What is the design process followed in general for a new feature request in the existing product?

Question

Question to UX experts:

We have a product already in use and we have a design guide in place. When there is a new requirement/new feature request, do we need to mock (visual design) it up every time? Or wireframe is good enough?

My take is to keep the visual design out of wireframes and put aesthetics behind the goals and purpose of wireframes. I think focusing on the functionality, interactivity and placement of the screen elements would suffice for the new requirements.

However, we currently create mockups for each and every page in our company. Is it a good idea to create mockups for the complete user flow? What is the general practice in your organization?

Answer 1

Simplifying little bit...

Q. What do you need sketches for? A. To describe user interaction, workflow and page layout.

Q. What to you need visual mockup for? A. To precisely describe how things will look like.

If you have a design guide and it's complete and well-done then, in my opinion, you do not need a visual mockup for each new page unless that page contains something particular or it's an exception.

To decide if you need a mockup simply imagine to do it. Do you pick wireframe and you blindly apply rules from your style guide? Then UI developers are able to do it too and they do not need your mockup.

Let me stress on "blindly apply rules". When something is not obvious (for example if you ask yourself "is this button a positive action?" - whatever that means in your organization) then you have a problem in your sketches and you hide it with visual mockups: make your sketches more clear.