Take all edge cases into consideration and build an organized system

In this project, I realized the heavy inconsistency problem resulted from absence of a clear system that structurally listed every edge case--in some situations, it took me much longer to figure out how the existing system works than designing a new one. Real-world problems can be very complex. In e-commerce settings, all the combinations of purchase options, order status and market strategies would be a great challenge, and our job is to make sure our design has taken every case into consideration.

Make fully-informed design decisions

Design decisions cannot be based on the UX designer's "intuition" on what would be good for the users. Our hypotheses should be supported by solid evidence, which includes drawing insightful conclusion from in-depth analysis of data, user's feedback, etc. As a D2C company, our strength is having direct access with users' data and feedbacks, which allows us to make sure we are spending our limited resources on the right thing.

Communicate with stakeholders using data, business impact

We can't always agree with each other in the process, but we can get on the same page using recognized tools. When we were defining the scope of design, the RICE model were helpful in combining every one's opinion from different aspects (cost, business impact, confidence in success), and giving us a final score that the team would accept. The key in communication with stakeholders or teammates is similar: embrace broad perspectives, and decide by recognized evaluation.