A framework for usable products. And a real great guideline on what to check and follow when designing a new digital product.
Update, 2026: Before Usability Comes Understanding
I made this framework in 2016. Today I’d add one step before it. A product can pass every usability check and still lose people, because they never understood what it was for in the first place. That’s a story problem, and no amount of polish on the interface fixes it.
So before you go through the framework, check that your team answers five questions the same way: who the product is for, what’s going wrong for them today, what changes when they use it, why they should believe you and what they should do next. I wrote about those questions in What Is a Product Story? If your team gives five different answers, that’s what the Story Workshop is for.