Overview
Working with someone new always brings questions—working with a designer is no exception. In everything I do, I’ll be as clear and open as possible. My goal is to make the only surprises you have good ones.
When you hire me, you’re hiring an expert who has a solid process that produces great results and happy clients who come back for more. I constantly take in research on design and usability as well as observe other new, fun things about my craft that will make both of us happier. I’ll design based on goals we set out to achieve as well as make sure I use proven best practices to make your project rock. So, you can come to me with your design problem, and relax while I take care of it.
To sum up my entire design philosophy: users first. Everyone (you, me and the people you want to reach) wins this way. Everything else—while still important—is secondary. I don’t play the “designer with a huge ego” bit with you, because that’s lame. I’ll only make recommendations that I think will help you. In the end, it’s your project, and your investment. I only want the best for you and your users.
Step One: Getting Started
Here, we’ll discuss what goals you’d like to meet with your new project, and what’s not working with what you have right now. We’ll also discuss when you’d like to launch, and your budget. Keep in mind that a typical project takes about 6-8 weeks from start to finish.
I’ll research what we discussed and come back with a concise estimate of what you can expect your project to cost. I don’t pad estimates, surprise you with hidden fees or other nasty things that would hurt your trust in this process.
Once you accept my estimate, I’ll draw up an agreement in Plain English that covers what we’ve discussed as well as an invoice for our project. You’ll want to review the agreement before sending your payment.
A note on invoicing: you’ll generally be invoiced twice throughout our project. Once before work begins and once before I deliver the final product to you.
Step Two: Planning and Design
The planning step is very crucial: everything we do here will be a logical conclusion of everything that comes before it. Every project should be tailored to the content it features; it’s the best way to ensure we make a simple-to-use, gorgeous project. Before I touch any design software, we’ll plan out your content and goals together. Everything else we do will be filtered through these goals, so it’s important to consider these.
First, we’ll discuss how you’d like your project should function and gather any requirements you might have. We make site maps to decide what types of content we’ll feature on your site, then use that to make a wireframe. The wireframe is more in-depth than a site map, and it features the content you’ll have on your site, as well as the layout; it isn’t designed yet.
If we need to make any changes, we should do it before we finish the wireframes. Once we’re happy with the wireframes, we’ll lock them down and move onto design. After we begin design, there are many more moving parts that make it difficult to change directions.
Next up: design! We’ll get an idea of what visual direction to take. If you know of any sites (or other pretty things) that compliment the direction we’re taking, here’s the time to share them. I’ll likely share a few, too. I’ll weigh these to see how well they fit with your goals.
I’ll then produce a design that blends my expertise with your goals. We’ll measure the design against the goals we created and proceed with building it once we’ve established it meets your goals.
Step Three: Building
Here, we’ll be building the code that powers your project.
If it’s a website, I’ll make sure it adheres to web standards, that your HTML code is pretty and clean. That means your site will look consistent across all the major browsers (like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer 7+ and iOS 4+). I don’t offer support for older browsers like Internet Explorer 6 unless you specifically require it. But you wouldn’t want to use that old thing anyway, would you?
If we’re making an app, I’ll make sure it’s in line with Apple’s App Store Guidelines. If we’re making a website, you can be sure that I’m using up-to-date web standards.
Of course, you’ll get to review this before we launch it. We’ll put a beta on your phone, or share a private development site. Once everyone’s happy, we’ll move to the last step.
Step Four: Launch
Your beautiful new project is ready for the world to love! You celebrate, and I’ll keep an eye on it to ensure that everything works as we expected. If something’s amiss, I’ll be sure to make it right.
I always want to make things better for you, my happy client. If you’re interested, we’ll discuss how the project went, how well it met your expectations and if you had any suggestions about making it better next time around.