Process
How We Think
There's no such thing as a typical client, especially when your work crosses disciplines. That said,
the steps we've outlined here - though couched in the language of web - are elements in any successful project.
By focusing on these fundamentals as the building blocks of a holistic design process, we've created some of the
most compelling user experiences - and best ROIs - in the business.
Discovery
The first phase of any design process is focused on learning the competitive landscape, from within the client organization and from the industry and environment. We immerse ourselves in data to create our baseline, using any and all techniques the project warrants: competitive analysis, usability audits, stakeholder interviews, user research and focus groups, web metrics and analytics. These detailed fundamentals are our foundation.
Concept
Building from our baseline understanding of both the client's business requirements and the greater industry / environment, we work to identify new and different ways to address user needs. This is when we flex our creative muscle to go above and beyond current user expectations to create a new experience and define new value for the client. These new opportunities are often illustrated in narrative form ("scenarios") whose characters ("personas") symbolize distinct groups of users.
Strategy
Once we've defined that new experience, we have to build a logic architecture to support it and a strategy to deliver it. This project phase is realized in a type of low-fidelity designs known as wireframes, which explore everything from site taxonomy to page layout. The scenarios we constructed during the concept phase are broken into discrete specifications - called use cases - and mapped against the site architecture to ensure the best and simplest user experience possible. Often, third party supporting software packages are required or requested; this phase explicitly defines how those will be integrated or built upon.
Design
With page types and templates determined, the design phase allows us to translate our business requirements into a compelling visual experience. Brand standards, page transitions, color palettes, and visual language are defined and refined. Site content and existing assets are examined and edited to support the tone of the design, and new content is developed where necessary.
Development & Deployment
With strategy, structure, and design in place, we can set about realizing the site in code - but not all development is explicitly programmed. Strong, dynamic content-driven sites rely on editorial strategy as much as they do database creation and content management implementation. In many cases, existing site redesign requires a phased rollout, both to ensure steady revenue flow and to accommodate internal organization release cycles. Having identified these factors during the design phase, they are structured into the site development schedule.
Horizon Planning
Websites share a number of analogs to physical structures - blueprints, foundations, construction timelines - but it's often wiser to think of them as living products. The strongest user experiences are built on iterative designs that continue to grow and react to changing user needs. Horizon planning is as complex as long term project phasing and as simple as deliberate flexibility. We keep horizon planning in mind throughout the project because it touches every phase: from future concepts to modular page layout to standards-compliant code, we design to keep our clients one step ahead.