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Process is everything, and when process is broken, or ceases to exist, design cannot function. When joining the PIE UX Team at Microsoft, I made a huge point to make that the first step in establishing this new visual design structure. We created a custom ADO dashboard, and established a step-by-step, reviewable design process to execute projects.
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Creating a standard for process is not only to keep us honest and on track. It is about establishing a respect for design. Period. It is incredibly important to create a relationship between design, and project management. By creating a step-by-step process, we allowed clients to understand how we think about creative projects on a bigger level and let them give input and have a level of control.
The Process
Establish a clear creative brief / Create keywords based on the clients needs and goals / Gather inspiration
Start sketching and refining concepts / Meet and get feedback from clients / Review proposed and revised assets with clients / Deliver final assets
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I push for clarity and transparency in all design projects. While the UX team was developing toolkits, I took it upon myself to create a system for annotations, notes, and status notifications for any given page or element.
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While we worked on creating a system for communication inside the PIE UX Toolkit, we identified the need for easily accessible alert emails. I collaborated with my team to examine the current Microsoft Guidelines and see where we could improve and create a more consistent and usable system.