Processes on Fernando Ruiz

Budget Management

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

Design budget management is the process of planning, allocating, and controlling the financial resources of a design team to ensure it can operate effectively and achieve its strategic objectives. It is a key responsibility for design leaders (Leads, Managers, Directors).

What Is Budget Management?

Imagine you are the manager of a rock band. Your budget is the money you have for the year. You must decide how to use it: how much for the musicians’ salaries? How much for buying new instruments and equipment (software tools)? How much for renting a recording studio (research costs)? And how much for the tour (travel and conferences)?

Career Plans and Performance Evaluation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

A career plan is a structured framework that defines the competencies, skills, and responsibilities at each level of a design team. A performance evaluation is the periodic process through which a manager and a team member review the latter’s performance based on that framework, celebrate achievements, and define goals for the future.

What Are Career Plans?

Imagine you are playing a role-playing video game. Your character starts at level 1. To level up, you need to earn experience points and acquire new skills. The game shows you a “skill tree” where you can clearly see what you need to reach level 2, level 10, and what new abilities you will unlock. It also lets you choose different classes, like “warrior” or “mage.”

Data-Driven Design Decisions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

Making data-driven design decisions is an approach that uses concrete evidence and data, both qualitative and quantitative, to inform and justify design choices, rather than relying solely on intuition, personal opinions, or aesthetic trends.

What Is Data-Driven Design?

Imagine a doctor. A good doctor does not prescribe a treatment based on “a hunch” or “what worked for another patient.” A good doctor combines different types of data: listens to your symptoms (qualitative data), orders blood tests (quantitative data), and reviews your medical history to make an informed diagnosis.

Design Critiques

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

A Design Critique is a structured team session where designers present their work in progress to receive constructive feedback from their peers. The goal is to improve the design, not to judge the designer.

What Is a Design Critique?

Imagine you are a chef creating a new dish. Before putting it on the menu, you present it to other trusted chefs. They taste it and give you their expert opinion: “The acidity of the lemon is perfect, but maybe it needs a bit more salt to bring out the flavors. Have you tried searing the fish for one less minute?”. They do not say “I do not like your dish,” but instead give you specific, professional feedback to help you improve.

Design Handoff: Figma to Development

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

The process of communicating design decisions to developers—clear handoffs prevent misinterpretation and rework.

What is Design Handoff?

Design handoff is the moment designs move from Figma to code. Without clear handoff, developers interpret designs in their own way. Blue becomes a different shade. Padding is guessed. Animations are simplified.

A good handoff answers: What is this component? How does it behave? What are the states? What’s the spacing? A bad handoff is mockups alone with no documentation.

Design Sprints

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

A Design Sprint is a five-day process, with a defined step-by-step approach, for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing with real customers. It is a method for compressing months of debate and development into a single week of focused work.

What Is a Design Sprint?

Imagine you have an idea for a new product. The traditional path would be to spend months researching, designing, developing, and launching to see if people like it. A Design Sprint is like a time machine: it allows you to jump into the future and see how customers react to your finished product, but without having to build it. In just five days, you go from an idea to a realistic prototype and real user feedback.

Executive Presentations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

An executive presentation is a concise and persuasive form of communication, designed to inform senior leaders and stakeholders, influence their decision-making, and obtain their support (buy-in) for a design or product initiative.

What Is an Executive Presentation?

Imagine you are a screenwriter who has 5 minutes to sell their movie idea to a very busy Hollywood producer. You do not tell them the movie scene by scene. You tell a compelling story: the concept, the protagonist, the conflict, and why it will be a box office hit. You give an “elevator pitch” designed to capture their attention and convince them to invest in your project.

How to Write a UX Case Study

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

The structure and narrative that turns design work into a compelling story—the foundation of a strong design portfolio.

What is a UX Case Study?

A UX case study tells the story of a design project from problem through solution to impact. It’s not a portfolio piece showing pretty mockups. It’s a narrative explaining your thinking, decisions, and results.

A case study answers: What was the problem? Why did it matter? How did you solve it? What did you learn? A strong case study shows your process, not just your output.

Managing Design Projects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

Managing a design project involves planning, executing, and overseeing all tasks and resources related to the design of a product or feature, from initial research to the final handoff to development, ensuring that objectives, timeline, and budget are met.

What Is Design Project Management?

Imagine you are a movie director. You do not just worry about making the cinematography beautiful or the actors performing well. You are responsible for everything: from the initial script (the strategy), the shooting schedule (the project plan), managing the team and the budget, to post-production and the premiere. You make sure all the pieces move in a coordinated way to deliver the movie on time and within budget.

Optimizing Design Processes (DesignOps)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Optimizing design processes (often part of the DesignOps discipline) is the work of analyzing, standardizing, and improving the design team’s workflows to increase efficiency, quality, and impact. It is about designing how you design.

What Is Process Optimization (DesignOps)?

Imagine a team of elite chefs. In addition to the chefs who cook (the designers), there is a key figure: the “Head Chef” or “Sous Chef.” This person does not cook the main dishes; instead, they make sure the kitchen runs like clockwork: the knives are sharp (tools), the recipes are standardized ([[Design System]]), communication between the cooks is smooth (rituals), and the ingredients arrive on time (processes).

Strategic Workshops

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

Strategic workshops are high-level collaborative work sessions, designed and facilitated by design leaders, to align a diverse group of stakeholders (product, business, and technology leaders) around a shared vision, strategy, and long-term priorities. The most common examples are [[Design Sprints]], product vision workshops, and roadmap planning workshops.

What Is a Strategic Workshop?

Imagine a summit of world leaders. They do not meet to discuss the color of flags. They meet to address complex problems like climate change or the global economy. They need an expert facilitator (like a UN diplomat) who structures the conversation, ensures all voices are heard, and guides the group toward an agreement or a joint action plan.

Team Ceremonies (Daily, Planning, Retros)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

Team ceremonies are a series of recurring meetings, popularized by agile methodologies like Scrum, designed to structure work, foster communication, and promote continuous improvement. The most common ones are the Daily Stand-up, Sprint Planning, and Retrospective.

What Are Team Ceremonies?

Imagine a Formula 1 racing team during a race. They have very defined “ceremonies”: the pit stop is a quick, synchronized ritual to check the car’s condition and change tires (the Daily Stand-up). Before the race, they have a meeting to define the tire and pit strategy (the Sprint Planning). And after the race, they analyze the data and performance to see how they can be faster next time (the Retrospective).

The UX Design Process: An End-to-End Guide

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

The complete step-by-step workflow that transforms a problem into a user-centered solution.

What is the UX Design Process?

Imagine you’re a chef creating a new restaurant dish. You don’t just throw ingredients together and hope for the best. Instead, you understand what your diners actually want, you experiment with different flavor combinations, you taste and adjust, and finally you test it with real customers before adding it to the menu. That’s essentially what the UX design process does—it’s a structured, methodical approach to understanding user needs and solving problems through design.

User Research Activities

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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User research activities (UX Research) are the set of methods and techniques used to understand users, their behaviors, needs, and motivations. It is the systematic process of collecting and analyzing data to inform the design process and decision-making.

What Are Research Activities?

Imagine you are a detective about to solve a big case. You do not go out on the street and interrogate random people. First, you define the mystery (“Who stole the cookies?”). Then, you identify your key witnesses (participants), prepare your list of questions (script), decide how you will analyze the clues (synthesis), and finally present your conclusions. A UX research plan is exactly that: a detective’s plan to solve a mystery about users.

Workshop Preparation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

Workshop preparation is the process of designing and planning a collaborative work session, with a clear objective, a structured agenda, and a series of dynamic activities, to achieve a specific result within a limited time.

What Is Workshop Preparation?

Imagine you are the host of an important dinner. You do not wait until the guests arrive to decide what you are going to cook. Weeks in advance, you plan the menu (the objective and activities), make the shopping list (the materials), prepare some ingredients ahead of time (the pre-work), and set the table (the environment). The success of the dinner depends 90% on this preparation.