Why your current state is crucial for our UX design team to understand

The importance of understanding your current state before designing future software solutions

Before our UX design team dives into any UX design project, one of our first priorities is understanding your current state. This isn’t just about the tools you’re using, but how your operations, workflows, and user interactions function today. By understanding your current state we can ensure we’re building for your unique environment from the start, avoiding the need for costly rework in the future. Starting from a blank slate without this context can be overwhelming for both sides. We want to build solutions that fit seamlessly into your existing environment while also addressing any friction points or inefficiencies.

For example, when designing solutions for a client, we immerse ourselves in their world, understanding how and why their current workflows work within their existing platforms, and noting down any frustrations that they might experience. These give us key opportunities to leverage into something that's more than just a functional design. The terminology, customer profiles, and the nuances in how their customers interact with the platform are all crucial. These insights allow us to create something more than just a functional design; it’s about designing something that’s genuinely aligned with how the users already think and work.

In UX, the current state is the foundation. Without it, even the most well-designed solutions can miss the mark entirely. By grounding our designs in your current context, we ensure that what we build isn’t just aesthetically pleasing but truly effective. This foundational grounding in your current product maintains alignment and consistency with your current ways of working, it captures and keeps your specific language, and means that all new designs are informed by the nuances of how your users perform their work today.

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Defining current state and future state in UX design

Your current state

When we talk about the "current state," we’re diving into everything your users and team interact with today, like how they navigate your systems, where they get stuck, and how they get their work done.

This isn’t just about mapping out screens. It’s about understanding the operational workflows, existing user journeys, and even those little pain points that might seem minor but really add up. Essentially, it’s about capturing how things are working today, both the good and the bad.

Without a solid grasp of this, you risk creating solutions that may be visually appealing but don’t align with actual user needs or business goals.

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Your future state

The "future state" is all about where you want to go. A streamlined process, smoother interactions, and a more intuitive experience overall.

Whether that’s simplifying complex workflows or rethinking how users interact with your platform, the future state is where we can start designing solutions that are both user-friendly and aligned with your business goals.

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The role of the UX discovery process in capturing the current state

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Our UX workshops & research

When we kick off a project, one of the first things we do is run discovery sessions. These workshops are where we start gathering insights, mapping out current processes, and really getting into the nitty-gritty of how things work today.

Whether it’s collecting screenshots, mapping user journeys, or just talking through what’s working and what isn’t, this is where we get the context we need. It’s all part of our UX discovery process - building a clear picture so we can design with intention.

Collaboration with clients

This process is collaborative by nature. It’s not just us coming in and telling you how things should be done, we’re in this together. Your team knows your domain better than anyone, and we rely on that expertise to guide our design decisions.

Through conversations, mood board exercises, and iterative feedback during UX workshops, we ensure that what we’re designing aligns not just with user needs, but with your business objectives as well.

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Going beyond interface design and understanding operations and user goals

The work we do goes beyond the screens. Understanding your business context: how your operations run, and what your goals are, is crucial to designing something that fits.

We’re considering things like how different user roles interact with the platform and what their specific needs are. This broader understanding is what allows us to design solutions that work well in the real world, not just in theory.

In practice, this means doing things like mapping out user flows and creating mood boards early in the process. Activities like gathering screenshots and real-world examples give us a clear visual of what users are familiar with and where there’s room for improvement.

By understanding these details upfront, we can design a future state that not only looks good but also feels intuitive and aligns with how your users naturally work.

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How current state insights shape the future UX design

Prototyping and iterative testing

Once we’ve nailed down the current state and gathered all the insights through our UX discovery process, we start moving towards the future state through prototyping. The designs are built incrementally, starting with low-fidelity sketches and gradually evolving into high-fidelity prototypes that reflect the solution we’re aiming for. What’s key here is that everything we build is rooted in what we’ve learned from your existing workflows and user behaviours.

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Prototypes aren’t just about showing off a polished design, they’re tools for validating our ideas. We conduct user tests to see how real people interact with the prototype, gathering feedback and refining the design as we go. This iterative process lets us pivot quickly if something isn’t quite hitting the mark, ensuring we stay aligned with both user needs and business goals.

Learn more about our idea to prototype service.

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Check out our prototype for Flockk:

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Iterative UX discovery process

The UX process is never linear, it’s a cycle of continuous validation and improvement. We regularly revisit the insights from our current state analysis, comparing them against user feedback during testing. This constant loop of testing, refining, and re-testing helps us stay on track, ensuring that the final product is not only functional but also intuitive and easy to use. By grounding each iteration in real-world feedback, we’re able to deliver a product that meets user expectations and business objectives without the guesswork.

Learn more about our how we work.

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Common pitfalls UX design teams face when ignoring the current state

User misalignment

One of the biggest risks when skipping the current state analysis is user misalignment. If we dive straight into designing for a future state without fully understanding how your users currently interact with your system, we can end up with a solution that doesn’t fit their mental models or workflows. This misalignment can cause confusion, disrupt existing processes, and ultimately lead to low adoption rates.

Costly rework

Skipping this foundational phase might seem like it speeds up the process, but it often leads to costly rework down the line. Without a deep understanding of the current state, the initial design might miss critical context, requiring major changes later in the project. Redesigns, missed deadlines, and project overruns are common consequences when you don’t take the time upfront to thoroughly map out what’s already in place.

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Why understanding the current state is essential for successful UX design teams

To wrap it up, the current state is the foundation upon which the future state is built. By thoroughly understanding where things stand today, we can design solutions that don’t just solve surface-level issues but address the deeper, more complex problems your users face. It’s this commitment to digging deep that sets our UX design process apart and allows us to deliver designs that are not only visually appealing but also operationally effective.

If you’re looking to ensure that your software solution is built with a clear understanding of both where you are and where you want to go, reach out to us. We’d love to help, simply reach out to us via our contact form to chat.