What is the design process?

The design process is a tool that helps you break down large projects into smaller, easier-to handle stages. It's prominent in engineering, architecture, and manufacturing because it helps companies deliver finished solutions that customers want and need.Design process is a way of figuring out what you need to do, then do it.

The first critical step to understanding the design process is that it’s not about working the “right way” or “wrong way”. The design process is a method you use to be more creative, productive, and accurate. The process should conform to you, rather than the other way around. It’s not a rigid list of steps to follow, but a tool you use to do better work.

Why design process is important

Design process helps designers to be reliable and creative without depending upon inspiration.

Design process provides checks to ensure creative concepts don’t direct design or desigmers in wrong direction.

Design Process Steps

1. Listen to the Client

The first most crucial step towards designing a product be it for anything it is important to actively listen to the client, this is not only important to maintain a healthy client relationship but it is also important in your design process. Listen means understanding your client what he wants and what he expects from you, ask a lot of questions, build a strong relationship with them and understand them flawlessly.

2. Analyze the Project

The second most crucial step in the whole design process is to evaluate whether or not the project at hand is possible or not. One of the most important things to note in this step is that this should always be done in sequential order. As the designer it is our job to identify ideas that might not be possible within the client’s budget due to any reason, suggest an alternating solutions for those ideas. While analyzing the project you feel like something won’t be possible or you find a problem you should immediately consult with the client and explain the problem and clear your queries.

3. Design a product

To put it simply, there is no shortcut to designing and knowing how your website will look. It’s not like someone can tell you this is how you need to design a product and you start working. Designing is a combination of art and science, and with every art it depends on the artist on how he/she goes about their artwork and presents an end product to the client. The essence of this part is that you know how to design the product and now it's the time to use your skills and knowledge to make that product for your client. If designing the product seems difficult go back to the 2nds step and analyze the project again.

4. Test the product

Lastly, before you complete your project and submit the design to your client it is important to first test the product to see if all the elements in the design are interacting with one another successfully. You wont like to deliver a product that keeps on crashing and keeps disturbing your client. If the test proves your design to be correct then well and good however if it proves that the design is flawed and the product will eventually crash then evaluate your project on either of the previous three steps based on the severity of the problem.

Conclusion

An important thing to note after all this is that this process is not final. Like I said earlier, this model will only serve as a guide to organize your work so that you don’t get stuck at any stage and easily compartmentalize your work. However, the essence of this is to show you that when you organize your tasks you make your work easier for yourself and ultimately end up improving your design process.