Step 1 — Competitive Analysis
To gain a better understanding about the market of your mobile app, a competitive analysis is conducted against the popular and reputable apps out there right now.
Step 2 — User Research
Placing the user at the center of all development decisions is crucial in a user-centered design process. Gain insights into the needs and wants of users but also become more familiar with their backgrounds, which will ultimately assist in designing the app better.
Step 3 — User Persona
Personas provide a way for designers to humanize their users and keep their goals, pain points, and behaviors in the foreground of all design decisions. The user interviews would help to determine behaviours and needs & goals.
Step 4 — Information Architecture
Creating user flows for the two main tasks of the app sets out the paths users will follow in order to achieve their goals and visualize how I expect them to move through mobile app.
Step 5 & 6 — Sketeches & Wireframes
With the previously created user flows in mind, start sketching out basic wireframes to get ideas on how prototype should look like and to identify suitable user-friendly design solutions.
Move forward from the initial sketches to mid-fidelity wireframes, to create a prototype that will help with the testing of the key functionality of the app.
Usability testing to get real user feedback on the wireframes and the prototype, before moving on to designing high-fidelity and more polished designs. It’s an essential part of the design process and was used multiple times to validate (or invalidate) the design decisions.
