WORK PROCESS – Kely Ta

How I Work

1. Discover and Define the problem/strategy

Before building a product, I need to understand the value and context for its existence. This phase is most important as it sets the stage for the success of the product. During this phase, I will brainstorm with stakeholders to create a value proposition and strategy and do initial sketching with stakeholders to understand what they are looking for.

2. Research

Once the product’s value proposition and strategy are defined, I will start doing product research. This includes initial market research by creating a competitive analysis and initial user research. I believe that great research informs the product and design.

3. Analysis

During this phase, I am collecting and organizing everything that I have gathered during the research phase. This phase helps me put together my research to find out the “why” users need the product. I will create Proto Personas and emotional journey maps to put together a story for the stakeholders to understand from the user’s perspective.

4. Design

After analysis, I grab my trusty pen & paper to start sketching initial ideas and thoughts, then I will start making my sketches into high-level wireframes and finally, create a clickable prototype.

5. Validate

I will validate my designs and research now by testing with actual users.

6. Iterate

After initial user testing, I will take the feedback and go back to iterate on my designs. Designing is highly iterative and allows me to circle back after I validate and test my initial designs.

When approaching UX design sprints, I apply an agile methodology (Double Diamond) and believe that continuous research, testing, and iteration is key to delivering a successful product for the users. From quick sketches to rapid prototypes with an MVP, I ensure that my solution has been identified through discovering real pain points and challenges.

I include ‘iterate’ at the end of my process because some phases of the process will overlap one another, and I go back and forth between certain steps depending on the product. I am constantly learning new things about the product that will require me to possibly go back and do more research to create a better prototype to test or iterate on my design and try something new after testing to create an updated prototype for a 2nd round of usability tests. My process is ever changing to fit with the project I am working on.