This lesson will provide a brief overview about
the entire UX process that we will be following in this course.
This is, by the way, also the process that I
follow when I work on my own web design projects.
So, I'm definitely teaching you what I practice everyday.
I want to start, though, by contemplating what your design process could look
like if you just jumped right in without much of a structured methodology.
Let's say you have a client who needs a website, and you're like,
"Great, I'll just need some content
and I'll get started on the homepage design right away."
I'll be honest, when I started out as a web designer,
the scenario wasn't all that far from what I would be doing.
Needless to say, this way of working wasn't
ideal and once I started to implement a more structured process,
my projects turned out to be much more
successful and I had a much better time working on them.
One of the main problems is that things can get out of hand quite quickly.
To illustrate this, I'd like to point to an anecdote I
found an article from the website Smashing magazine.
The article is about the importance of an organized planning process.
The author begins this piece with an account of things going bad really quickly,
it says, "On day one things are great.
You've landed a new job,
the client is excited,
you're stoked, and the project will be great.
First things first, you have to collect the main materials to begin the design.
You sent the client an email asking for what you need.
On day two, you get the following: A TIFF logo (in CMYK) via email,
a set of logo standards that include the RGB values via a separate email,
a disc full of photos with meaningless names,
a fax that labels the photos according to their filenames,
an email that lays out the top and second-level navigation,
a phone call that makes last minutes changes to the navigation,
an email with a dark attachment full of text.
On day three, you get an email that makes half of the junk you got yesterday obsolete.
You're only three days in the and project is already no fun."
Clearly, no one likes working this way.
You as the designer need a scene or
a methodology so you can be productive and do great work,
and quite frankly, the client deserves a scene or process also.
I actually believe that when clients seemingly do
crazy things or they're being difficult,
it's often because the designer has not properly
educated the client to do the right thing.
It's quite possible that your client has never been
involved in a website design project before.
They're looking for you as the expert to
offer guidance and make the process productive and positive.
So, to summarize, here's why we need
a structured predefined process that we can follow for each web design project.
You'll know exactly what to do next instead of just 'winging it.'
and you'll have a formalized methodology you can employ for every project in the future,
and you can adjust it to fit your needs as you gain more experience.
You keep the client involved and accountable.
You also ensure that the project stays on track and it's on deadline.
Your design choices are based on predefined goals and target audiences.
This is in contrast to making decisions based solely on intuition.
You'll figure out what you're building and what not.
The second part is just as important as the first.
So for example, knowing that your e-commerce site will not include payment processing,
because you want to launch quickly and payment processing can be quite complex,
allows you to move forward with clarity and you can look for alternatives.
So, you might, for example,
decide to use PayPal to accept payments.
Lastly, you have a greater chance to stay sane and have fun.
I think that we all do better work when we have
a positive working experience and when we have fun.
Okay, now that I have hopefully convinced you that a structured process is important,
it's finally time to talk about what that process actually looks like.