I like to begin my design process with designing the Information Architecture of the site which focuses on organizing information that can and should be offered for the site. It also helps me structure the website as well as set up the beginning stages of web flow. To do this, I wrote down different information on sticky notes to card sort and group similar information.
Next, I created user stories to better understand various user’s needs. I made a list of different users who would be visiting the site and defined what their goal for visiting the site would be. I then defined what actions they may want to take to accomplish their end goal. Referencing my Information Architecture, I would check to see if the user would in fact accomplish their goal. Lastly, I wrote a conclusion describing how the site would accomplish their goal.
I repeated this process throughout multiple user stories adjusting the Information Architecture as needed.