Corporate website design. Experience mistakes.
I first spoke with this topic on CorpPress 2006. Later, CNews journalists tried to retell this material, but I didn’t like how they did it. Therefore, I would like to tell you personally.
Almost every day I discuss with different people what site they want to create for their company. The experience of this communication has pushed me to some conclusions and recommendations, which, in my opinion, should help avoid many mistakes in the development of corporate projects and, most importantly, promote mutual understanding of the parties involved in this process.
To speak in detail, we divide the process of creating a corporate website design into the following steps:
- Task formation
- Statement of the task to the performer
- Design development
- Change / acceptance of design
')
Each of these stages is associated with characteristic, constantly recurring problems in my practice. Let's stop at each stage in detail.
Formation task.
The first group of problems at this stage is related to the starting point for the creation of any corporate site - the company's self-awareness. What finds expression in market positioning (pr), mission, and corporate culture.
You need to clearly understand that the reason why you are doing the site is inside you (your company). What is better, no one will be able to formulate what you need, what you want to say (reveal) to the world.
Do not form vain expectations. The designer will not bring you an ideology, will not formulate the mission of your business and will not express what is in your head, but will not find the embodiment of itself. At best, you will get a beautiful fiction that will always and in all circumstances remain fiction.
Perhaps another. When you try to formulate the tasks of your corporate website, you will understand that you are not ready to create it.
In my opinion, nothing wrong with that. At least it is better to understand this before the site is created than after. As a maximum, you need to puzzle yourself by filling this gap: to engage in consulting, to work within your structure.
The second group of problems at the task formation stage is the consensus of internal customers. Because within the company there are always several stakeholders regarding the site: the marketing department, the public relations department, the personnel department, the management, etc.
Take your time. Gather inside your organization and process a range of tasks. Agree on common goals, identify priorities. And, significantly, determine the project manager, the decision maker - it is very difficult to make design decisions collectively.
And do all this before communicating with the performer (it is not the best option to arrange internal corporate debates at the first meeting).
Fashion.
A separate problem of the task formation stage is fashion.
There are some unreasonable things that are becoming a tradition and a norm. One of the clearest examples is rebranding.
Many companies are currently planning rebranding. And I strongly warn you to start this process with the creation of a site design. Let's make a new website, and then ... Rebranding is, in fact, re-forming the identity of your company. So, there is no starting point for creating a corporate website. Neither philosophy nor corporate identity - nothing yet. And the most that you can do is a website about how your rebranding goes (is it interesting for someone?).
Form style.
Essential detail that needs to be discussed separately. Corporate identity is an important part of the company's identity. And I very often come across a situation where people are unhappy with this part. They come and say: “we don’t like our brand identity - let's design the site”. And let's first solve this problem, and not build in vain expectations, because a bad logo is likely to lead to a bad design.
How to determine for yourself that you have passed the task formation stage? Simple indicator. If you see many solutions, this is a signal that you are not yet ready to transfer the task to the work to the performer.
Setting the task performer.
So, you have decided on what you want to receive and are ready to tell the contractor to develop the site about this to the contractor.
Avoid imposing.
Often there is no need to propose specific solutions. Try not to substitute the statement of the problem with an indication of exactly how this should be performed (be sure the roses in the lower right corner). Correctly explain what you want to achieve, what effect to achieve - the designer will be able to offer the optimal solution to this problem.
Most often I meet as such requirements: in principle, unrealizable things, a flight of fancy, something peeped in other projects, archaic ideas about technology. And I knowingly said “try”. Because it is impossible to avoid imposing in 100% of cases. Often people simply cannot express their demands otherwise. But you can not be categorical. There is your wish, there is a specialist opinion - you can always find a compromise.
Content.
Site design is very much determined by the content. Therefore, it is critically important to convey to the contractor the nature of the information being posted, its volume, format. Multi-page text, graphs of different types, tables - the better the artist will represent the array of information, the greater the number of pitfalls can be avoided during the operation phase of the site.
Be sure to discuss the informational accents. More importantly, less. The site should be built on the right accents - your accents. The contractor alone will not be able to determine the significance of this or that information in a field of business unfamiliar to him (and he, in principle, should not be considered familiar with any business other than website development).
The contractor should get an idea of the dynamics of the project - what do you plan to do with the site in the future, what parts of it and how to develop. This is a very common difficulty - the inability to formulate the future of the site. And, accordingly, it is not taken into account when developing. That, believe, leads to sad consequences. For example, you need to add a section of the first level - but the design does not allow this.
Evaluation criterion.
You set the task to the performer, and at this moment both should think about the criteria for evaluating the result. It is necessary to describe the key characteristics of the design, at the achievement of which it will be considered surrendered. And this description should be absolutely transparent for both parties and arrange both.
Otherwise, you simply can not accept the result. Something will be shown to you, and you cannot say good or bad. You will only be judged by the "picture" that you imagined at the time of the formation of the task, and this is the way to endless development and conflicts.
Development.
This process is completely on the side of the performer. And here is the question only of his professionalism. If you have completed the task formation phase and transferred it to work, there should be no problems. Otherwise, you made a mistake with the contractor.
Delivery / acceptance of design.
The most interesting and controversial.
The main problem is that the design is subjective. Even if you have qualitatively agreed on the criteria for evaluating the result, the taste remains. We are all human…
Try to make your criticism constructive. "I do not like" is a criterion with which it is impossible to work, it is a dead end. There are tools for constructive criticism - project documentation, expert opinion, logic, comparison. Use these tools.
A very common situation is a violation of integrity.
Design is some stable state of chaos, which the designer managed to achieve by solving your problem. If you try to swap blocks, headers, balance will be broken. Remember the thesis of imposing decisions - this is another manifestation of it. Try and avoid this error here. Do not propose to move something. Explain why you want to do this, what you want to achieve with it, and the designer will offer you an adequate solution that will allow you to save the design.
Another common situation is the introduction of new requirements.
This is a consequence of errors at the stage of formation of the task. Not everyone has taken into account, or it is an appetite that awoke in the process. In any case, after the dot in the project documentation, replay something in the project is not recommended. You must be prepared for this. And let there be a visible ease of these changes - well, that you should draw another layout. I recommend not to fulfill such wishes, but to rewrite the project documentation, put a new point in the agreement and only then work.
Afterword.
When choosing a contractor, contact a company that you fully trust. Whose professionalism you have no doubt and, most importantly, whose work you like. Trust is the basis and success of your project.
Almost every day I discuss with different people what site they want to create for their company. The experience of this communication has pushed me to some conclusions and recommendations, which, in my opinion, should help avoid many mistakes in the development of corporate projects and, most importantly, promote mutual understanding of the parties involved in this process.
To speak in detail, we divide the process of creating a corporate website design into the following steps:
- Task formation
- Statement of the task to the performer
- Design development
- Change / acceptance of design
')
Each of these stages is associated with characteristic, constantly recurring problems in my practice. Let's stop at each stage in detail.
Formation task.
The first group of problems at this stage is related to the starting point for the creation of any corporate site - the company's self-awareness. What finds expression in market positioning (pr), mission, and corporate culture.
You need to clearly understand that the reason why you are doing the site is inside you (your company). What is better, no one will be able to formulate what you need, what you want to say (reveal) to the world.
Do not form vain expectations. The designer will not bring you an ideology, will not formulate the mission of your business and will not express what is in your head, but will not find the embodiment of itself. At best, you will get a beautiful fiction that will always and in all circumstances remain fiction.
Perhaps another. When you try to formulate the tasks of your corporate website, you will understand that you are not ready to create it.
In my opinion, nothing wrong with that. At least it is better to understand this before the site is created than after. As a maximum, you need to puzzle yourself by filling this gap: to engage in consulting, to work within your structure.
The second group of problems at the task formation stage is the consensus of internal customers. Because within the company there are always several stakeholders regarding the site: the marketing department, the public relations department, the personnel department, the management, etc.
Take your time. Gather inside your organization and process a range of tasks. Agree on common goals, identify priorities. And, significantly, determine the project manager, the decision maker - it is very difficult to make design decisions collectively.
And do all this before communicating with the performer (it is not the best option to arrange internal corporate debates at the first meeting).
Fashion.
A separate problem of the task formation stage is fashion.
There are some unreasonable things that are becoming a tradition and a norm. One of the clearest examples is rebranding.
Many companies are currently planning rebranding. And I strongly warn you to start this process with the creation of a site design. Let's make a new website, and then ... Rebranding is, in fact, re-forming the identity of your company. So, there is no starting point for creating a corporate website. Neither philosophy nor corporate identity - nothing yet. And the most that you can do is a website about how your rebranding goes (is it interesting for someone?).
Form style.
Essential detail that needs to be discussed separately. Corporate identity is an important part of the company's identity. And I very often come across a situation where people are unhappy with this part. They come and say: “we don’t like our brand identity - let's design the site”. And let's first solve this problem, and not build in vain expectations, because a bad logo is likely to lead to a bad design.
How to determine for yourself that you have passed the task formation stage? Simple indicator. If you see many solutions, this is a signal that you are not yet ready to transfer the task to the work to the performer.
Setting the task performer.
So, you have decided on what you want to receive and are ready to tell the contractor to develop the site about this to the contractor.
Avoid imposing.
Often there is no need to propose specific solutions. Try not to substitute the statement of the problem with an indication of exactly how this should be performed (be sure the roses in the lower right corner). Correctly explain what you want to achieve, what effect to achieve - the designer will be able to offer the optimal solution to this problem.
Most often I meet as such requirements: in principle, unrealizable things, a flight of fancy, something peeped in other projects, archaic ideas about technology. And I knowingly said “try”. Because it is impossible to avoid imposing in 100% of cases. Often people simply cannot express their demands otherwise. But you can not be categorical. There is your wish, there is a specialist opinion - you can always find a compromise.
Content.
Site design is very much determined by the content. Therefore, it is critically important to convey to the contractor the nature of the information being posted, its volume, format. Multi-page text, graphs of different types, tables - the better the artist will represent the array of information, the greater the number of pitfalls can be avoided during the operation phase of the site.
Be sure to discuss the informational accents. More importantly, less. The site should be built on the right accents - your accents. The contractor alone will not be able to determine the significance of this or that information in a field of business unfamiliar to him (and he, in principle, should not be considered familiar with any business other than website development).
The contractor should get an idea of the dynamics of the project - what do you plan to do with the site in the future, what parts of it and how to develop. This is a very common difficulty - the inability to formulate the future of the site. And, accordingly, it is not taken into account when developing. That, believe, leads to sad consequences. For example, you need to add a section of the first level - but the design does not allow this.
Evaluation criterion.
You set the task to the performer, and at this moment both should think about the criteria for evaluating the result. It is necessary to describe the key characteristics of the design, at the achievement of which it will be considered surrendered. And this description should be absolutely transparent for both parties and arrange both.
Otherwise, you simply can not accept the result. Something will be shown to you, and you cannot say good or bad. You will only be judged by the "picture" that you imagined at the time of the formation of the task, and this is the way to endless development and conflicts.
Development.
This process is completely on the side of the performer. And here is the question only of his professionalism. If you have completed the task formation phase and transferred it to work, there should be no problems. Otherwise, you made a mistake with the contractor.
Delivery / acceptance of design.
The most interesting and controversial.
The main problem is that the design is subjective. Even if you have qualitatively agreed on the criteria for evaluating the result, the taste remains. We are all human…
Try to make your criticism constructive. "I do not like" is a criterion with which it is impossible to work, it is a dead end. There are tools for constructive criticism - project documentation, expert opinion, logic, comparison. Use these tools.
A very common situation is a violation of integrity.
Design is some stable state of chaos, which the designer managed to achieve by solving your problem. If you try to swap blocks, headers, balance will be broken. Remember the thesis of imposing decisions - this is another manifestation of it. Try and avoid this error here. Do not propose to move something. Explain why you want to do this, what you want to achieve with it, and the designer will offer you an adequate solution that will allow you to save the design.
Another common situation is the introduction of new requirements.
This is a consequence of errors at the stage of formation of the task. Not everyone has taken into account, or it is an appetite that awoke in the process. In any case, after the dot in the project documentation, replay something in the project is not recommended. You must be prepared for this. And let there be a visible ease of these changes - well, that you should draw another layout. I recommend not to fulfill such wishes, but to rewrite the project documentation, put a new point in the agreement and only then work.
Afterword.
When choosing a contractor, contact a company that you fully trust. Whose professionalism you have no doubt and, most importantly, whose work you like. Trust is the basis and success of your project.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/8292/
All Articles