Defining the Desk Check Process

Introduction

As the design organization grew, so did inconsistencies in how teams reviewed and handed off work. Each domain had its own version of a “desk check,” which led to uneven quality, misalignment between design and development, and a lack of clarity around ownership. I saw an opportunity to define a clear, scalable process that would bring alignment across teams, reduce rework, and allow Product Designers to focus on craft and quality rather than operational ambiguity.

My Role

I led this initiative end to end from research to rollout. I conducted user interviews with Product Designers across multiple domain teams to identify pain points, map existing workflows, and pinpoint where misalignment occurred between design and development. From these insights, I created a standardized desk check framework, presented it to the organization, and developed a detailed reference guide outlining clear roles, responsibilities, and next steps. The process has since been adopted within our org and is on track to expand into other areas like MX and AX, establishing a company wide standard for desk checks.

The Challenge

The lack of a standardized desk check process created confusion and inefficiency. Each team operated differently, resulting in missed edge cases, rework after launch, and blurred ownership between design and project management. Product Designers were often stretched thin, trying to manage everything from alignment to QA. The goal was to bring consistency, efficiency, and accountability to the process so designers could focus on delivering higher-quality experiences while reducing backlog work caused by preventable errors.

Introduction

My Role

The Challenge

Introduction

My Role

The Challenge

"How might we bring clarity and consistency to how teams review and deliver design work?"

Research & Discovery

To understand how desk checks were being approached across the organization, I used LUMA’s Interviewing method to conduct structured conversations with Product Designers from multiple domain teams. The goal was to uncover not only the steps in each team’s process, but also the underlying pain points, workarounds, and gaps in ownership that were impacting quality and efficiency.

Before the sessions, I drafted an interview guide grounded in LUMA principles, starting broad and then narrowing into specifics. I began with open ended questions like “Walk me through your current desk check process” and “Where does it typically break down?” before probing into deeper areas such as roles, tools, communication patterns, and missed handoffs.

Each interview followed a consistent structure:

Context: Understanding the team’s size, workflow, and design maturity.
Process walkthrough: Mapping how a desk check currently happens end to end.
Pain points and needs: Identifying moments of friction, duplication, or confusion.
Opportunities: Capturing ideas for improvement directly from the designers doing the work.

After completing the sessions, I synthesized key themes and patterns across teams, surfacing where responsibilities overlapped, where developers were not included early enough, and where PDs were stretched too thin trying to manage it all. These insights directly informed the creation of the standardized desk check framework, ensuring it was not just a top down process, but one grounded in real designer experiences.

Presenting the Framework

Bringing structure, clarity, and alignment to the organization

Once the new desk check process was defined, I created a presentation to introduce the framework, communicate its value, and build alignment across the design organization. The presentation outlined key pain points uncovered during research, walked through the process step by step, and clearly defined roles and responsibilities for everyone involved — including Product Designers, PMs, Accessibility Specialists, UX Writers, SMPDs, developers, and leadership.

I structured the presentation to tell a clear story — starting with the mission and the outage that prompted the work, then walking through what was happening today, the solution, and the process itself. Breaking it into stages like prep, meetings, revisions, and end-to-end review helped make the new approach feel tangible and easy to adopt.

After sharing the presentation, I created a reference guide that outlined next steps and best practices to help teams start using the new process. It’s currently rolling out within our area and sparking interest in expanding the approach more broadly across the company.