Thank you, Mike, glad this post was helpful.

It’s a very subjective question and every designer has their own way in which they visualize and process information.

So I always start with this disclaimer that the process/technique I follow might not work for you, but I want you to understand why I do things and that will help you build your own process.
One of the examples I love to quote is:

I ask a few people to draw a shoe, and everyone has a different sketch for the shoe. This is a way to explain that it is important to have a clearly defined need and detail for design because everyone has their own perspective. It is really important to have a single definition for what one is building/designing.

I usually encourage people to build a story and give themselves a character and a name. Here are the steps:

1. Imagine yourself playing that character and build your past (This will give you user persona)
   The past is what shapes the characters personality and decisiveness. For eg. My name is Ron and I left my high paying job to pursue my vision to teach people. I have a background in User experience and I believe it is an important part of product development.
2. Now think how using “Product X — an online learning platform” (the product you are designing) can help Ron. (This will help in defining the core market fit for the product)
3. List down the things Ron would need for eg. (This will give ideas on what features the product should have)
   - He should be a teacher in the platform
   - He should be able to earn
   - He should have an option to create and manage the course
   … and so on
4. At this point, you will have enough information to figure out the market and competitors. Make sure everything above is documented, even rough notes will do. This is where you can start your research. You will have enough questions like what all features competitors have what is their primary focus and some sort of design language that you can start with.
5. Keeping Ron in mind and having information about the competition, it will not be very difficult to come up with a simple user flow. The main goal should be, how Ron can get started quickly with less friction?

These steps are like a flow, it starts very simple, so it is easier to get started and slowly and slowly things start becoming obvious.

Once your trainees start documenting things they will understand the importance of these nonvisual parts of the design. It is much easier to design with reason and purpose compared to designing with a goal to make a good looking mockup.

Hope this is helpful! 😀