Since we have been designing and developing web sites for over two years we have been able to solidify a process which works well for us. Keep in mind, this is our process which works for us—the purpose of this article is to provide insight into how we work.

Meetings

When one of our incredible staff brings a contract through the door the first thing we do is set up a kick-off meeting—where, typically, the client meets with the Project Managers and designer. At this point the designer has usually had a chance to do some preliminary research on the client. The kick-off meeting involves sharing our process with the client and giving the client and designer a chance to talk, get to know each other and get a sense of what the goals are.

Research and Wireframes

From here the designer will go off and do more research, sketching and eventually work out a wireframe. The wireframe is a new addition to our process; so far it has proved to be valuable, allowing us to give the client an idea of how their web site will work and not ficus on how it will look. We may have another physical meeting or a conference call to go over the wireframe—explaining the skeleton of the site we are envisioning. At this stage a client may be wary and question why they are seeing a rudimentary design of blocks of content; the onus is on us to communicate clearly the purpose of the wireframe.

Design Signoff

Once the wireframe has been approved the designer will go off again and start working on the look and feel. There is a lot of back and forth internally among the team at this stage and once we feel that it is at a polished state we will show it to the client. In an ideal world at this point we get Design Signoff—where the client physically signs a printed copy of the mockup and we begin the development phase. Unfortunately, this is not as common as we wish and we often work closely with the client, going back and forth tweaking the design until they are comfortable with a design they can call their own.

That is the end of the Creative Process, and from there the Development Process begins. As mentioned in a previous post, we are lucky to have such a great team, and our size is an advantage. We can involve the programmers early on and they can provide invaluable feedback to the design process, bringing to light elements that may be a problem in the development phase.

Conclusion

This process works well for us, and usually our clients. To really service our clients; however, it is important to stay flexible. It is not always easy, but it’s important to understand your clients and get a feel for how they will respond to the process. Some clients want to see every step of the process, while others are very hands off. Unfortunately there is no magic process for them all.