The Process Behind the Process: Mei Zhang on Designing Design Workflows
In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, Vitaly Friedman sits down with Mei Zhang, a senior UX designer and consultant currently at Booking.com in Amsterdam. Zhang’s path to design started in an unexpected place: a childhood dream of competing in the Olympics as a swimmer. While that ambition went unfulfilled, it gave her the discipline that later shaped her career. Her professional spark came later, from an iPhone 4 and Apple’s Human-Computer Interaction guidelines, which led her to discover UX during her industrial design studies. She has since built a career designing e-commerce experiences for millions of users and helping other designers navigate complex, enterprise-level problems.
Starting With the Real Problem, Not the Toolbox
When diving into a complex product—whether B2B, enterprise, or otherwise—Zhang’s process begins with a single question: what is the actual problem? You don’t pick a methodology first; you let the problem dictate the path. The next step is mapping stakeholders, understanding what each person needs, and recognizing that success means delivering to users and to internal decision-makers.
Zhang stresses that real-world constraints cannot be ignored. If data doesn’t exist and cannot be collected, you must find another approach that answers the same question. It’s not about following a set script; it’s about matching the method to the situation at hand.
Managing the Tension Between Vision and A/B Tests
A common dilemma for design teams is the perceived conflict between a long-term design vision and short-term business metrics, often represented by A/B testing. Zhang pushes back on the idea that these are mutually exclusive. She views A/B testing as a validation tool—one step on the path toward a larger vision—not a competing direction.
Making that coexistence work, she argues, requires cross-functional partnership rather than confrontation. Building a strong, trusting relationship with product managers is essential. Designers also need to develop a business mindset. When working at a for-profit organization, converting users and supporting the bottom line becomes part of the designer’s job, not something apart from it. The key is demonstrating that improving the user experience ultimately drives long-term growth.
Zhang recommends defining and tracking user behavior metrics in parallel with business metrics. Even if conversion numbers don’t move immediately, showing that user behavior is trending in the right direction builds the case for a design decision. When she sees teams pushing aggressive, attention-grabbing UI patterns, she also checks the entire user flow—not just the single path they are trying to optimize—and turns to user interviews to capture how people genuinely perceive the experience.
Rebalancing the Weight of Each Phase
Formal design thinking models are a useful baseline, but Zhang discovered early in her career that they are rarely applicable as-is. A project where the problem itself is murky demands massive effort in discovery. A project with a tight deadline and clear deliverables, like producing a marketing video, shifts energy toward execution. Trying to produce a polished deliverable for every phase in every project is unrealistic.
Rather than rebelling against process-level stakeholders, Zhang says the goal is to determine which phase is most important for the problem at hand and shift energy there. This doesn’t mean skipping steps altogether—it means focusing on moving forward without creating busywork.
This adaptive mindset extends to teams. A two-person design team working side-by-side every day probably doesn’t need rigorous ceremony; the design process is less about what other departments want and often more useful for communicating intent to non-designers . For the practitioners themselves, it’s often an exercise in balancing what can be learned from other teams or existing materials, and what genuinely requires fresh, collaborative work.
The Reality of Large Projects: From Figma to Documentation
“That doesn’t sound like a lot of moving pixels around in Figma,” Friedman said. Zhang laughs, admitting she misses that part of the job. Senior designers leading big initiatives often spend their time as communicators and project leaders. Zhang is currently managing a project with over 30 stakeholders. For many, meeting fatigue and organization can be a struggle. In her case, the substantial effort is spent on sorting meetings and reducing meetings, in favor of building the right communication structure.
The hardest skill to build, Zhang notes, is learning to work through other people. Rather than being the individual owner of idea generation, designers increasingly need to enable others to contribute and grow the project. This requires clear articulation of the project’s impact, bringing stakeholders on board to create genuine win-win scenarios.
Process for Its Own Sake Is a Trap
A recurring theme in the conversation is applying a rigid process simply because “that’s how we work here.” Zhang gives a past example of about one company wanting to create detailed personas. When she saw the wrong drivers, she matched that to what was needed: good UX isn't about deliverables. When the initial request lacked research and relied purely on workshops and internal assumptions, she pushed back. Since their infrastructure couldn't support behavior studies, ensuring access to at least a handful of quality customer interviews helped.
The takeaway goes both ways: The process should not exist for the sake of appearance. Instead, base our method on the real problem, the data available, and the people involved.
A Design System for Your Own Design Work
Zhang’s concept of “designing your design process” frequently stems from a flexible mental library of methods rather than a prescriptive flowchart. As a new designer, experimenting with various techniques helps build intuition for when something might prove useful. Over time, designers can quickly match each to specific needs and timelines. Zhang further explains that when a planned approach becomes impossible (for example, a sponsor removes access to research), you can pivot to other options. When surveys aren’t possible and the project’s discovery really needs search, creative alternatives like moderated diary studies can fit.
A key advice for new UX practitioners concerned with productivity: Don’t over-engineer or rely on large, clunky ceremonies. When you’re a newer designer, feeling shy or unsure is common. Yet instead of forcing an established technique because you feel pressure to match expectations, group-wide input can steer radically creative course corrections.
Trusting the Customer in E-Commerce
Through years in e-commerce, Zhang asserts that “customers are smarter than you think.” While some teams or stakeholders may be tempted to engage in “dark UX” to push short-term conversion numbers, seasoned users tend to recognize and reject those manipulations. In a highly competitive landscape, a one-time conversion achieved through poor or deceptive experience will likely not lead to a second one; worse, it might tarnish a brand. Customer expectations have grown, and design work needs to serve experience for long-term loyalty, not just the quick sale.
AI and Creativity Going Forward
On generative AI, Zhang has appreciative yet cautious tone: “We should see AI as our friends.” In an interview given right before AI model release cycles and iteration timelines, her workflow already incorporated large language models as an aid rather than a competitor. The regular, repeatable work, like drafting documentation and creating slide presentations, becomes efficient when using ChatGPT as a thought partner for rephrasing sharp points. That frees up scarce design time to focus on novel design ideas.
Is AI creative? Zhang offers a balanced view. AI processes existing data and configurations, perhaps compiling impressive output in some contexts, but it is not yet able to “dream further” or make projections beyond pattern recognition.
Bringing the conversation to a close, Zhang believes creativity and intuition remain uniquely human assets. Instead of fearing next-gen tools, designers should treasure the ability to imagine without formula and practice user advocacy.
