One of the questions we often get is “How do you come up with the designs for my site?” or “How do I know you will design something that I will like?”. Well, I’ll try to clarify that here by going through the design process.
The first thing we do when contracted to come up with a new site design is to send the client a questionnaire with a number of detailed questions. These questions range from “Do you have an existing site/logo/marketing material?” to “What is your target market?”. Essentially we are looking for not only an idea of what the client pictures in their mind for the new site, but also what their store is selling and to whom. The more information the client provides up front, the closer our initial concepts are to what they envision.
One of the advantages of hiring a professional designer, whether it be for a web site or a new home, is that we are trained to take someone’s vision and turn it into something tangible. Once we receive the information from the client, we look at their existing graphics, their target market, their competition, their products and their thoughts on what they want the site to look like. We then take that information and translate it in to some initial design concepts in image format, usually just the ‘home’ page of the site. This gives the client the overall feel for what the site could look like. The initial two concepts we provide are usually pretty different, with one concept being exactly what the client asks for, but also one that is ‘outside the box’ so that they won’t get tunnel vision and see only one possible solution.
We always ask that the client be brutally honest with their feedback, as it is much easier to revise a concept if we know exactly what they love/hate about it. About 90% of the time we are pretty close to what the client wants with the first concepts, but sometimes it take a few rounds to get to the point where they are 100% happy. We simply adjust the concepts based on the client’s feedback, or if we are completely off base, we start from scratch. We don’t actually start the implementation of the design until the client fully approves the design concept, as it is much easier (and less expensive) to change the concept in image format as opposed to changing code on a working site.
Once the design is approved, we start implementing the design into X-Cart. This is where we will also work with the client on the ‘interior’ pages of the site – category, product detail, cart, checkout and static pages all use the same basic framework of the design, but are arranged differently depending on the client’s preferences. We use a highly modified version of X-Cart, so the checkout and category pages in particular are completely different than the default X-Cart templates.
When hiring a designer (even if it isn’t us!) there is never such a thing as too much information. Here is a simple checklist of things that are helpful for a designer when creating a new image for your site:
- Existing site/logo/marketing material
- Color palates you prefer
- Other web sites you like/dislike and why
- Navigation structure you would like to use, both for products and non-product pages
- Who your closes competitors are
- Who your target market is
- An idea of what kinds of products you are selling
- The ‘feeling’ you are trying to convey to your customers
- Your company philosophy/story/personality
- What features you want to use on the site (bestsellers, newsletters, featured products, etc)
- Any other details that make your company unique
Hopefully this will help you with your next design project!