You may think about flow in terms of water. For example, how snowmelt flows into waterfalls and streams, which in turn, flow into reservoirs, lakes and the ocean.

You may also think about flow in terms of air. Did you know that a golf ball has dimples to turbulate the flow of air around it (which reduces drag), causing the ball to fly farther than a smooth ball?

How Flows Relate to UX Design

So what do all these notions of “flow” have in common?

• Flow depicts movement: movement through water, through air, through websites, through apps, etc.
• Flow is variable: Flow variability can cause a golf ball to fly farther (or fall short); a plane to cruise faster (or have more drag); and an online shopper to checkout with ease (or abandon her cart).

Long story short, the concept of flow is important. The success of your website or app is often contingent upon how well your modeled flows meet the needs of your targeted users (personas), as well as the needs of your business.

Because lo-fi prototypes lack visual detail, the user flows are the heart of your prototype. Lo-fi prototypes help you focus on creating the smoothest flows for users to accomplish their goals.

Building a Flow with Users in Mind

When you build a user flow, what’s the first thing you should think about? It might be obvious… your users!

For example, if you are designing a business intelligence tool that allows users to create reports and share them, you will want to have at least two flows: one flow for the Data Consumer (i.e. the user receiving/reviewing the reports) and an entirely separate flow for the data analyst (i.e. the user building/sharing the reports).