The Complete UX Design Process: From User Research to Launch

The UX design we see and use, in many ways, is a form of art. To create a piece of art back in the day, all it required was artistic brilliance.

The process of creating art itself was quite simple. All an artist had to do was pick a paintbrush, load it with some paint, and then apply the paint to the canvas.

Don’t get us wrong; we’re not downplaying art creation by any means. We know creating art requires a great deal of creativity and skills.

However, we are trying to shed some light on today’s art, which is UX design. In comparison to creating old-school art, creating UX design is not as simple.

That is because the UX design that we see and interact with on different mediums and devices is all digital.  Therefore, creating it is not as simple as picking up a brush and giving it a go.

Instead, it requires UX designers to follow a dedicated UX design process that consists of various stages. Each stage is different and requires different roles for completing that phase.

That means having the right knowledge and skills to complete the phase in the best way possible. The goal at the end of the day is to create a user-friendly interface.

The design must be intuitive and easy to use. Above all, it must meet the customer’s needs. So, how do you create an interface that users will love?

To find out, we’ll talk about the UX design process in this blog and the stages involved in it as well as how to execute each phase properly.

More so, we’ll discuss the roles involved in the UX design process and the skills that every UX designer must have.

So, without any further ado, let’s get right into it. 

What is UX Design?

UX design, which is a short form for “User Experience Design”, is a term coined by an American Researcher and professor named Don Norman. He coined the term in the 1990s.

His intention for doing so was to describe the relationship between a product and services as well as the interaction that a person has with said products or services of a company.

In essence, UX has its roots that trace back to psychology, cognitive science, and human-computer interaction.

At the heart of it all, UX is all about the experience a user has with a product or service. A good UX design, for that matter, is about users having a positive experience.

This experience could be using a device, an app, or a website, for that matter. On the other hand, an interface that is not so good is about users not having a positive experience.

This, in many cases, means that the users are not sure what to do, are confused, and are unhappy. With bad interfaces, most of the time, users are not able to do what they want to do.

Therefore, the soul and purpose of the UX design is to make interfaces that are easier and enjoyable to use for users.

What is a UX Design Process?

We discussed UX design, but what is the UX design process? Well, the UX design process is an approach to creating interfaces that provide users with good experiences.

The process itself consists of several key stages. These are understanding user needs, research, prototyping, and testing.

These phases of the UX design process help ensure that interfaces look good. More so, they ensure the design works well and meets the needs of the users.

More so, the step-by-step guide to the UX design process is called “design thinking.” This process covers all the necessary basics that are needed to create a UX design.

What is the Importance of the UX Design Process?

The importance of the UX design process cannot be understated. The process itself helps ensure that each stage is carried out in the best way possible.

More so, the process ensures that the right roles cater to the phase and complete it with the right skills and techniques.

Without the UX design process, there would not be an order for the teams to come in and take charge.

For instance, without a dedicated UX design process, designers wouldn’t know whether they should work before the project managers or after they have defined the requirements.

Likewise, the testers wouldn’t know whether they should test after content writers have written the content for design.

That is why this process creates an order that allows people to step in at the right time to create an interface that is meaningful and offers the intended experience.

Above all, UX matters the most to companies. That is one of the reasons why more and more companies are looking to improve the user experience of their offerings.

According to Statista’s Report  “Around 83% of companies are looking to use AI to improve the overall user experience in 2025.”

That stat itself is more than enough evidence as to how important the UX, and its process is.

Different Roles Involved in the UX Design Process

Now that we have talked about what is the UX design process, let’s look at the different roles involved in it.

Like the development of anything, whether physical or in this case, soft form, it requires a collaborative effort from several teams.

And the UX design is no different, as different roles come to work together as a unit. However, each individual brings a specialized set of skills that are needed to complete a specific phase of the process.

These roles help ensure that each phase is handed off to the next one in a seamless way. As for the roles involved in the UX design thinking process, they are as follows:

UX Researchers

These guys do the research work when the UX design process kicks off. They use UX research methods to conduct user testing, analyze data, and forward their findings to the next teams.

More so, they create user personas as well as user journey maps and affinity diagrams. Also, they are responsible for testing live and prototype UX designs that need enhancement.

UX Designers

This team is the star of the hour as they are the centerpiece of this entire process. The UX designers are responsible for creating prototypes, both low and high-fidelity ones.

More so, they create wireframes as well as mockups. The role of Designers in the UI UX design process doesn’t end there, as they also have to create the layout and user flows of the final UX design.

Content Writers 

Content writers play an important role in the UX/UI design process. They can be referred to as “UX writers” but at the end of the day, they are writers who write content for the UX design bits.

While the content is fairly minimal, it is there. More so, it serves an important purpose too, which is to ensure the interface is saying the right things in the right manner.

UX writers write “microcopy content” such as text on buttons, menu names, tooltips, error messages, and UX design content along those lines.

UI Designers and Web Developers

The last roles involved in the UX design process are UI designers and web developers. These designers create the final product from the prototypes given by UX designers.

More so, they look after the product after it goes live. Web developers are responsible for maintaining it and most of the time they have the skills and expertise to do it with no fuss.

7 Steps in the UX Design Process

Now let’s get to the business end of things, and talk about the thing you are here for in the place, which is the UX design process steps.

So, the phases in the design process UX are as follows:

Step 1: Define the Requirements

The UX design process kicks off with defining the requirements first. Before creating any product, it is important to address what the thing is that you need to create. Above all, address why it needs creating.

This phase is where you will need to answer a few questions. These questions are, why do you need to create this product, who is it for and what problems does it solve?

These back-and-forth questions and answers will take place in the form of business conversations.

Normally these types of conversations take place in business meetings with shareholders and investors.

It is in this phase, that the people responsible for designing the product will create a foundational approach.

This approach needs to align with the Business Strategy in order to qualify for the next phases. More so, this stage will give you the information and a concept sketch to work from.

The information collected in this stage will give you the outline that goes on to the next phase for further work.

Step 2: Research

The information gained in the first phase gets worked on in the research phase. In this step, designers and field experts conduct research using various UX research methods.

They do so to identify the pain points, and their target users as well as understand the needs of their users. The findings thanks to the research work in this step help create empathy for their users.

Moreover, it gives information on what users expect and need from the said product. Once the product research is complete, the designers look at market trends and analyze the competition.

Market research is a vital part of this step as it gives a landscape of the industry. Some of the forms of user research carried out in this phase include interviews, surveys, focus groups, and user behavior studies.

As for the UX research methods we talked about earlier, one of the methods used is user journey mapping.

User journey mapping gives you every step users take when they interact with your product, from start to finish.

The other method is usability testing, which gives you the user’s feedback on things that work well and things that need improvement.

Step 3: Analyse & Plan

This phase is where all the planning is done. The designers lay out the plan using the information collected in the research phase.

They get to work to draw a plan for the product and how they will accomplish the set objectives in the previous step.

More so, they start with the user persona development as well as create user journeys, wireframes, and all sorts of plans.

It is at this point of the user-centered design process that designers decide on the tech stack they will be using for the UX design.

They think about everything that they need to create the product. Once teams decide everything, they create a roadmap for the project. From then on, it’s all about completing milestones.

Step 4: Design

Once the plan is laid out and the designers know the needs of users, the designing phase begins.

The UI/UX design process is halfway through at this point. The plan is put into practice by drawing ideas of how users will interact with the UX design.

At this point, you will start working on the design’s layout, navigation, and the different elements of each Page. Once again, the plan is put into motion while staying true to the UX’s core purpose.

That purpose is to consider how users will interact with your interface and which information should be available to them from the get-go.

Putting all the pieces together will help you form a picture of how your UX looks. More so, this phase is also about designing the UI as much as it is about designing the UX.

Therefore, the things that you will work on in this phase include information architecture, navigation, overall layout, usability, and accessibility.

This stage closes off with microcopy, with UX writers stepping in to write brief content for navigation buttons and other design elements.

As for the UI designers, they will polish the wireframes and interfaces created by UX designers. The UI designers will work on various things.

These include color schemes, fonts, and icons. They are the ones responsible for creating the visual side of things that users see.

It’s their job to make sure that the interfaces look aesthetically appealing while being easy to use.

Step 5: Prototype

After the UX is designed and you get a working UI, now you have to turn it into a prototype. The prototype is like the pre-release version which you can test for usability.

Thanks to the prototype, you get to run the product in full action and get feedback via testing to see what’s working and what’s not.

Prototypes are the epitome of a UX design process template. Designers create them using tools such as Axure, Justinmind, and InVision.

Step 6: Test

One of the last UI/UX design process steps is testing. The testing of the interface is an important phase.

Testers test the UX with users and use various testing methods. All these testing methods help identify the areas that need work for improvement.

This way, designers refine the product from the user’s feedback before releasing it. The information received from testing is vital, and the more it is the better it is.

Having a great deal of information on how the product works makes it easier for the designers to fix stuff that’s broken and make improvements where needed. It’s better to revise and refine a product before it goes live than do it after release.

So, in order to conduct extensive testing, testers and designers conduct various testing sessions using different methods. Testers do all this while implementing changes in real time based on the user’s feedback.

As for the testing methods used in this phase, they are A/B testing, multivariate testing, quantitative analysis, surveys, and usability testing.

Step 7: Launch

The last step of the UX UI design process is to launch the product after all the testing is done. However, before handing over your product, make sure you have made all the needed changes to your high-fidelity user interface based on feedback in testing.

Once everything is final and ready to go, you can send your product to the development team for implementation. This final act will mark an end to your UX design process.

Evolution of the UX Design Process 

While we’ve already discussed what is UX design process, we must also look at how it has evolved over the years.

The UX design is a far cry from what it used to be back in the day. If we look at its beginning, then every design since humans have been around is a UX in a way.

That’s because every designed object is made for human use. However, that’s what the UX used to mean. It’s no longer the case, as UX is a completely different thing in today’s world.

In the context of the design industry, UX stands for the experience a user has with a product. It means understanding the user’s need to design the product to meet those needs.

Also, the UX design today is used for digital products, mainly a mobile app or a Website. The UX design process emerged in the 1990s.

At that time the UX was all about data organization such as information architecture, click-through flows like interaction design, and the usability of digital interfaces.

But unlike classic UX, which focuses on the usability of interfaces, the UX these days is more about the aesthetic side of interfaces.

As for the UX design process, it too went through many changes over the years. The classic UX design took a waterfall approach, ensuring each stage was completed first before beginning the next phase.

This approach became more linear as the years passed because digital products were updated at intervals of several years.

That is until things changed a decade later when the tech world started changing faster than you can say, Jackie Robinson.

The industry demanded keeping up. Therefore, as a result of the ramp-up pace, UX teams had to up their speed as well to work and respond in a faster manner.

What Skills Does a UX Designer Need?

As we mentioned earlier in this step by step UX design process guide, a designer needs to have a certain set of skills to pull off the job.

However, we were not only talking about soft skills but also some hard skills. After all, designing UX is a team effort that requires different roles to collaborate and work together.

Therefore, some of the skills that every UX designer must have, are as follows:

• Empathy: Stepping in the user’s shoes and thinking from their perspective to create a product that truly meets their needs
• Communication: Individuals come from different backgrounds. That is why a UX designer must be able to communicate with other members proficiently. The communication could be in the form of presentations, meetings, or instructing other teams. Bad communication is a recipe for disaster in every work environment.
• Practicality: Be practical with the product and make it make sense instead of creating for the sake of creating. Think of what works well with users to avoid ending up in situations with dead ends.
• Curiosity: Accept the problem as a challenge, and face the heat to overcome it with solutions. Learn with curiosity to beat what wants to beat you. Try new tech, methods, and ways to get the right rhythm for your team.
• Adaptability: If something goes south, then you embrace it and go north to fix it. Not everything will go according to plan. So it is much better to accept it than worry about it. When you become adaptable, you see Design Mistakes as learning opportunities and see challenges as victories. This mindset helps you deal with every situation and face problems with great enthusiasm. Moreover, you can recognize when you need to change an approach to make sure that the product you create is the right one.

Why Choose Webnhubs for the Web UX Design Process?

When it comes to creating a web UX design by carrying out the UX design process in the best possible way, there are not many design agencies that do a better job than Webnhubs.

Webnhubs’ Web UX Design Services are second to none as they are professionals in this domain.

We have the skills, experience, expertise, technology know-how, stacked portfolio, and process knowledge to pull off the job.

But don’t just take our word for it; have a look at our portfolio and see our client success stories. Our body of work speaks for itself.

Above all, our prize jewel is our UX design team, in which we have highly skilled UX designers.

So, if you need to design UX, UI, or entire web design, for that matter, you can partner with Webnhubs and let our team bring your product to life with full quality.

To Sum It Up

That is all we have for this blog folks. We have covered just about everything that goes into the UX design process and we hope that some of the things we shared in it can help you in your UX design journey. More so, you can follow the UX design steps we mentioned in this blog to create UX design in the best and fastest way possible.

However, if you need a helping hand, then you can consider choosing Webnhubs’ professional UX design agency for the job. Our team of expert UX designers will help you mature, polish, and develop your UX design. We will work closely with you to ensure that your users have a good experience using your product.