Design Process
Brad's Design Process Overview After reading my Design Roles, how do they fit together? There is no exact science to getting this 100% correct, but if you follow these steps, no matter how large or...
Every Role is Vital Have you ever heard of the Project Management Triangle? It states, basically, that at each corner of the triangle sit Time, Cost and Quality. You can only have two of those thin...
Design Process: 17) Launch Duties for the Creator There are a few questions that the Creator should have once the site is ready for launch. Are all the final email addresses, phone numbers and soci...
Design Process: 16) Test and Try to Break As the build phase comes to a close, the team will review the development work and make note of what is and what isn’t correctly done. Many developers don’...
Design Process: 15) Build Phase At this point, you should be ready to enter the “build phase” of the project. This is the official point where there is heavy development going on from the developme...
Design Process 14) Functional Spec Time Once the design is done and it’s time to take a break, right? Wrong. It doesn’t seem like it, but the step of writing specifications is just as important as ...
Design Process: 13) NO MORE FEATURES! One of the more aggravating, demoralizing, and expensive things to happen to any project is when someone with the ability to change the scope, indeed changes t...
Design Process: 12) Refine the Look and Feel Many times, the design of the site needs to be altered once there is final content or others have a chance to test the prototypes. Nobody is perfect, an...
Design Process: 11) Final Content Call One of the more important things that many people leave to the last minute is finalizing content for their project. They believe that picking out the right ph...
Design Process: 10) Are Problems Solved and Applicable Goals Met? At this point, all of the requirements should be defined and solutions should be formulated from a design perspective. Verify every...
Design Process: 9) Create Style Tiles Once you are set with the scaffolding and structure of your project, you identify certain aspects that you need to specify how they should look. Typography, co...
Design Process: 8) Create low-fidelity Prototypes If you are creating a website or application, you’ll want to create a low-fidelity prototype. Knowing how your design will work helps understand th...
Design Process: 7) Validate Ideas with Tech, Dev and Content staff Any designer can sit down and create a page. But asking them to do that without proper context is a terrible idea. They need the p...
Design Process: 6) Wireframing and sketching ideas Now that the Creators are likely bursting with ideas to execute on at this point, it’s finally time to start working on how the data will flow, wh...
Design Process: 5) Content Roadmap and Definition Knowing what the content is and where it’s coming from is usually not ready by this point in the project, and most non-designers don’t realize how ...
Design Process: 4) Define the strengths and limitations of the staff Whether you have a team of one working on a logo or print product, or a team of 20 working on a website redesign, knowing what t...
Design Process: 3) Brainstorm Solutions Now that you understand the problems and you understand what the success criteria is, you can then start brainstorming for ideas on what you need to do. Desi...
Design Process: 2) Defining the Goals Once the problems are clearly understood, you then need to define what success looks like in this scenario. Most of the time it is creating a product that both...
Design Process: 1) Defining the Problem One of the most important parts of the design process is making sure you are solving the right problem. Typically this task is done by the creator. They will...
What is Design? Design is not simply being creative. It is not merely snapping one’s fingers together and having a finished product. It is a culmination of observances, understanding, and applicati...