Understand
Everything begins with understanding users: who they are, what they need, and how they interact with the product. This involves competitive analysis and a blend of qualitative and quantitative research, from interviews and surveys to heatmaps and screen recordings. Personas and user stories then define key user groups and goals. Empathy and journey maps help uncover motivations, frustrations, and opportunities for improvement.
I take inspiration from trusted sources like the Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) and Adam Silver’s work on the GOV.UK Design System. Both promote evidence-based, inclusive, and accessible design principles. My focus is not on deliverables, but on uncovering actionable insights.
I follow a Lean UX approach, prioritising “just enough” research to support informed decisions, while drawing on experience, intuition, and a conscious awareness of bias. To align teams and focus effort, I use prioritisation frameworks—such as MoSCoW or RICE—to help stakeholders evaluate trade-offs and agree on which features or problems to address first. Within team and resource constraints, I aim to balance speed with impact to keep the process both efficient and effective.
Design
I begin by structuring content and navigation (Information Architecture), then move to wireframes and prototypes to validate ideas. I follow a “shift-left” mindset by integrating testing and accessibility early in the process, helping catch issues before they grow.
Informed by the GOV.UK Design System, I favour modular components that promote usability, clarity, and consistency. I also apply principles such as the inverted pyramid, placing the most important information first and prioritising content from top to bottom and left to right to reflect natural reading behaviour. Structuring for skimmability, with clear hierarchy and concise labelling, helps users quickly find what they need.
Design decisions are guided by Gestalt principles, such as proximity, similarity, and visual grouping, to create intuitive layouts and reinforce meaning through structure. These principles support better comprehension and reduce cognitive load, especially in complex interfaces.
To align understanding and define scope, especially for a minimum viable product (MVP), I use this simple checklist:
- Users: Who are the primary and secondary users? Are there any conflicting needs?
- Objects: What are the key objects, and how do they relate? (e.g. for a music app: song, album, artist, gig, etc.)
- States: What are the possible states the object can move through, including edge and corner cases?
- Actions: Who can take what actions, and in which states and context?
- Views: What screens or views are needed based on all of the above?
Test
Design is never finished. It evolves through continuous refinement. Usability testing helps uncover friction points, A/B testing guides decisions, and accessibility audits ensure inclusivity. Feedback loops drive iteration, connecting back to the research and understanding phase.
As with research, I treat testing methods as a flexible toolkit. I consider the project’s context and constraints, and choose the right tools to keep momentum without compromising quality.
And then?
Loop back. More understanding. More refining. More designing.