After witnessing and beginning to work on a number of web design projects, I’ve been able to get a clear idea of a typical UX process. This is a simple overview of a UX project flow. Of course, each project is unique and requires it’s own additional work (looking through analytics, conducting user testing, etc.).  As a starting point, this is what I see almost every project including:

• Understand the problem and/or goals of the project.
• Identify the users: Who are they? What do they really want to know? Where are they coming from? Why are they on this website?
• Identify the competition: What are others in the client’s space doing? How are they presenting information? What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong?
• Review the current website or web presence of the client: What is their current website doing right? What is their current website doing wrong? What are their company quirks? What makes them different?
• Gather the client’s content, as this is what  will be presented on the website, it should be collected early on. At the very least, you should have an idea of the type of information that will be presented on the website.
• Identify what sections and categories will need to be present on the website:How can the client’s mission and content be best organized?
• Begin to design wireframes, keeping content, hierarchy, and user flow top of mind.
• Edit wireframes according to client feedback.
• Coordinate and communicate with the design team to ensure that the content and hierarchy identified in the wireframing process are included and upheld in the final designs.