Learn more about each step within the design process to improve your UX workflow.

Design isn’t just about looks—it’s about solving real problems for real people. A structured, user-focused approach keeps your team aligned and ensures each decision addresses genuine needs. This article will explore design thinking and a practical UX design process, guiding you from empathy to launch.

Design thinking process

Before discussing the basics of UX design process and its steps, we need to talk about the design thinking process or simply design thinking. Design thinking is a user-centric approach to design where each problem, task, goal, and need is described from a user’s perspective.

Design thinking focuses on empathy: a well-designed product understands, acknowledges, and addresses users’ needs. The five main steps in the design thinking process are Empathy, Definition, Ideation, Prototyping, and Testing. 

Empathize

Step into your users’ shoes to uncover their needs, goals, and pain points. Gather genuine feedback through interviews, surveys, and observation to guide your design decisions.

Define 

Analyze the insights you’ve collected to pinpoint the most pressing user problems. This phase is about clearly stating the challenge and its scope—so you know exactly what you’re aiming to solve.

Ideate

Brainstorm a variety of possible solutions. The goal here is quantity over quality at first—explore all angles and encourage creative, even unorthodox ideas.

Prototype

Transform the most promising concepts into tangible drafts or mockups. Prototypes let you quickly validate ideas and spot issues before significant resources are spent on development.

Test

Put your prototypes in front of real users. By watching them interact and gathering feedback, you’ll uncover what works, what needs tweaking, and whether you’ve truly addressed their needs.

UX design process

Overall, the UX design process follows the path of the design thinking process. The main steps in the UI/UX design process are Define, Research, Analyze, Design, Test, and Handoff.

Define

This stage brings together designers, product managers, stakeholders, and developers to discuss the product or feature. You’ll establish the scope, budget, timeline, and target user groups. By setting clear objectives upfront, everyone understands what success looks like and how to measure it.

Research

During the research stage, the team conducts thorough user research. It’s crucial to step away from your own experiences and user behaviors here. How team members interact with a product is often noticeably different from how an average user utilizes it. There are multiple ways to conduct user research: user interviews, surveys, usability testing, and creating heatmaps. 

Interviews provide rich, real-time feedback and allow follow-up questions as users interact with your product. However, they’re time-consuming—requiring one-on-one sessions and thorough transcript analysis. Unstructured formats also make it harder to gather comparable data.

Surveys are the quickest way to gather user feedback. Creating multiple-choice questions allows you to easily generate statistics and filter responses by demographics. However, surveys limit open-ended feedback and must be kept concise—HubSpot found most users prefer 7–10 questions taking 10–14 minutes to complete.

Usability testing resembles user interviews but is more task-focused. You observe users completing specific actions in real-time, noting navigation paths, challenges, and overall satisfaction. Post-task discussions offer direct insights into what worked and what needs improvement.

Heatmaps require no additional user input. They track clicks and scrolling patterns to reveal high-traffic areas and overlooked sections. By visualizing how users naturally interact with your site, heatmaps help you identify pain points and optimize user journeys.

Analyze

After collecting user data through interviews, surveys, and other research methods, it’s time to transform those findings into actionable insights. Start by identifying patterns and grouping recurring problems, goals, and behaviors. This will help you answer questions like: Who are our primary users? What do they need most? Which obstacles prevent them from reaching their goals?

From there, create user personas—fictional profiles representing your core audience. Each persona captures key demographics, behaviors, and motivations. Next, outline user journeys or user stories describing how these personas interact with your product in real-world scenarios. These exercises focus on authentic user needs and guide design decisions going forward. They are written in an informal, natural language. User stories are often based on the following structure:

As a <role>

I want <goal>

so that <benefit>

E.g. As a user, I want to track my daily activity so that I have a more efficient workout routine.

Design

At this step, the team has to consider both the business goals defined in the beginning and the insights from user research and analysis. With this information in hand, it’s time to shape them into actual designs. This phase typically includes three stages:

Wireframing. Start with low-fidelity wireframes or rough sketches to outline the overall layout and functionality. Keep content minimal and focus on structure—wireframes help you quickly validate ideas before investing time in polished visuals. If you want to learn more about creating solid, user-oriented wireframes, read our guide here.

Prototyping. Once the layout feels right, move to interactive prototypes with more detail, such as color palettes, typography, and clickable elements. Prototyping lets you test user flows, gather feedback, and iterate rapidly, ensuring the design stays aligned with user needs. Here are our 5 reasons why you should always take time to make prototypes before jumping to development.

Visual design. After refining prototypes based on feedback, finalize your visuals. Incorporate brand elements, refine icons, and polish interface details. This step ensures consistency and aesthetic appeal across every screen or page.

Test

With your design nearly ready, it’s time to validate it with real users. Unlike prototyping—where you test smaller, scaled-down concepts—this phase involves a more complete version of your product. By observing how users interact with the final design, you can confirm that it meets their needs and fix any lingering issues. Common testing methods include:

• Usability testing. Watching how quickly users accomplish key tasks and noting friction points.
• User feedback. Conduct interviews or surveys to measure satisfaction and gather ideas for improvement.
• Bug tracking. Logging and prioritizing technical issues or errors before launch.

If new insights surface, don’t hesitate to revisit earlier stages—iterating is essential for delivering the best possible user experience.

Handoff

When your design has been polished and approved, it’s time to pass the baton to developers. This final stage typically involves:

• Prepare your files. Organize your layers, labels, and components so developers can locate elements quickly.
• Add documentation. Provide clear guidelines on spacing, typography, colors, and component states. Tools like Lunacy or Figma can generate design specs automatically.
• Collaborate. Be available for questions and clarifications, particularly during early development. Clear communication keeps the final product true to your design vision.

By taking extra care at handoff, you streamline development, reduce errors, and help deliver a pixel-perfect product faster.

Wrapping up

Design thinking and a solid UX design process may sound like a lot of steps, but they’re all about one core goal: making people’s lives easier. You’ll build products that genuinely resonate with users, by blending empathy, thorough research, iterative testing, and clear communication.

From the first scribbled ideas to the final developer handoff, each phase becomes more meaningful when real user needs are at the heart of decisions.

And if you ever feel stuck, just remember: great design is an ongoing conversation between you and your audience—stay curious, stay engaged, and keep creating!