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The web design process

03 Jul, 2012

Five important steps make up the web design process. It is crucial to understand each one thoroughly in order to have a successful web project. These steps follow the sequence of: the brief – research and insights – design – solution – production. The first two important steps will be discussed in detail in this article.

The Brief

Your web brief will comprise of the following few documents:

• Client Brief: Written by the client and usually the first document produced.
• Technical Brief: Can be produced by the client or web design company. Sets out the technical requirements and scope for the website project.
• Creative Brief: Produced by the web design company in response to the Client Brief.
• Idea Brief: A short document produced after a period of consultation with the client. Aims to clearly describe the project.

“We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”

Research and Insights

The designer or creative team conducts the research and should ideally include the following:

• Page Impressions: A request to load a single page of an internet site.
• Unique Users: The number of individual users to a site over a defined period.
• User Flows: A diagram showing a user’s journey, used to show most likely user experience.
• Personas: Fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product.
• Use Cases: A description of a system’s behavior as it responds to a request that originates from outside of that system.

Apart from these, also use traditional ways of gathering data like:

• One-on-One: Person to person interviews with specific questions asked by the interviewer to gain a specific understanding of the interviewee’s behavior/thoughts associated with a service or product.
• Focus Groups: A form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked their thoughts on a product, service, or concept.
• SWOT Analysis: A strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project.
• Questionnaires: A research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents.
• Market Segmentation: Groups of peoples or organizations sharing one or more characteristic that causes them to have similar product needs.

Employing all these types of data and tools will let you begin the project extremely well informed. Always remember that data is important in research but it’s the insights that will lead to a successful design solution. Why don’t you ask the experts? 4M Designers would love to help. contact us now!

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