User Research
Clients and stakeholders may bring up some problem areas in their product, or lack of a product all together. Taking in that knowledge, research is done around the individuals who will actually use these products, giving you a better example of what should be done for the quickest and greatest impact.
User research may include shadowing to watch behaviors or possibly checking the analytics to check on network speed, response time or continual errors in the process. For the Enterprise Carrier Profile screens above I took their outdated and confusing application and redesigned with open, ease to see charts, numbers and information separated into specific sections to help finding the information faster and easier to understand.