The utopia of using a linear design process
Design thinking in the real world
For many of us starting the UX design journey, ‘Empathise ~ Define~ Ideate ~ Prototype ~ Test’ was our Bible for working on a project. And then came the reality check. Design is a non-linear process. And that the said phases are merely different stages, not a flow.
As a design student, it was often while working on academic projects for me. While it isn’t the wrong approach to begin a project, sticking to it was always forced because it was taught as the flow of design phases where one leads to the next when in actuality, they are simply different stages that we keep going back and forth from.
Of course in theory we were taught that design is, well, a non-linear process, but come to think of it, I was hardly ever expected to present it like that. Perhaps, it is thought that a seamless presentation comes from a stack of stages leading to the next as one ends, rather than an interlinking web. Much like the chaotic web of connectors, we see while prototyping screens on Figma. The nuances that explain the intent behind design decisions come from this web, and look something like this:
And that makes me wonder-
Have we on some level, romanticised the notion that dealing with organised chaos is for the creator, not the viewer?
Academic and Live Projects
It wasn’t until I worked on a live project that I realised how the design process in the real world is galaxies away from the process I presented for my academic projects when I didn’t follow the linear route even then.
Working on live projects, real clients, and designing for a real and not an imagined user group, took away the sheltered design student in me. I recall how the research stage would often be compromised because the client didn’t have the budget for it, and how I could have never accounted for something like that in any of the academic projects I worked on in design school.
But not to digress, what’s important to note here is that it can be hard to stay true to the right process at times. Even when the designer in you tells you to take a U-turn, the client, the manager, the boss, and John from the marketing team, will ask you to go straight. They’ll weigh in on what doesn’t look right to them. They may not see the web, but YOU see the train of thought in it. And just because the client doesn’t have the budget for it, you don’t eliminate the stage. It may be substandard (much like the category the client would fall in) but you do it.
There may be guidelines like the double diamond, the 5 stages of the design process, the 10 principles of good design, the human-centred design model, or a web in which only you can find an understandable trail. They are guidelines to help build better designs, not instructions. Use them, and follow them as it deems fit for the project, not utopia.
