Treat your design process like a design problem

Before going on leave I got to work with a graduate designer (Sam) who will be joining me on a couple of projects. Over three days we covered interaction flows, content architecture and paper forms.

With Sam joining me, it made me think about design process. Creating a good one. A repeatable, efficient process that creates great outcomes.

Whilst working on the National Data Opt-out we (myself and a junior designer Dan) crafted a process that helped us explore a massive range of ideas and issues.

The process didn’t appear fully-formed. It took many iterations. It evolved through experience and being worked.

I blogged about the journey, centring on our use of a kanban board.

The key to creating a great design process is to treat it like a design problem.

That is,

• Start by stating the issue you want to solve
• Sketch out crude flows and processes
• Create a prototype and use it in anger
• Iterate over things again and again
• Seek feedback from those around you
• Articulate and defend your ideas to expose flaws and strengths

The kanban board felt the best mechanism to control and test the process.

With new work and a new team, it’s a great time to explore our process again.