The first thing you want to do is spend some time to understand the business/brand you are doing the work for. Ask some simple questions about this business like; Who are they? Why do they do what they do? Who are they serving? How valuable is their offering to their customer? What do customer say about what this brand is offering? The primary thing you are looking out for is, What are the business goals we are trying to achieve with this project?

The User flow is described in multiple ways. You may see it described as a User Story, User, Journey or a User Flow. Simply put the flow is mapping out the Journey that user will take before they reach a desired goal you want, like to purchase an item. As a UX Designer the better you can become at designing and understanding the user flow it will lead to better results for the business and for the user.

I truly believe that the best way to start you designs is to stay as far away from your computer as possible but start to sketch. Really spend time sketching out the design without the limitations of a grid and an art-board in your way. I use low-fidelity prototypes in order to have an early validation of the product, saving time and making sure I’m not producing wasteful design work. I can easily and efficiently make changes while including users feedback based on their reactions.

Your wireframes are the skeleton of the High Fidelity designs. At this stage try and get sign off from the stakeholders of the project. This is the quickest way to work rather than show high fidelity designs and get push back on smaller things like typography and colours on top of the UX design of what you are designing. Using the wireframes in user testing is also a great way to save time and money on the project also and you can quickly get feedback on what you have designed to make sure you are going in the right direction.