Have you ever felt like being a UX designer means juggling 10 roles at once? As the only UX designer in a company, you’re not just making things pretty—you’re solving user problems and driving business goals, often with limited support. 🎨

That’s why I’ve thought a lot about how to create a process that works even if you’re short on time, funding, or help. Basically, this is my plan for working independently in a company with low UX maturity and minimal support from higher-ups.

The 5 Steps of a 1-Person UX Process

  1. Discovery and Research
  2. Information Architecture
  3. Visual Design
  4. Delivery
  5. Review

This process is simple and always gives good results if you follow it. Of course, it’s not set in stone. Sometimes you’ll go back to a previous step before moving forward. But it’s a strong starting point.

1. Discovery and Research 🔍

The first step is to find out what problem needs to be solved and what information you already have to solve it. Often, the problem seems obvious at first. But the more you ask questions and dig deeper, the more you understand the real issue. This doesn’t mean the first problem isn’t real, but asking questions helps you see the full picture.

Questions to Ask

  • Who will use this software or website?
  • What tasks does the user want to do?
    • Example: Someone using a fitness app might want to track their daily steps, workouts, and calories while keeping an eye on their progress.
  • What does the creator of the software or website want to achieve? (This is often about business goals.)
    • Example: The app creator might want to increase user engagement through gamification and sell premium memberships.
  • What technology is being used? (Are there any limits?)
  • Why should people choose this product over others?
  • What content is needed to help users reach their goals?
  • Are there key areas where improvements would make a big difference?

Additionally, ask:

  • What are the most important goals for me, the company, and the stakeholders?
  • Which goals are the highest priority? 🌟

These questions give you a good foundation. If you’re in a hurry, you could move to the next step now. But I suggest digging a little deeper first.

You can do that by utilizing any or all of the tools below.

Tools to Use 🛠️

  1. UX Questionnaire 🌟

    • Project Goals:
      • What are the most important goals for me, the company, and the stakeholders?
      • Which goals should we focus on first?
    • Target Audience Analysis:
      • Who will use this product?
      • What problems or challenges do these users have?
    • Value Proposition and Strategy:
      • Why is this product valuable to users?
      • Why would they choose it over something else?
    • Technology and Tasks:
      • What technical limitations are there?
      • What tasks should this product help users complete?

  2. Stakeholder Interviews 🤝
    Have a short chat with stakeholders to understand the project’s purpose, goals, and what success looks like.

  3. Existing Data and User Insights 📊

    • Ask Internal Teams: Talk to customer support, sales, or marketing teams to learn what users often ask or complain about.
    • Look at Analytics: Use existing data to see how users behave and where they might struggle.

  4. Best Practices and Heuristic Analyses 🔍

    • Heuristic Evaluation: Check if the product follows basic usability principles like Nielsen’s heuristics.
    • Competitor Analysis: Look at what similar products are doing well (or not so well).
    • Comparative Assessment: Study tools from other industries that solve similar problems to get new ideas.

  5. User Interviews and Guerilla Research 🗣️
    Talk to 3-7 potential users to learn about their needs and goals.

  6. Developer Interviews 🛠️
    Speak with developers to understand what’s technically possible and what might be tricky early on.

Key Takeaways So Far

Let’s quickly summarize what we’ve covered so far:

  • We asked key questions to understand the users, the goals of the stakeholders, and the technical limits.
  • We explored tools like UX questionnaires, stakeholder interviews, and heuristic evaluations to dig deeper into the problem.
  • We learned the importance of balancing user needs with business goals to define a solid foundation for design.

What’s Next? 🗂️

However, now that we’ve done all this work—what’s next? At the end of the first step, I often feel overwhelmed, but that’s completely normal since we don’t have a plan yet.

In the next post, we’ll dive into the second step: Information Architecture. I’ll explain what Information Architecture (IA) is and how to organize all the insights we gathered in part 1. Personally, I find this to be the trickiest step, but also the most rewarding.