Design process is something that all designers follow even though it varies from one designer to the other. The process also depends on the type of a design project you are working with. The other side of the design process is from the business perspective, which should result in a functional creative brief. This is the crucial part in order to redesign your website successfully.
Although we do the research for your business, it is just as important for your company to do so as well. Your research should be preliminary and the results should decide what direction you’re heading towards. With this research, you should be able to explain to a designer exactly what you want your website to be.
It’s a good idea to create a few lists that will guide the designer. Consider something like:
- Websites that you would like to get some design cues from
- Colors, fonts, logos, and other branding materials
- Stock imagery you want to use
- Primary goal of the website (i.e., user registration)
This is what will help you develop a creative brief that works and aids the designers to design a product that will reach your goals. After your own research, you should set several goals that you want to accomplish with your website redesign, such as:
- Increase your conversion rate by 25%
- Increase user engagement
- Improve SEO or structure of your website
Another part of this process is to decide how you will measure your goals. Are you going to use Google Analytics or other analytics software to measure user engagement? Will your conversion rates count leads or sales? If your goals include SEO, then you should set some measureable goals and not something too general that can never be tracked.
A basic 5-step website design process could be something like this:
- Research & brainstorming
- Wireframing
- Mockups
- Design
- Development
Keep in mind that it could be a few steps shorter or many steps longer. The best design process is the one that’s simple and brief, yet gets the job done!
One thing to avoid during the design process is design by committee. Design by committee is a process of design where the design will go through many approval levels and eyes before it is approved. This is bad in more ways than one, but most importantly it changes the original idea of the website that the designer envisioned.
Constructive criticism during the design process is necessary and most designers appreciate it, but if you suggest some changes, you should have good reasons to do so. Saying “I don’t like that part” is not a good reason because the website should not be designed for you. It should be designed for your users. If you are not sure of something, then you should do split testing to determine what resonates best with your audience.
Launch
The final part of your website redesign process is the launch. There should be a set go-live date and it should allow plenty of time for a full QA of the developed website.
Some important things to check during your QA:
- Is everything functioning as desired?
- Does everything look the way it was mocked up and approved?
- If page URLs changed, are the old pages 301 redirected to the new pages?
- Are all tracking scripts in place for a smooth transition?
- Do you have a good backup in place that can be restored quickly?
When your website redesign goes live, you still have one step left – measuring how your goals are doing. Remember those goals we set in the first phase? Now we have to make sure we are actually getting closer to those goals.
With analytics and tracking data, you should decide if the goals are being met or need more work. You should keep doing iterations on your design until the goals have been met or exceeded. This is another place where split testing will come in handy.
That’s all there is to it. Once you meet your goals, you should deem your website redesign a success!
