Is there a right design workflow?

You can argue for hours about the right way to work. For me the main thing is to work with your head.

You need to understand the strategy behind the product you’re designing. Claiming that one system is the only right one is a mistake. But structure matters a lot for everything that follows and for how the team works.

It doesn’t matter what you ship in the end: a landing page, a widget, an app, a SaaS or a dashboard. What matters is the business goal and which problems your design will solve for it. Next comes the complexity: why things work the way they do, and why the client set these exact constraints.

Where the work starts

Usually there’s a brief, short or detailed, a few ideas from the client and the backstory of their business. This is where the fun begins: take a deep breath and sort everything out.

The best move is a document listing the core features of the future product — just the names of the features. That gives you a full picture of the task and what you have to work with. Then come sketches, wireframes, prototypes. Keep the UX part separate from the UI.

If the project is simple, you can go straight to UI and work from references. If it’s complex and needs lots of iterations, you’ll need wireframes, analysis and drafts.

If we systematise it

1. Understand the problem the product solves.
2. Define how complex the product and the work are.
3. Analyse and find the best solution for users, with empathy and clear explanations of features.
4. Decide whether you need wireframes, and whether to work through every scenario with developers and leads.
5. Set the design direction.
6. Present the solution and check that the client understands and agrees with the concept.
7. Apply the client’s feedback, or refine the product together.
8. Systematise the design so it can scale: new products, features, extensions.