Your design needs to do certain things; some of which have been done before and are just a matter of reviewing heuristics and leveraging the necessary pieces to reassemble them in a new order. And then there are those new concepts and ideas that need to be designed via concepts and user testing. Typically, these new ideas are where your company stands to grow the most.
Sometimes a flat screenshot just isn't enough to tell the story of your design. If this is the case, you can accomplish quite a lot in the design process by creating low fidelity prototypes. This technique can be used at any point in the design process, from a set of "click throughs" in PowerPoint to a mapped HTML demo of the product's workflows. Microsoft's Sketchflow, an extension of Expression Blend, is a great tool that allows stakeholders to give you written feedback while they are reviewing your prototype.
Once your team feels like they have a testable concept, it is time to get some of your customers in front of the experience to see if it is accomplishing your collective goals. Each company has a different approach and timeline when it comes to usability testing. However, the one thing that remains true accross all design processes, is that it is cheaper to find errors and fix them before development begins than when it has begun. The earlier we test, the better customer experience we can create.
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