Artem Syzonenko

Customer interviews, surveys, competitor analysis, idea generation. Inspiration + ideation in human-centered design terminology. While this is simpler for client projects as the main source of truth is the client, things get more complex when dealing with consumer-facing product before product/market fit stage.

Do people really have this problem? How they solve it right now? Will they pay for alternative solution? Will that price cover customer acquisition cost? And many more interesting questions.

For the new features, I start with pen and paper, the least distracting way of thinking. After that — Figma or Axure RP.

When a prototype is done, it should be checked with customers, and depending on their feedback it goes to development, requires modifications or I try solving the task in an alternative way.
“... prototype is worth a thousand meetings” — IDEO.

As part of overall UX, I design UI, so user can interact with a system. Sample design (needs logging in) ↗. Prototypes should have a high fidelity look according to researches, so user treats it like a real solution. That's why from the beginning I create UI close to supposed final version and not Balsamiq-like sketches.

Nevertherless, I am not a graphic designer. I create interactive elements (inputs, buttons, selectors, sliders etc.) and don't create a graphic ones (illustrations, logos, infographics, etc.)

I helped to launch five projects from zero stage to public market. This allowed me to deeply understand the whole process of software product delivery.

We can't launch a successful product if we just make it user-friendly. Product should be desirable, we should be able to deliver it and it should be viable on market. There is no big point to start building a product we won't be able to promote or implement. Of course, there are PM and CTO, but Product Designer should understand these things as well.

I am not a programmer or database specialist, but I have some understanding of tech stack that may help us to deliver faster.

Should we do a simple HTML page with a couple of js widgets? Or better go with Webflow? Maybe WordPress with some theme? Or go with Laravel? Maybe Django or Rails? Bubble? Outsystems?

What about frontend? Do we really need Vue/React in the first place? Maybe start with Django+htmx? What component library will we use? What about app search: native DB, Elastic, or Algolia? Do we need a native app or a web app? Web app as PWA? Font icons, SVGs or sprites? And so on.

Big experience in this field. From Github (more than 2000 tasks) to long documents with project requirements.

I am sure that product designer should participate in both written and verbal task descriptions not just because he/she can better explain all interactivity details, but also because task explaination often discloses lots of missed functionality ("oh, we missed editing functionality" or "hm, and how to go back now?"). And developers expectedly don't like such a descriptions full of holes :)