Product Design and UX Process Methodology

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

I’m adapting to the new workflows and mindsets AI is bringing to the table with careful sensibility. Despite the power AI offers, I still believe some truths remain timeless. One I continue to hold sacred is Jesse James Garrett’s Elements of User Experience¹—a framework that remains foundational to the discipline.

For this process deep dive, I’ll be using a pet project called the Vehicle Passport. According to several AI agents, the Vehicle Passport isn’t just a silly fantasy; the idea actually has merit. Check out each stage below to learn more.

Related principles, models & mindsets

The Elements of User Experience

Abstract Ideas

Concrete Deliverables

Process Methodology

Stage 5

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Process Methodology

Stage 4

User Interface & Navigation Design

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Process Methodology

Stage 3

Information Architecture & IxD Design

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.

Process Methodology

Stage 2

Functional Specs & Content Requirements

It just does. 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.

Process Methodology

Stage 1

User Needs & Business Objectives

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.

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 experimentation

Not a finished design but a second generation UI draft using Cursor + Claude 4 Sonnet completed in ~3hrs.

➤ 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

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

Drafting a PRD with Claude and Perplexity (Pro)

Using AI for Rapid Content Considerations and UI Patterns

Using ChatGPT to Setup Cursor and Apple XCode for Vibing a Native iOS Prototype

Arresting and Visualizing Complex Conditional Logic

Giving Users a Voice: Avatar Generators for Presenting User Verbatim and Insights

Jesse James Garrett, Elements of User Experience (March 30, 2000), http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf. ↩︎

Guiding Principles

I subscribe to the following definitions and beliefs.

“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product or service. It’s not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.”

Marty Neumeier – The Brand Gap

“Experience Design is the design of anything, independent of medium and across media where human engagement is an explicit goal and human experience an explicit outcome.”

Jesse James Garrett

“If you don’t have time to do it right… when are you going to have time to do it over?”

John Wooden

“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of a lone genius.”

David Kelly – Founder, IDEO Labs

Design Thinking

The core ideas behind design thinking — such as empathy, iteration, and human-centered problem solving — trace back to design disciplines in the 1960s–1980s, particularly in architecture, industrial design, and engineering. IDEO, led by people like David Kelley, was pivotal in applying design thinking to business and technology in the 1990s and early 2000s. They helped package design thinking as a repeatable process that could be used by non-designers:

Empathize → Define → Ideate → Prototype → Test.

Mitigating Risk to User Adoption

Time and money don’t grow on trees—and validating business and design decisions with real users can be resource-intensive. But not every project carries the same adoption risk. When Amazon introduced the Alexa Show, it was introducing a new interaction paradigm—voice-first computing—requiring extensive user research to ensure acceptance. Contrast that with a bank launching a feature that allows car loan payments from third-party institutions—a useful update, but one that builds on familiar behavior. The five models below outline different approaches to design validation, from blind guessing to user-informed rigor. AI can help streamline each, but it can’t replace the judgment needed to match the method to the risk.

Rapidly generate hypotheses, wireframes, or user scenarios.
Analyze large datasets for behavioral patterns.
Assist with survey synthesis or usability test tagging.
Simulate some user behavior (in limited contexts).

Accurately judge the emotional, cultural, or contextual nuances of user behavior.
Replace real-world exposure to novel paradigms (e.g., Alexa’s voice interface).
Understand unspoken needs or hesitations that come through in qualitative research.
Decide how much validation is necessary based on risk, regulation, or brand implications.

When the Designer only considers themselves for the design decisions.

When no consideration. isgiven. to users. Only to technology and business objectives.

When a solution uses only existing research to make design decisions.

When the necessary time and money required to conduct activity-based user research in order. to mitigate risk is made available.

When the necessary time and money required to conduct experienced-based user research. inorder to mitigate risk is made available.

Rapidly generate hypotheses, wireframes, or user scenarios.
Analyze large datasets for behavioral patterns.
Assist with survey synthesis or usability test tagging.
Simulate some user behavior (in limited contexts).

Accurately judge the emotional, cultural, or contextual nuances of user behavior.
Replace real-world exposure to novel paradigms (e.g., Alexa’s voice interface).
Understand unspoken needs or hesitations that come through in qualitative research.
Decide how much validation is necessary based on risk, regulation, or brand implications.

Product Design and UX Process Methodology

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

For this process deep dive, I’ll be using a pet project called the Vehicle Passport. According to several AI agents, the Vehicle Passport isn’t just a silly fantasy; the idea actually has merit. Check out each stage below to learn more.

Related principles, models & mindsets

The Elements of User Experience

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 experimentation

Not a finished design but a second generation UI draft using Cursor + Claude 4 Sonnet completed in ~3hrs.

➤ 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

➤ 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

Stage 4: User Interface & Navigation

Stage 5: Visual Design

End-to-end Product Design

From abstract ideas… to concrete deliverables

Artificial Intelligence Experiments

“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product or service. It’s not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.”

“Experience Design is the design of anything, independent of medium and across media where human engagement is an explicit goal and human experience an explicit outcome.”

“If you don’t have time to do it right… when are you going to have time to do it over?”

“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of a lone genius.”

What AI can do well:

What AI cannot do (yet):

Design approach models

Self Design

When the Designer only considers themselves for the design decisions.

Unintentional Design

When no consideration. isgiven. to users. Only to technology and business objectives.

Genius Design

When a solution uses only existing research to make design decisions.

Activity Design

When the necessary time and money required to conduct activity-based user research in order. to mitigate risk is made available.

Experience Design

When the necessary time and money required to conduct experienced-based user research. inorder to mitigate risk is made available.

What AI can do well:

What AI cannot do (yet):