Refine
Now that the pool of ideas has been reduced to a managable number, it's time to start seeing if they hold water or are going sink like rocks. Up until this point there has been NO tangible work, only documentation. Now it's time to start getting your hands dirty and putting theory into practice. The designer should begin prototyping the ideas and if necessary testing out new technologies to see if they work.
This is the perfect place to start utilizing rapid-prototyping tools. For the designer this could mean creating static mockups drawn on a piece of paper, or in your favorite graphic design tool, or it could mean building unstyled HTML. At this point it's all about proof-of-concept and putting together the pieces to see if they really do fit. Remember that it's better to make a lot of low-impact mistakes early in a project than to make a few or even one high-impact mistake late in the project.
