Picture this: a constant building thing bit by bit, becoming better with each step. What has been missing? Sound like it? So let's break down what happens when you use this method, why it works so well, and how you can use it to destroy your next project. One thing, you’ll get onto iteration in no time!

What is the Iteration Process? And How Does It Benefit Your Workflow?

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What Should the Design Thinking Process be Iterative?

What is the Cycle or Steps of the Iterative Design Process?

Define Your Goals: What Are We Aiming For?

All iterative processes have a clear goal at the start. What if someone told you they were going on a journey, but you didn’t know where the journey was leading? This is the same thing. This is the first stage in which it’s important to decide what you want to achieve with the project. Whether you’re building a site, product, or app, clear, measurable goals are crucial. It also lets everyone on your team be on the same page as to what you want. It’s the train tracks laid before you even board the train. It ends up being something that you’ll iterate forever, not hitting your targets without a defined goal as it helps to guide you in the right direction.

Ideation and Brainstorming: Throw Ideas at the Wall (See What Sticks)

Prototype: Time to Get Your Hands Dirty

Once you’ve come up with a few amazing ideas, it’s time to pull something together: the first version, or prototype. This is your rough draft, your first go at making something to be seen and held. It’s not perfect—it’s supposed to not be! The whole idea of the iteration process is that the first iteration might just be the stepping stone. Depending on how complex the project is you could have a simple prototype such as a mockup or sketch, or a more advanced prototype like a model.

Test and Gather Feedback: What’s Working and What’s Not?

And now comes the fun part — putting your prototype to the test. Testing is valuable, and it comes as part of the iterative process. You’re looking to get feedback from as many different sources as you can. At this point, stakeholders, customers and even team members contribute to what works and what needs to be improved. The objective is to amass enough data so that you can find areas where you may be hurting, are strong, and spot opportunities for improvement. Real World Testing lets you find all the kinks you may have missed during development, testing software features, new designs, or product functionality.

Repeat Until You Reach Your Goal: When Is It Good Enough?

Examples of Iterative Processes

Next, we will see how the iterative process plays out in real-world situations. These examples might spark some ideas on how you can apply the same method in your projects:

• Website Development: The iterative process is used extensively by many web developers building new websites and additional features. Let’s pretend you’re building a new e-commerce site for example. Rather than creating the whole site and then launching it in one fell swoop, you might begin with the homepage design. You test it, get feedback from users and that’s how you improve it. Doing it this way means you’ve tested and optimized your way more or less in advance, so by the time you’ve gone live with the full site, it will be ready for user experience.
• Product Design: When you have a way of developing a physical product like a new tool or gadget, you usually go through a few prototypes. They’ll create a version of the product, try it out with users who will use the product, get feedback and improve the design. Lastly, by doing so, they do not have to completely throw away the scoping should the product not turn out to be a masterpiece, yet still manage to achieve a decent result.
• Marketing Campaigns: In fact, this process isn’t just for designers and developers, but also for marketers. Say, a marketing team can create two variants of an ad campaign, and run it to see which one gets more engagement. They will base their results on what they achieved and they’ll make the necessary changes and try it round again until they achieve the results they’re looking for.
• App Development: As with web development, the world of application development is heavily based on iteration. In the beginning, it could be an app in its most bare-bones form that has only a handful of basic features. They get feedback, add new features, and improve on the same user needs.

Ready to Tackle the World with the Iterative Process?

You don’t know exactly what’s wrong or how to fix it? That’s the point! It’s an iterative process that works in trial and error: you refine your work as you go, get feedback, test, and yes, a little bit of creative magic. If you’re still not feeling as confident about jumping into an iterative process as you might like to, I understand. At first, it can feel unfamiliar. Trust me, this method gives you the power to make, test and tweak until you get them just right. There’s no more sleepless nights fretting to get it just right in one go.