Well, we get lots of emails from different parts of the world. It makes us happy when they like our work, share it among their circles and encourage us to continue with the same passion. Well, we have no secrets and we have no super-nerdish science. All we do is make sure ‘we don’t make mistakes that other are making’ – in designing process.
Mistakes. Designers. Process – Confused?
In our project development lifecycle, we take design very seriously. For us, success of any project hinges upon its design. But there are hundreds of reasons why a final product doesn’t hit its marks. Knowing these reasons helps us to stay on top of our projects. It’s this simple.
So, here we are going to spit it out.
We Make Assumptions CAREFULLY
Most of the times we work with our clients, they do come with very clear ideas on what they are looking for and who they want it for — users. Meanwhile, we too have our tendency to make assumptions about the user and their needs. This is where we stay thoughtful, otherwise there are chances of running into wrong conclusions. In case of any ambiguity in clients’ requirements, we prefer discussions with the client, than to make assumptions.
Meanwhile, we always do our homework before we start moving from paper to pixels. We do the research on the focused user, discuss with clients’ CSRs and BDMs and in some cases interview the customers to know them better.
We Aim for User-Centered Design
Designing, like singing, is a pure joy especially when you are good at it. And, this is where it’s most difficult to achieve user-centered design. For a user-centered design, you have to keep your ‘personal-ism’ away from the project. You have to zero-in user’s shoe and design purely for him. Most designers forget it because they’re too busy personalizing the projects.
We are the designers who are supposed to design for users, by definition. We just stick to this definition. The user profile that we conclude from research upon users, we stay with it and our findings. After design is ready, we do user testing.
We don’t Shut Up. We Talk
For us, design is not ‘made’. It’s achieved. It’s achieved through, first clearly understanding the requirements and then finding on the best way/interface/process to handle these requirements. There is ‘no guess work’ here. You can see ‘how we work’. At this stage of the project, we encourage our clients to sit with us, discuss their requirements in details, share their ideas, inspirations, references. We do extensive documentation as well. And continuously share it with the clients, only to make sure we both are on the same pages.
I am not Responsible? Then, Who is?
Well, we love talking about teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. Actually there are not many people who are good at being team-player. Even in our early day, we too had very hard times building ourselves as a ‘team’.
What’s this to do with the success of projects. Good question!
At times when many people are working on a same project, nobody has complete ‘control’ over the direction of the project. This is where responsibility is divided as well. But, for designers, we have simple rule. You are designer and you are responsible for what you ‘achieve’.
With this culture, we keep our web designers at the forefronts of project development lifecycle. We give them better tools, techniques and resources so that they can better understand the ‘ultimate user’ of the projects. And, that’s why our projects never fail.