It all started when…
That signed scope of work moves from the creative director to the project manager. From there, the project manager explains the timeline to me, and we start the first phase, discovery. We spend a reasonable amount of time focusing on the problem and research. Taking the research findings, I compose a creative brief for the other members of our team so they can have valuable and actionable insights, then, we innovate.
USER NEEDS & BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS
I work through stakeholder questionnaires, User Testing, and Heuristic evaluations in every website redesign.
USER RESEARCH & CREATIVE BRIEFING
As of the year 2017, I find the social comments on websites, and their social media channels to be valid, useful, and unfiltered user feedback. Use it. Honestly, without research at some level, are you truly doing UX design?
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE & WIREFRAMING
I would like to think this is my safe place. Information architecture, wireframing, and prototyping are skills I am confident in.
Internal Page Wireframes
From the homepage, to form pop ups, and GDPR displays, we have a thorough wireframing process so we speed up our dev and design phase with as little client revisions as possible.
Interaction Notes and Hand-Offs
By this point in the process, a UX designer may be the most familiar with the product. Also, have in mind specific interaction or caveats from stakeholder conversations and presentations. I capture these notes, user interactions, and links in a notes layer on the wireframe file. This way, our visual designers have an idea of my vision, and there are notes for the developers as well about content, links, interactions, and image sources.
CONTINUED SUPPORT THROUGH THE PROCESS
A unique aspect of working with an agency is that most times, you are required to be a Swiss army knife or a "unicorn" in our market. After passing wireframes to visual design, my job does not stop there. I continue to support with visual revisions, content seeding, validating links, internal quality assurance (QA), simple front end dev items, and SEO configuration. You know, the works.
Finals
Finally, we cross the finish line with some excellent products. Most times we are responsible for the full suite of web redesigns responsibilities. Others, we focus on user flows, page layouts, front end design and dev, and more.
