Agree the user's path before anyone draws a screen

The feature's name sounded settled. What people expected from it was not. Each layout had selected an interpretation without making that choice explicit.

A detailed screen can make an unsettled idea look decided. Discussion then moves to the position of a control or the space between elements. Those comments can improve the layout while leaving its purpose unresolved.

Putting the screens away gave us room to ask what the person using the feature needed to understand or finish. The disagreement became something we could discuss directly.

We also examined what the product already did. That narrowed the problem and changed the questions we needed to resolve before drawing again.

This matters in a running product. A new screen can duplicate a capability, expose an existing one or change how someone reaches it. Those are different kinds of work, even when their first mockups look similar.

Our design work now runs in that order, and each part is agreed before the next begins. First the problem, in the users' own words. Then the user flow, with every branch a person can meet: nothing there yet, still loading, an error, no permission, too much data. The technical leads weigh in on limits while the flow is still a drawing. Only then do screens begin.

We size the work by risk. A change of wording needs little of this. A new flow needs all of it.

A meeting transcript preserves what people said. A decision records what they agreed. Confusing the two can send a designer back to the same unresolved question, with a more polished screen each time.

The next useful design decision may be about meaning before it is about layout. Once the purpose is shared, the screen has something definite to express.