What frameworks or methodologies do you follow during the design process, and why do you prefer them?

During my final year at university, I worked on a group project to design a mobile app for college students to manage their study schedules. We followed a user-centered design approach, starting with user interviews to understand their needs and pain points. This research helped us create personas and user journey maps, which guided our design decisions. By continuously testing our prototypes with actual users, we refined our app based on their feedback, ultimately leading to a product that was well-received in our class presentations. This experience taught me the importance of empathy and user feedback in the design process.

I volunteered at a local non-profit organization, helping to redesign their website. We adopted an agile methodology, which allowed us to work in iterative cycles. Each week, we would review our progress and gather feedback from the organization’s team. This approach helped us quickly address issues and incorporate new ideas. For instance, after the first iteration, we learned that the navigation was confusing for users, so we restructured it based on user input. This experience reinforced my belief in the value of flexibility and collaboration in design, ensuring that the end product truly meets the users' needs.

In my first job as a junior designer, we often used the design thinking framework to tackle complex problems. On one project, we aimed to improve customer engagement for a product. We started with empathy sessions to gather insights from users, which helped us define the core issues they faced. From there, we brainstormed multiple solutions and created prototypes. One of our ideas was a new feature that allowed users to personalize their experience, which significantly improved user retention after implementation. This experience highlighted for me how a structured approach like design thinking can lead to innovative solutions.