Quite logical title of an article from business development assistant in a strategic design consultancy company. Nevertheless, this statement is often not perceived as self-evident. My contribution is based on an article of Dmitry Fadeyev; Strategic Design: 6 Steps For Building Successful Websites that simply and clearly explains the core of strategic design.
The article begins with a statement that design is not art; it includes whole spectre of different skills, from copywriting to layout and art. These skills merge on a website, interface between a company and user. This interface is far from being solely aesthetic but it communicates functionality and facilitates access to its contents. Clear focus is essential for converging these elements and leading every aspect of design towards its goals. We have to think strategically! We do not want to create user interfaces that are pretty and are useful and accessible. We want to create interfaces that help to achieve goals of the organizations. Design trends are of course important as they bring necessary inspiration and techniques but the implementation of these techniques has to be intelligent and focused. For example, if we are creating a blog, the focus will be on usefulness and readability. On the other hand, a promotional website for web game will be based on experience and aesthetics.
1. Establish your goals
Before starting work, we necessary have to know what the goals of the client are. We have to know what he wants to achieve with the website and what the main purpose of the website is. Meeting with the client are necessary, especially in the case of his priorities not being clearly defined. Clear focus is simply essential if we want for design to have its focus. As I stated above, website is not a work of art but it has its (very important) function and design has to be focused on achieving that function.
2. Identify your audience
Who is the key audience plays a major role in establishing how a website should look and how should it function. Website of a computer game would look very differently form a website of a serious business magazine. In case of elder and technologically less advanced audience usability is crucial. Disney website is a good example. Its audience is children and the purpose of the website is to entertain and include the young audience. Consequently, website is characterized with attractive colorful design with many interactive elements.
3. Determine your brand image
It can happen, that designer follows the last trends and with that, he loses the focus of what kind of image he has to create. Shiny background and colourful buttons may be an excellent solution, but they may not communicate the image of your company in the best way. Design has to encompass the character and personality of the brand.
4. Goal-driven design direction
At this point, we have found the purpose of the website, established our goals, identified our audience, determined the image of the brand, but the question is, how to synchronize design with strategy. Author gives an example how to increase the number of subscribers to a Web service. There are many solutions, from pointed out registration buttons to shortened and streamlined registration process. There are many ways to achieve the goal but the strategy is the same: Create and focus entire design towards achieving goals.
5. Measure results
When the website is designed and published, it is time for measuring results. We cannot know if the results have been achieved if we do not measure the effect. We have to be careful not to listen to every customer’s wish but to look for patterns and deal with these common issues. Measuring results gives us feedback also about mistakes and helps with their improvement.
6. Kaizen
Sixth step of strategic design according to Dmity Fadeyev is Kaizen, Japanese philosophy that is based on continuous progress with small steps. We have to be aware that published website is not the final version; we can easily introduce gradual improvements for achieving better effectivity.
The core of strategic design is therefore common sense. We are making something with a specific purpose so the design as well should fulfil that purpose. We avoid the threat of going astray that path by questioning every decision we make. With that, the process becomes a lot more focused. The result is a website that really works!
Source: Dmitry Fadeyev; Strategic Design: 6 Steps For Building Successful Websites in Smashing magazine
Lea Lipovšek, Business Development Assistant at Vizuarna, strategic design consultancy