The design process is an iterative one. I will tell you one thing which can go wrong with it if you are not in the laboratory. In my terms design consists of:

• Flowchart until you think you understand the problem.
• Write code until you realize that you don’t.
• Go back and re-do the flowchart.
• Write some more code and iterate to what you feel is the correct solution.

Original pdf is available from here.