2. Ideate & Design

With the real problems in hand, this is where they turn into something you can look at. Flows first — how someone actually moves through the thing — then wireframes, then interface design once the structure holds up. Nothing skips ahead to visuals before the flow is settled; that's how projects end up redesigning the same screen twice.

Every meaningful decision gets written down as it's made — why this layout, why that flow, not the other one — so the reasoning is still there for whoever picks up the project in six months, including you. Validate & Prioritise is next: what gets built first depends on what survives contact with real users, not on it looking finished.

In practice, that's a working flow diagram and a first cut of the actual screens — enough to click through and argue about, not just admire.