At Luft Design, we strongly believe that good design is what can differentiate a successful startup from a less successful one. Follow this simple check-list if you want your startup to be great at design 🚀

1 - Know your users (really well)

Before anything else, know who you are designing for. This foundational step informs every aspect of your UX strategy, making sure your solutions are not just innovative but also relevant. Is a really good product that no one cares about a really good product?

• [ ] Make a habit of engaging with your users and gather feedback every week: Set up feedback loops and systems to automatically ask for feedback and schedule calls with your users.
• [ ] Build simple user personas: Create 1-3 personas that reflect your target audience's diverse needs and behaviors.
• [ ] Learn to know how they talk: You’d be surprised how much people misunderstand or don’t understand. Often, the words clear to you may confuse users. Understand and use their terminology.
• [ ] Update your insights regularly: Stay responsive to changing user needs by keeping your personas and strategies up to date.

2 - Prototype, test and iterate

Rapid prototyping and user testing are at the heart of a lean, agile design process. This approach helps you fail fast, learn quickly, and evolve your product to better meet user needs.

• [ ] Have a simple process around selecting what features/pages/things to prototype: Prioritize using simple frameworks such as the MoSCoW method or evaluating features based on their effort versus value (low effort/high value, etc.).
• [ ] Make simple prototypes in Figma: Focus on 1-2 features max. If you test too many things at once, you won’t learn as much.
• [ ] Find an easy way to recruit users: This is usually a barrier, but it doesn’t have to be so difficult. It could be just emailing your existing users (if you have any), creating a (focus) group on Facebook, or last resort - just ask your mom (check out the book The Mom Test)
• [ ] When testing, ask questions, then shut up: Try to ask “Why is that?” 5 times in a row, and awkward silence is good - it makes them talk.
• [ ] Separate between what users say vs what they do: Often, there's a gap between user feedback and actual user behavior. Pay attention to what users do when they interact with your prototype. Actions often reveal more than words.