I follow what can be called Psychology-first design thinking: integrating psychological principles into every design decision, so I can create experiences that resonate on both conscious and subconscious levels. One might call it a pragmatic model of experience design, considering both visual and practical functionality.
After a decade in digital experience design, what I might say is that it's not enough to design something understandable, and usable. That is merely the baseline. For meaningful connection with the audience, we also need to integrate the context and the people's core motivation to achieve the change that they came to us for.