Designer's processes aren't straightforward

Hire long enough for product designers and trends emerge. Most designers at some point feel compelled to share a converging and diverging diagram, indicating their ability to go broad and narrow when needed.

This is a good thing. And I agree with it.

But when designers say they have a process it often sounds like they’re following a recipe to bake a cake.

Products don’t work like that. You can’t throw in pieces and guarantee results on the other side.

It’s more like cooking. You toss something in, see how it smells; shift, adjust, add, tweak, and eventually something will come to life—maybe horrible, maybe good.

The truth is, a good designer does have processes, patterns they follow, steps they take. But they recognize that any tool or method can be used so long as it’s helping accomplished a goal—often tied to a metric. If that’s happening, then the way they get to the finish line can change, allowing them to adapt as needed.