Design Open Discussion – Describe Your Process
Some Random Dude has been getting more and more participation in recent months, but it is still much lower than I would have hoped. I have said many times that the dialog that occurs on this site is the most important thing to me – I feel it ultimately creates the richest content on the site and allows myself (and hopefully others) to learn and grow a tremendous amount. The more I thought about this, the more it seemed obvious to have a segment that is participation-based. Therefore, I will be opening up an open discussion on a design-related topic at least once a month. I know there are a lot of readers out there that have yet to participate through commenting. My hope is that you will lurkers out there will start taking part in these dialogs and bring something special to the table.
So this discussion is all about process. What is your process? What do you consider important? What is all hype to you? What works well in school but just is not feasible in the real world? All genres of design are not only welcome, they are expected. I feel that there is going to be much more in common between different design disciplines than expected. There is no format to this – just communicate your thoughts and do it in the way you feel most comfortable (basic writing, diagrams, rhyme, etc.).
We look forward to hearing from you.
The Discussion
14 Comments
For me, a process means to be thorough. But at an agency, with tight deadlines and rigid client style guides, this often gives way to eliminating the earliest steps of experimentation with forms and images, moving right to laying something out on the computer (without sketching at all).
I also think that a creative process can suffer when working with non-designers who may not understand the benefit of exploration. Copywriters and account managers, for example, who think in terms of a final “deliverable.” But, I try my best to thoroughly search out undiscovered ways of communicating, even if that means ignoring pleas to “get on the computer already!”
You sure chose a humdinger of a discussion topic!
At Paradyme, we have been documenting our broader approach to user experience design as well as specific elements and scenarios, and I can honestly say that if we were to string it all together, the result would be at least a novella. (And probably too long to reproduce here.)
However, I can comment on one thing that I find particularly challenging and frustrating. I often tell people that 50% of my job is that of an evangelist for the benefits of thorough user experience design. It is endlessly fascinating to me how little attention web site owners pay to the user experience, focusing instead on intimidating feature sets, etc. Although it is painfully clear that investing in a comprehensive user experience design is one of the best investments a web site owner can make, it is still difficult to convince them to spend the time and resources to do it right.
Our firm has a broad range of competencies and expertise that in sum can lead to what I like to consider to be an optimal user experience design, but we seldom find clients willing to invest in the whole package despite the fact that it is usually the best investment they can make. Instead, web site owners tend to focus on bulging feature sets that as the Harvard Business Review* found tends to ‘produce products with too many features’ and decrease the lifetime of users.
Plea to web site owners: Forget feature #99, and focus on making features 1-98 flawless and the entire user experience rewarding for both you and your users.
Luckily I have allies such as you in evangelizing the benefits and importance of comprehensive and intelligent user experience design. For the good of all users and web site owners, may we one day get to the point where a full and integrated user experience design is the norm rather than one-week hack jobs.
* Reference: Rust, R.T., Thompson, D.V., Hamilton, R.W. (2006) ‘Defeating Feature Fatigue’, Harvard Business Review, February
Well, I’ve not got as many processes as I perhaps should have… at least on the business front. Really a designer should plot a clear plan of action and keep the designer informed every single step of the way. I tend just to agree to a specification (in writing) and go ahead and build it. The client sees the finished job and gives his feedback. This has obviously downfalls, particularly with large jobs, but so far has always worked out fine for me.
Pure design wise I’m driven by processes – my own set of rules on how to do pretty much everything from PHP to CSS to DOM to XHTML and whatever else in the web design arena. I find that following these home-made rules to the letter (which ive gathered through a lot of experience and hard work) my work runs along a certain pattern which I am easily able to follow, and pretty much always reaches a standard I am happy with.
Seriously I’m with Steve on this one. I threw conventional art school process out the window and focused on getting the job done. It leaves very little time for concept however when appropriate conceptual projects do arise. I always look for openings to dig deep.
At Sony. Its all about “the style guide”. So creative is limited. I still keep a sketch book to write/draw. I think everyone should.
Thanks so much for the comments – the collection of thoughts are great.
Pat – I totally agree with you – to outsiders the process aspect of design seems to be this nefarious concept that produces nothing except a waste of time. Sadly, they are greatly mistaken if you ask me. I would add that part of that “thoroughness” is a large amount of research into the subject. Getting to know a topic is only going to aid in the final product and depth it exudes.
Sergio – Good points all around. I definitely think that clients think of a design service as a finite product that they are buying (business cards, website, logo, etc.) rather than the ideas and concepts which eventually produce that end result they receive. I am aware that most clients ultimately do not care – they just want to be in possession of the final product, but that thought process is detrimental to a quality design.
Steve – I also have a problem of keeping process going and championing its need when there’s a crazy deadline or a contact breathing down my neck. It by no means is easy. It definitely is interesting to hear about the process from a front-end developer’s perspective, thanks so much for joining the conversation.
Yousuf – So young yet so cynical! ;) Yes, the style guide definitely can hamper creativity from the perspective of those that need to work within it. My hope is we will all be creating those style guides eventually…
This is a great feature, PJ. I suggest you bump this article back to the main page. Coincidentally, I was invited to speak at my former college’s print design class about process. Here’s an overview of my talk that focused on the beginning to end of a specific project.
Design Firm–Print designer
As Pat G. said, process should be thorough, however working at an agency with corporate accounts often hinders that crucial step of experimentation. Sadly, it seems that deadlines matter more than quality for many clients. Although I work with a process for all projects, when I am rushed I end up skipping many steps I would normally never overlook. Luckily, there are a few design-conscious clients out there in the ugly world of corporate design. On a recent brochure project for a major company, I had the rare opportunity to work with a defined process, but damn was that process straight forward, rigid, and boring!
Step 1 involved brainstorming concepts for this campaign, a series of brochure mailers that related to one another. A few days were alloted for our designers to interpret the project, in other words to experiment. However, bringing in Yousuf’s rant, the experimentation was restrained to the brand’s strict style guide. The “best” designs voted internally by our team were then presented to the client, only to be ripped apart. Ha-ha. A general look and feel prevailed, which led to Step 2: color experimentation. The photography-heavy mailer were to only utilize duotones, so there were a few days alloted to playing with color combinations. Once again, these were presented to the client for approval. Step 3 focused on image searches for photography relevant to the brochure. Many images were scrutinized and only the top few were chosen. Step 4, the most tedious and tiring step involved setting up a flexible grid for the 4 panel fold-out brochure. The grid had to accomodate an ever changing body of copy. For weeks, the layout was constantly altered based on the whims of the copywriters who were constantly battling for the appropriate words. Copy changes, layout changes, tweaks in color, photoshop manipulation ensued till the last hour before the file needed to be delivered to the printers. Now how’s that a month of stress? Adhering to this sequential process kept me somewhat sane and organized throughout the entire experience. The bottom line–process makes sense and can save you from a life of hell.
Freelance–Print designer
When I work on my personal projects, I work with a more lucid artistic process that involves a lot of research, visual experimentation, and thinking away from the goddamn iMac. I guess this can be considered Conventional Art School Process. Call me an idealist, but I cannot let go of my roots! This is the time when the line between design and art blur for me and I return to the blissful days of academic design, which as I’ve sadly learned from “the real world”, is a completely different entity. It makes me envious that only a few select firms out there have the luxury of doing truly creative work. Why is that the status quo?
I have basically come to expect tight deadlines wherever I go at this point. One thing I have come to do when facing a tight deadline is to keep my concept and visual execution as simple and focused as possible. I try to conceive a very simple, clear and engaging idea and push it as far as I can. I notice that the more complex the idea, the more “breakable parts” there are. Clarity can break down, visual concepts are less likely to work universally throughout the project, visual inconsistencies, conflicts and contradictions are more pervasive, etc.
The more I focus on a simple idea, I notice myself spending much less time ironing out the conceptual and visual wrinkles. If you have less time to work on something, I would never get rid of the concept phase to give more time for execution. Rather, scale everything down proportionally. Concept may be even more important when faced with less time.
Dude just wait. I got something for you :)
Check out the latest post “The Process of Design”. Here you will see my response to the Random Dude’s questions.
http://www.somerandomdude.net/will/
Kellie. Love the word “lucid”. and I think ur absolutely right. The size of an agency is directly proporational to the creative it can use. The bigger you go. The less creative it is.
For me however. Its really fuzzy. I have all the time in the world. Not alot of tight deadlines. But not much creativity.
I guess what I’m saying is I want to do whatever the F*ck I want. and get paid.
Hmmmm…..the allure of picking up a paint brush is sounds cool.
Dude, consolidate your comments – you’re costing me money! j/k ;)
When you say “paint brush”, I’m assuming you’re referring to the brush tool in Photoshop right? :)
ARticle on Website Design Process Steps:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website_Design_Process_Steps
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