Product Design and UX Process Methodology
AI is disrupting my process
For this process deep dive, I’m using a personal project called the Vehicle Passport. According to multiple AI agents, it’s more than just a playful concept—the idea has real potential. Follow along as I map each stage of Jesse James Garrett’s Elements of User Experience1 to show how I’m leveraging AI to expand my skills and adapt to the rapidly evolving field of product and UX design.
Related principles, models and mindsets
Words to live by
Design Thinking (IDEO Labs)
Mitigating risk to user adoption
The Elements of (the Vehicle Passport) User Experience
Abstract Ideas
Concrete Deliverables
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A friend of mine, Nick, is a bit of a car enthusiast. Over just three years, I watched him trade in and purchase three different vehicles—all initiated online. Each time, he ran into the same issues: friction and frustration, all tied to the trade-in aspect of the transaction. His frustration sparked the investigation below.
Form follows function. It just does. It’s a rule of nature. No AI will ever change that. For this stage deep dive, we will assume the product I’m designing, the Vehicle Passport, is a first-generation disruptor. As such, the details of the technical stack and functional layers required to support the new experience concept are to be defined post proof-of-concept. For now, we’ll generalize on the technical stack and functional layers that are likely to be required to support the Vehicle Passport experience.
Ontologies, taxonomies, way-finding, conditional logic branching and the four paradigms of search. This is the stage where we start to turn the corner from abstraction to concrete. Arresting and visualizing complex conditional logic flows is one of my strengths.
In this stage we start to see the abstraction coming together as a more tangible solution by building on the inputs and outputs from the previous stages. Polished shells, navigation structures and component-level interface starts to come into focus.
Experience polish and fine-tuning the aesthetic quality of the application are considered and addressed. There’s no reason work in this stage can’t begin immediately after Stage 1 is completed. Stage 1 and Stag 5 both have the potential to influence Stages 2, 3, and 4.
The original Elements of User Experience model is copyrighted 2000 by Jesse James Garrett. All rights reserved. View the original diagram.
Vehicle Passport: A pet project for AI and vibe coding experiments
Not a finished design but a second generation UI draft using Cursor + Claude 4 Sonnet (including the integration of a Supabase backend and user authentication). Time to complete ~6hrs.
➤ Inspiration
For years it seems I’ve been encumbered by workflows, processes and tools that were imposed on me by clients, employers and cultures. This pet project gives me the freedom to explore new tools, techniques and technologies at my own pace.
➤ What is the Vehicle Passport
The Vehicle Passport concept hypothesizes that separating the vehicle trade-in funnel from the vehicle sales funnel, leveraging IoT and emerging technologies, will boost sales and improve customer satisfaction. After mulling the idea over with several deep research tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Sjeel Koster’s ICP Architect agent, it seems like there’s a real world need.
➤ Process deep dive. It’s evolving quickly
Stage 1: User needs & Business Objectives
Stage 2: Functional Reqs. & Content Specifications
Stage 3: Information Arch. & Interaction Design
Coming soon
Stage 4: User Interface & Navigation
Coming soon
Stage 5: Visual Design
Coming soon
End-to-end Product Design
From abstract ideas… to concrete deliverables
If I were to ask you over this weekend to help build a deck on my back porch—but gave you no other details—we would both share a general understanding of what that work involves and the goal at hand. But that understanding would be mired in abstractions. Will the deck be enclosed or open-air? How many people should it be able to accommodate safely? What activities will be performed on its surface on a routine basis? Only once we align on materials, dimensions, purpose, timeline, etc. will the scope of the work come into focus with real clarity.
Every design project goes through these 5 stages. It’s an inescapable truth. AI may help accelerate, augment and perhaps replace some of the work that transpires in these 5 stages, but AI can not replace the stages themselves. My aptitude for leading a design process means facilitating the workshops and conversations that move cross-functional teams away from abstraction (stage 1) towards the delivery of tangible artifacts (stage 5).
Artificial Intelligence Experiments
- Jesse James Garrett, Elements of User Experience (March 30, 2000), http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf. ↩︎
