Taobao Design Process at Taobao.com UED Team

Step 1: Prototype

The first stage of the design process, which we call prototype design, mainly involves designing the product's functions, user flows, information architecture, interaction details, page elements, and more. If you think these concepts sound a bit abstract, let me put it in simpler terms: prototype design is about completely ignoring how good-looking the product is and focusing instead on clearly defining what the product needs to do, how it will do those things, and how it will interact with users. Then, all of this is visualized so that people can intuitively see it.

As for how to create the visualization, that’s up to you. You can draw it with pen and paper, use a whiteboard marker, create it in Photoshop, design it in Visio, or, like us, use Axure. Any tool is fine as long as it allows you to thoroughly express all the details mentioned above.