TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Thanks : TED and You tube

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When creating your project profile, you are going to want to ask tons of questions to make sure you can deliver a final product that thoroughly meets your customers demands. The way I generally do this is by sending an email to the company’s project manager or the individual you are developing the website for.

You’ll want to stick to a couple of different categories of questions, and while these may vary from project to project, this post should serve as a good outline for what to ask. You want the client to understand that you are simply trying to meet their needs as best you can. They will generally be more than happy to answer all of these questions.

Categories of Questions:

Questions for the Client
Questions about the audience
Questions about the project
Questions about Assets
Questions about Content
Questions about Function
Questions about Budget
Questions about the Schedule

First, you are going to want to ask them about their company specifically.

• What is the mission statement of your company?
  
• What is the primary goal of your web site? (sales, information, etc.)
  
• Who are the key decision makers within the company?
  
• Will there be additional contractors to work with?
  
• Who is responsible for which areas of the site?
  
• How will the success of the project be measured (specific metrics, measurable goals, etc.)
  
• Who is your target audience of demographic?

After the audience has been identified, and the key demographic chosen, you are going to want to know more about that subject.

• What primarily will your audience be trying to achieve or receive from your site?
• What kinds of issues are important to your audience?
• What platforms are they using? (browsers, operating systems, etc.)
• Are there any hardware or software restrictions or concerns associated with the audience?
• What kind of hardware do you expect your audience to be using?

Additionally, you will want to know specifics in relation to the project.

• What is the budget for this project?
  
• What is the deadline?
  
• What is the schedule?
  
• Who is your competition?
  
• Please list five sites that you aspire to compete with or surpass with your site (additionally, it may be beneficial to include how you want to compete. Traffic, Audience, etc.)
  
• Are there any branding issues that may be incorporated into the design of the site?
  
• Is there money in the budget for user testing? If so, how much?

After you’ve obtained some project specific information, you’ll want to know the following.

• Has any work already gone into the site?
• If yes, should this work be included at all costs?
• Will we be doing a redesign of the site or mainly from scratch?
• Do you own or have paid hosting, domains, servers, etc. that would be needed for the site?
• Who will I contact in regards to these assets?
• Who will approve the purchase of further necessities?

Now that you have some information on the general requirements, you will want to know more detailed information such as;

• Who will create the content?
  
• Who will keep the content updated?
  
• Who is the person responsible for content at the company?
  
• How often will the content need to be updated?
  
• How often will the content actually be updated?

Note: These two last questions, while similar, provide two very different answers. If the site requires many updates frequently, but the company cannot maintain a resource to do this, you can consider putting yourself on retainer for that company in order to do the updates for them.

Next you will want to focus on the functioning aspects of the website.

• Who will host the site?
• Who will handle the MySQL or SQL database for the site?
• Who will analyze the logs to maintain security?
• What are the security issues involved?
• What security guidelines are in place at the organization?
• What is the long-term objective of the site?
• Are their special technical considerations?

Additionally, you need to know how much budget resources the company has for this site, if you are expected to create it.

• Who pays for the hosting?
• Who pays for the maintenance?
• Who pays for the database development and administration?
• Who pays for the scripts or programming for the site?
• Who pays for the visual design of the site?

Finally, you’ll want to get into schedule specific details. These details can include but are not limited to;

• What is the deadline for launch?
• Does the launch coincide with a specific product or service being offered?
• What is the deadline for user-testing?
• What are considered the project milestones within the projects framework?

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Web designers compete to impress visitors with distinctive and appealing visual elements. Background images are one of those visual elements that when designed properly, can create an amazing atmosphere and convey the style the designer has chosen.In this post you will see how web designers carefully created background images to achieve their goals in engaging and facilitating the design elements and content.

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One of the most challenging parts of the web design process is getting design sign off. It can prove time consuming, demoralizing and if you are not careful can lead to a dissatisfied client. What is more you can end up with a design that you are ashamed to include in your portfolio.

How then can you ensure that the design you produce is the one that gets built? How can you get the client to sign off on your design? Below are 10 tips learnt from years of bitter experience.

1. Define the role of the client and designer

Many of the clients you work with will not have been involved in a web project before. Even if they have they may have worked in a very different way to what you would expect. Take the time at the beginning of the project to explain their role in the design of the site.

The best approach is to emphasis that their job is to focus on the needs of their users and business. They should concentrate on the broad issues, while you worry about the details of layout, typography and colour scheme.

By clarifying what you expect from the client, you help them to provide the right kind of input throughout the process

2. Understand the business

Before you open up Photoshop or put pen to paper, take the time to make sure you properly understand not only the brief but the organization behind the site. By understanding their business objectives, organizational structure and marketing strategy your design decisions will be better informed.

You cannot rely upon the brief to provide all of the information you need. It is important to dig deeper and get as good an understanding of their business as possible. This information will prove invaluable when justifying your design decisions.

3. Understand the users

We all like to think of ourselves as user centric designers, but exactly how much effort do you put into knowing your users before beginning the design process?

Take the time to really understand them the best you can. Try to meet with some real prospective users and get to know their needs. Failing that work with the client to produce user personas to help picture exactly what kind of people they are.

Understanding your users not only improves the quality of your work, but also helps move the discussion away from the personal preferences of the client, to the people who’s opinion really matters.

4. Avoid multiple concepts

Many clients like the idea of having the option to choose between multiple design concepts. However, although on the surface this might appear to be a good idea it can ultimately be counterproductive for design sign off.

In a world of limited budgets it is unwise to waste money on producing designs that are ultimately going to be thrown away. The resources would be better spent refining a single design through multiple iterations.

What is more, multiple concepts often cause confusion rather than clarity. It is common for a client to request one element from one design and another from the second. As any designer knows this seldom works.

5. Use mood boards

Clients are often better at expressing what they don’t like than what they do. This is one of the reasons why they favour producing multiple design concepts. An alternative less costly approach is to create a series of mood boards. These boards contain a collection of colours, typography and imagery which represent different “moods” or directions, which the design could take.

Mood boards are quick and easy to produce allowing you to try out various design approaches with the client without investing the time needed to produce complete design concepts. This means that by the time you develop a concept the client and designer have already established an understanding about the direction of the design.

6. Say what you like

It is not uncommon for a client to ask for a design that looks similar to another site they like. The problem is that it can often be hard to establish exactly what it is about the site that attracts them. Also in many cases the sites they like are not something you are keen to emulate!

A better approach that was suggested to me by Andy Budd is to show them sites that you think the design should emulate. Keep a collection of screen captures from well designed sites and pick out a few that are relevant to that particular client. Explain why you feel these designs might suit their project and ask for their feedback. If they don’t like your choices then expose them to more of your collection and see what they pick out.

7. Wireframe the homepage

Often clients find it hard to distinguish between design and content and so sometimes reject a design on the basis that the content is not right. This is particularly true when signing off the homepage.

You may therefore find it useful to establish the homepage content before producing the design. That way once they see the design they will not be distracted by the content. One of the best ways to do this is by producing a basic wireframe consisting of a series of content boxes. Once this has been approved you will find the sign off of design much easier.

8. Present your designs

Although it is true that a good design should speak for itself it still needs presenting to the client. The client needs to understand why you have made the design decisions you have, otherwise they will judge the design purely on personal preference.

Talk them through the design explaining how it meets the needs of their users and business objectives. Refer to the mood boards and preferred sites the client approved and explain how the design is a continuation of those. Never simply email the design through and hope the client interprets your work correctly!

9. Provide written supporting material

Unfortunately, no matter how well you justify the design to the client he is almost certain to want to show it to others. He may need his bosses approval or require internal buy in. At the very least he is going to want to get a second opinion from a friend or colleague.

The problem with this is that you are not going to be there to present to these people in the same way you did for the client. You cannot expect the client to present your ideas as well as you did. The reality is that you have lost control of how the design is perceived.

One way to minimize this problem is to provide written documentation supporting the design. This can be a summary of the presentation you gave to the client and allows him to distribute this along with the design. By putting a written explanation with the design you ensure that everybody who sees it gets the same message.

10. Control the feedback

My final piece of advice for managing design sign off is to control the way you receive feedback. A clients natural inclination will be to give you his personal opinion on the design. This is reinforced because you ask them what they think of the design. Instead ask them what their users will think of the design. Encourage them to think from the users perspective.

Also encourage them to keep that overarching focus I talked about in my first tip. Their tendency will be to try to improve the design, however that should be your problem not theirs. The role of a client should be to defend the needs of their users and business not do the design. Encourage the client to make comments such as “I am not sure that my female users will like the masculine colours” rather than “can we make the whole design pink.” It is down to them to identify the problems and for you as the designer to find the most appropriate solution.

So there you have it. My 10 tips to improve design sign off. Will this ensure design approval every time? Unfortunately not. However it should certainly help smooth the way.

The ultimate symbol of a large organization’s approach to website management is the committee. A committee is often formed to tackle the website because internal politics demand that everybody has a say and all considerations be taken into account. To say that all committees are a bad idea is naive, and to suggest that a large corporate website could be developed without consultation is fanciful. However, when it comes to design, committees are often the kiss of death.

Design is subjective. The way we respond to a design can be influenced by culture, gender, age, childhood experience and even physical conditions (such as color blindness). What one person considers great design could be hated by another. This is why it is so important that design decisions be informed by user testing rather than personal experience. Unfortunately, this approach is rarely taken when a committee is involved in design decisions.

Instead, designing by committee becomes about compromise. Because committee members have different opinions about the design, they look for ways to find common ground. One person hates the blue color scheme, while another loves it. This leads to designing on the fly, with the committee instructing the designer to “try a different blue” in the hopes of finding middle ground. Unfortunately, this leads only to bland design that neither appeals to nor excites anyone.

 Your Website Cannot Appeal To Everyone

One of the first questions I ask a client is, “Who is your target audience?” I am regularly shocked at the length of the reply. Too often, it includes a long and detailed list of diverse people. Inevitably, my next question is, “Which of those many demographic groups are most important?” Depressingly, the answer is usually that they are all equally important.

The harsh truth is that if you build a website for everyone, it will appeal to no one. It is important to be extremely focused about your audience and cater your design and content to it. Does this mean you should ignore your other users? Not at all. Your website should be accessible by all and not offend or exclude anybody. However, the website does need to be primarily aimed at a clearly defined audience.

 Many organizations fail to get the most from their Web designers. Web designers are much more than pixel pushers. They have a wealth of knowledge about the Web and how users interact with it. They also understand design techniques, including grid systems, white space, color theory and much more.

It is therefore wasteful to micro-manage by asking them to “make the logo bigger” or to “move that 3 pixels to the left.” By doing so, you are reducing their role to that of a software operator and wasting the wealth of experience they bring.

If you want to get the maximum return on your Web team, present it with problems, not solutions. For example, if you’re targeting your website at teenage girls, and the designer goes for corporate blue, suggest that your audience might not respond well to that color. Do not tell him or her to change it to pink. This way, the designer has the freedom to find a solution that may even be better than your choice. You allow your designer to solve the problem you have presented.

Thanks to the Original Author Paul Boag

About the author : 

Paul Boag is the founder of UK Web design agency Headscape, author of the Website Owners Manual and host of award-winning Web design podcast Boagworld.com.