Designing is a process, and as a designer you can utilize numerous strategies to progress to a successful outcome, but a sure way not to succeed is to deny the process. I like to describe it as not “honoring the design process.” You need to pay homage to the natural forces of doing and deciding. In other words, performing a bunch of random activities utilizing gathered requirements, constraints and user profiles does not necessarily lead to a solid design. A couple of examples that I have witnessed:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke

One of the challenges to creating effecting and engaging User Experiences (UX) for interactive devices is balancing the creative aspect with the functional. Talented visual designers can create amazing works in Photoshop, some of which make even experienced software engineers cringe when it comes to having to implement them. Knowing the capabilities of your development team can be critical when trying to make the right decisions in the early phases of a design effort.

Before getting the opportunity to run a design team, I worked as a Qt developer and trainer for many years.  This has given me some insights into the development pipeline that I think a lot of people have missed.