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 sill believe some truths remain timeless. One I continue to hold sacred is Jesse James Garrett’s Elements of User Experience—a framework that remains foundational to the discipline. AI may accelerate the design-to-dev lifecycle and may even replace certain workflows and artifacts, but it can’t challenge our discipline’s core principles and beliefs. Form will always follow function. Content remains King. Empathy still matters.

Related principles, models & mindsets

The Elements of User Experience

Abstract Ideas

Concrete Deliverables

Process Methodology

Stage 1

User Needs & Business Objectives

Even straightforward business goals often get mired in abstraction. Bridging them with user needs through real collaboration is no easy task.

Process Methodology

Stage 2

Functional Specs & Content Requirements

“feature-set: detailed descriptions of functionality the site must include in order to meet user needs.” – Garrett Form follows function. Content is king. These principles have been championed for decades—and they endure because they still hold true.

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 4

User Interface & Navigation Design

“In the Tuftean sense: designing the presentation of information to facilitate understanding” – Garrett

Process Methodology

Stage 5

Visual Design

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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.

I often rely on Jesse James Garrett’s Elements of User Experience model to gauge a project’s overall maturity which is subject to change at any given moment. Everyday our work is being shaped by change—some of this change advances the project’s maturity, while other change may set it back. As a lead designer, I embrace this dynamic and use Jesse’s framework to triage and categorize change effectively. At any one moment, a project may be very mature in one or more stages but very immature in others.

I also like Jesse’s model because it scales—equally effective for high-level strategic, blue-sky thinking as it is for design challenges littering those pesky two-week sprint cycles supporting fast-paced feature factory environments. Jesse’s model is somewhat optimized for digital experiences—designs served through glass screens and consumed with human eyeballs. Service Design (which involves physical spaces touch-points as well as digital experiences) is another topic and not covered here.

Related principles, models & mindsets

Words to Live By

There’s no shortage of guiding principles for designers to align with—here are a few of my favorites.

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Jared Spool’s Experience Outcomes

This is a mindset—one that puts human beings first. We work backward from human outcomes to inform business decisions.

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Design Thinking

Another mindset built around the concepts of rapid iteration and collaboration—a trend popularized by IDEO Labs.

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Mitigating Risk to User Adoption

Not all projects are created equal. Recognizing the perceived risk to user adoption—and building the right team and cadence to address it—is often key to a successful outcome.

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Experiments

Trendspotting & Innovation Discovery

Customer & User Insights

Generative AI for Concept Exploration & Ideation

Market and Competitive Intelligence

Vibe Coding Experiments with Onlook, Builder and Subframe

Engineering Custom WordPress Plugins with ChatGPT

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

Related principles, models & mindsets

Words to Live By

Experience Outcomes (Spool)

Design Thinking (IDEO Labs)

Mitigating Risk

The Elements of User Experience

User Needs & Business Objectives

Functional Specs & Content Requirements

Information Architecture & IxD Design

User Interface & Navigation Design

Visual Design

End-to-end Product Design

From abstract ideas… to concrete deliverables

Related principles, models & mindsets

Words to Live By

Jared Spool’s Experience Outcomes

Design Thinking

Mitigating Risk to User Adoption

Experiments

Guiding Principles

“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.”

Design Thinking

Mitigating Risk to User Adoption

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.

Experience Outcomes

Product Design and UX Process Methodology

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

Related principles, models & mindsets

The Elements of User Experience

End-to-end Product Design

From abstract ideas… to concrete deliverables

Related principles, models & mindsets

Words to Live By

Jared Spool’s Experience Outcomes

Design Thinking

Mitigating Risk to User Adoption

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):