The initial stage involves determining the project’s requirements and addressing key questions from the client’s brief. This step clarifies the purpose of the website or digital product, identifies the target audience, and explores the business problems the website aims to solve.

To establish the website’s information architecture (IA), I conduct a card sorting session with the main stakeholders of the business. This helps define the initial content, site structure and site map. If necessary, the session can be revisited later in the process to refine the IA.

I carry out comprehensive research to understand user needs, industry trends, and the current market. This includes:

• User Research: Conducting interviews, surveys, and focus groups with the target demographic. Usability testing on an existing website provides direct feedback on navigation issues and can inform the creation of user personas and customer journey maps.

• Market Research: Benchmarking competitors and analysing industry standards.

• Google Analytics: If the client has an existing website, I review Google Analytics data to identify pain points and improvement opportunities.

For clients with an existing website, I conduct a UX audit to identify issues with navigation, text hierarchy, and design layout. This ensures a clear understanding of areas needing improvement. I create recommendations based on these areas and identify the level of design and development intervention required.

I create a customer journey map to visualise the steps users take when interacting with the website. I assign user personas based on research and track their goals, pain points, and interactions. It highlights areas for improvement to enhance usability and decrease bounce rate.

The wireframes I create are low-fidelity sketches or mockups to outline the navigation, content, and structure of each page. This step ensures a clear hierarchy of information with a goal for each page. I use well-balanced layouts that show spaces for images and potential user interaction through buttons, sliders, accordions and more.

The process transitions to UI design, where branding elements are applied to the wireframes. I use the client’s branding guidelines or ones I have designed for the brand and input the typography, colour palette, imagery, and design treatments into high-fidelity prototypes. These interactive desktop and mobile prototypes allow users to engage with calls to action and navigation.

User testing is conducted throughout the UX process to validate ideas and identify issues. This includes internal testing and stakeholder presentations to gain feedback. Findings may necessitate revisiting the wireframing or prototyping stages to address feedback and refine the design. If there’s budget, the client may request another focus group or A/B testing.

Once the prototype is complete, I ensure all components in the Figma design system are finalised and labelled for developers. I provide a comprehensive briefing and a website taxonomy in some cases. I remain available during development to address questions, resolve issues, and conduct quality checks on the staging site. After final approval, the website is launched and delivered to the client.