Some folks get hung up on process when you get that into it, but I think it’s important to name and understand things to make sure you are doing useful work at useful times.

As I am familiar with more research oriented approaches, I tend to group research between the definition and interaction points, sort of an iterative gather/test model to finding appropriate user models. Between interaction and visualization is an iteration phase that increases in sophistication as the conclusion approaches.

Marketing and functional specs are applied at opposite ends, with functional specifications and market research — demographics — applied at the definition, and market characteristics — color and attributes — applied at the visualization phase. Choice in the “design thinking,” or as we called it ”structured planning,” approach is coupled with parts of the functional specification because coding often has a large effect on project deliverables and costs.

I have found that continual collaboration with such outside resources is critical to the design process. It can have an undue effect, but design is sometimes different than Design! Application processes are also different than web processes in that there is less standardization. I am looking at combining these in an educational project. Apps have their place in highly visual or media-oriented projects. It is not really possible to stage or anticipate media delivery on the web yet, or to package such resources.

Thanks for the article! I love thinking about process.