In my first UX position after college (and most recent employment), the company that I worked for did not have a design service or any other designers. The company specialized in SEO and not design. 

This was both an advantage and a disadvantage to me. Starting out without a mentor to guide me was difficult in many ways, but it also allowed me to grow exponentially. I learned client and project management in leaps and bounds. I quickly learned how to take authority and charge in a project. I learned how to set and manage client expectations. Communicating with clients, stakeholders, attorneys, regional directors, etc is something that became natural. Coming onto a spontaneous sales call and performing a design analysis on the spot became second nature. I learned to be transparent, and explain setbacks and how we planned to overcome them to clients.

Design processes were a bit more difficult to establish without a design mentor. I worked with the cofounders of the company and the COO to build our own design processes. I fully realize that these are probably not the most efficient processes, and more well established companies that have evolved their design processes over many years have much more efficient processes established, and I will continue to refine my processes as well.

1. Identify the client goals and set expectations. What does a successful experience look like to them? What do they want out of this?  What are their concerns? Explain how we will meet their expectations, and what we will do to actively address their concerns.

2. Identify the audience. Who are they? Where do they live? What social class are they? What is the need that drove them to the site? What signals are they looking for?

3. Put myself in their shoes. What emotions would I be feeling? What would my questions be? What would my doubts be? What would I be looking for? What reservations might I have? What is the standard public view of the industry? Are there stereotypes to overcome? What would drive me away?

4. Identify industry conventions. Who are their competitors? How is their website set up? What is common across many different websites? What is unique?

5. Check available data. If a website, what are the most visited pages? What are the most visited pages AFTER the landing page? What's the bounce/engagement rate currently? Where does user flow tend to start and stop?

6. Check heat maps. If available, analyze heat maps on the most crucial pages. What gets clicked? What doesn't get clicked? How far down do users scroll? Are there steep drop offs? What are they doing with the mouse? What areas have the most mouse movement (usually indicating reading)? Are there areas with erratic clicking (often indicating frustration, or attempt to use functionality that does not exist/is not working)?

7. Create theories. Create theories as to what the user need and what their priorities are.
Create a hypothesis as to what can be adjusted to make the maximum impact to address the user needs and consequently achieve the client's goals.

1. Identify users that fit the user profile. Do they fit the social class? Do they fit the demographic?

2. Give them a scenario they can relate to. Give them a specific situation that they can relate to. This will vary greatly based on the industry and theories formed during the UX analysis, ie, for personal injury, "Your son was in a car accident when a driver ran a red light and hi him. The insurance company is giving you a hard time, and won't budge. He's in the hospital and the medical bills are coming in - there's no way you can afford them. You're considering hiring a lawyer and you land on the site I'm about to show you."

3. Ask them about their feelings and doubts. "Before I show this to you, I want you to imagine for a second that this is really happening. What would you be feeling? (record response) What are your main concerns? (record response) What things will you looking for an attorney to help you with this situation? (record response) What doubts would you have about hiring an attorney? (record response) What would your goal be in looking at the site?"

4. Show them the site. Explain that you're just trying to see the site through their eyes and there is no right or wrong way to do it. "Just got through the site like you normally would if I weren't here. Go down any page as little or as much as you need to/would like. Click on any other pages you would like. Let me know if at any point you want to contact the firm and how you plan to do it. If at any point you would close the site and look somewhere else, please do so." (take notes as they go through the site, avoid asking any questions until the end)

5. Ask questions. Based on the notes taken, ask questions. What did they like? What did they not like? What was their perception of the page? How did they feel about the firm? Did they find what they were looking for? What did they wish they could've found? Did anything stand out as good? Bad?

6. Share your theories. share your theories on user doubts and needs. Do they agree or disagree? Why? Ask them how they would prioritize user needs. What's the biggest one? What comes next?

7. Thank them for  their time. Show appreciation for the insights they shared, and explain how helpful it has been.

8. Create theories. Create a hypothesis as to what can be adjusted to make the maximum impact to address the user needs and consequently achieve the client's goals.

2. User tests. If possible, perform at least 3 user tests on the current application.

3. Create a plan. Once theories have been formed, create a list of changes that could be made on the site to address user needs. Order these in form of most impact, with least cost to the client.

4. Meet with the client or record a video explaining your findings. Walk them through the site as if they were the user. Explain the recommended course of action, and the anticipated outcome. Identify which metrics will be used to gauge success. Establish how often data will be checked.

5. Iterate. Test, measure, and report on findings. There is a lot that goes into this, and I won't go into detail on this here. In a nutshell, you check data on a regular basis and report it to the client. Be transparent. If the experiment is going as expected, tell the client and tell them what the next course of action is, and what was learned from the experiment (ie, when I once redesigned a contact page for a client, the conversion rate dropped even though the design was far better than the previous design. When reporting to the client I first asked them about how they felt about the new design. Then I began reporting on the data. The client was surprised. I told them I was, too. I explained that it didn't line up right. I told them about how I checked into the user flow and heat mapping software and found that the users were so interested in a specific section on the page, that conversions had dropped as users exited the contact page to look into that section. I explained that we would remove the section from the page and monitor the data. Sure enough, with that section removed conversion rate went up higher than on the old design.)

6. Rinse and repeat. Continue through the list of changes repeating step 5, or even steps 1-5 as often as needed. Never assume that the site has reached its maximum potential. In a world of technology that changes incredibly fast, so do user needs.

1. Meet with client. Establish the desired outcome. What is the purpose of the page? Is the page expected to drive leads, or does it have another purpose?

2. UX design analysis. Depending on the complexity and weight of the client's goal, determine if a full UX analysis is worth the investment to the client.
3. Check the site for available structure. Why reinvent the wheel? If the functionality and needs of the page are simple, and leads do not rely heavily on the page skip the full UX design analysis and use building blocks from other areas on the site to create the needed page. This maximizes design and development efficiency. Even if redesign and a full UX analysis is required, it is important to check the site for possible building blocks.

4. Create a prototype. Create a prototype of the design for the client to approve, and record a video reviewing the design. Once approved, create responsive designs.

5. Send to development. Once the page has been approved by the client, send it into the development stage.

6. Quality control. Before the newly developed page goes live, perform a quality control analysis, checking responsiveness on commonly used device sizes.

7. Take the page live. Let the client know when the page goes live.

8. Report. Run data and report back on client goals and expectations.