design-strategy

Design Strategy

Strategy is the bridge between understanding and making. It takes what you learned in discovery and research and turns it into a clear direction that every design decision can be measured against.

Welcome Gate

BEFORE running strategy, check whether the Designpowers welcome sequence has been shown this session. If the user has not yet seen the welcome (the bird, the greeting, and the walkthrough offer), you MUST invoke the using-designpowers skill FIRST and complete the welcome sequence before returning here. The bird must appear before any work begins. No exceptions.

When to Use

• After discovery and/or research, before detailed design work
• When stakeholders disagree about direction
• When the team needs shared design principles
• When positioning against competitors
• When defining what makes this experience distinctive

Process

Step 1: Synthesise Inputs

Gather everything from previous phases:

• Design brief (from design-discovery)
• Research findings (if research-planning was used)
• Personas (from inclusive-personas)
• Existing design system or brand guidelines
• Business objectives and constraints

Step 2: Competitive Landscape

If relevant, map the competitive landscape:

## Competitive Analysis

| Competitor | Strengths | Weaknesses | Accessibility | Differentiation Opportunity |
|-----------|-----------|------------|---------------|---------------------------|
| [Name] | [What works] | [What fails] | [WCAG compliance, inclusive design quality] | [Where we can do better] |

Pay specific attention to where competitors fail on accessibility — this is often the largest opportunity for differentiation.

Step 3: Define Design Principles

Write 3-5 design principles that will guide every decision. Good principles are:

• Opinionated — they take a position, not state the obvious
• Actionable — a designer can use them to make a decision
• Testable — you can evaluate a design against them
• Inclusive — at least one principle explicitly addresses accessibility