probably because of this blog, which is one way I try to clear up those misconceptions. And from talking to a lot of people, I’ve come to realize that there are a few misconceptions about what it means to be a designer that seem to crop up again and again:

So if you are someone who thinks these things, I’d like to give you some insight into why your ideas aren’t quite right. Or maybe they are right, and you can just tell me why. Either way, read on!

Even the most talented designers I’ve worked with had to go through the typical design process in order to get to the right solution. They had to try different things, look at it from various perspectives, and figure out what would work.

Trying different solutions takes time, and sometimes we don’t have that luxury. But every designer I know has gotten better by using this process. Good designers are bad at jumping directly into a solution without letting the problem simmer for a while.

One of the most common misconceptions about design is that good designers can come up with solutions without any planning. This is true sometimes, but only when you’re working on a simple problem or one where you already have experience. For example, if someone asks me how to make a website look nice and I’m already familiar with the conventions of web design, I might be able to create a few ideas very quickly. But when I’m working on something new or unfamiliar to me, I always spend time sketching and thinking about the problem first.

The design process is not a linear process. It isn’t about creating an elaborate storyboard, then executing that storyboard by following a linear path through the design in a specific order. That’s what I did early on in my career, and I can tell you it was pretty tedious.

Trying to force a linear approach on design is like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole—it doesn’t work very well.

Creating an experience is the most important part of the design process. And if you’re going to create an experience, this means you need to be able to iterate through that experience in any direction at any time. So what does this look like?

Well, if you’re designing something simple like a one-page website, you probably don’t need to go through all nine steps every time you make an edit or create something new for the project (you may never get through all nine steps at all). But when you do move through the process, it should be fluid and organic.

If you’re working with a team on a large project, that may mean each person only needs to go through three or four steps for their part of the project (and even fewer if the team has already created the first few parts of the

Misconcept

1. Design is selecting from a list of choices.

The user interface is the point of contact between your product and your customer. It’s where they experience the design. It has to be good.

A UI designer’s goal is to make the user interface as simple and easy-to-use as possible. To do this, they’ll conduct research, study patterns, and develop a language that supports users’ goals with minimal effort on their part. In other words, they’ll really try to understand what their users need and want to be successful, then use that understanding to create something that makes it easier for users to get there faster.

Trying to understand what users need and developing a language around that understanding is not the same thing as offering them a list of choices.

2. User testing can only show you what people think they want or what they’re used to.

There are two kinds of feedback: validated learning and learning from customers . Validated learning is when you learn something about your product based on data or tests that you’ve already run before, like when you first test an idea or concept (or before you build anything). Learning from customers is when you ask open-ended questions, observe behavior, or conduct interviews in order to gather new

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