The CMO’s Guide to the Design Phase of a Website Development Project

The design phase of a website development project is surprisingly complex. It’s about more than your site’s look and feel. Beneath the surface of the visual elements you see — colours, shapes, fonts, format, etc. — lies significant foundational work that contributes to a successful result. 

In fact, web designers are a lot like architects. They create the blueprint (i.e., wireframe) that the development team uses to construct your UX/UI. But they also go one step further and assume a role equivalent to that of an interior designer. By thoughtfully layering the visual experience on top of your information architecture, they bring your brand and content to life. 

At the end of the day, good website design requires form and function. And at ImageX, we’re committed to both. To deliver a solution that will look great and further your business objectives, we approach the design phase carefully and collaboratively. 

Here’s what you need to know about this crucial part of the web development process. 

The Design Phase Builds on the Discovery Phase

The way we approach your design phase will depend a great deal on the information we gather in discovery. And though nearly everything discussed in discovery will impact design, designers pay special attention to 3 key areas. 

1. User Needs and Behavior

Many organizations think about their website as their primary marketing tool — the solution that enables them to meet their business goals. But the larger truth is that your website exists to meet your users’ needs. If it doesn’t reach your audience, it can’t further your organizational objectives.

Therefore, before we begin designing your website’s foundation — creating its wireframe, information architecture, and mapping out navigation — we first need to understand how your users engage with your current site. We’ll ask questions including

• Who are your users? Have you done the work of creating audience personas, or will we need to help you develop them?
• What are your users’ needs and goals? What are the most common tasks they complete?
• Where are your site visitors experiencing pain points or frustration? When are they most likely to bounce without completing the task at hand?
• What does your ideal user journey look like? Have you thought through how to lead your personas through the decision funnel?
• What metrics do you want to measure? Do you have any performance benchmarks in place that will help us make smart design choices?
• Have you or other departments within your organization conducted market research about your audience? Are there any specific issues that have surfaced as a result of user testing? 

To further dissect your users’ behavior, we’ll look at your Google analytics and any data-gathering tools such as Hotjar heatmaps. But don’t worry: if you haven’t put these tools in place, we’ll get those set up right away so we can make informed, data-driven design decisions together. 

We’ll also remove the guesswork and help you conduct invaluable user testing to gather qualitative data about your site’s effectiveness.

2. Design Inspiration 

During discovery, we ask you to share examples of websites you like and dislike. This will help us get a feel for your preferences and style. But we’ll also push you to look beyond your own industry for inspiration. 

We do this because, too often, organizations look only at peer sites and mimic the approach their direct competitors use. But to stand out, you need to differentiate yourself and showcase your organization’s unique attributes. 

Sometimes looking outside of your industry is the best way to bring creativity, excitement, and innovation to your site. And because we have cross-sectional expertise, we bring the benefit of a variety of best practices to the table to level up your design.

3. Brand Identity and Guidelines 

The third element that helps to inform our design choices is your brand. In discovery, it’s important for us to gain a thorough understanding of

• Your brand characteristics
• The elements of your brand identity that resonate most with your users
• How your visual identity should be represented (especially if you have multiple sub-brands or versions of your logo) 
• Which colours, fonts, and other design elements are on brand and which should be avoided
• Whether your brand colours and other design elements are WCAG and ADA compliant for accessibility purposes (if not, we will suggest alternatives)

If your web development project is happening as a result of a rebrand — or in conjunction with one — be sure to finalize all elements of your visual identity prior to the design phase. Failure to do so could cause significant delays in your production timeline. 

Creating Your Project Timeline

Once the discovery phase concludes and we have a firm understanding of your website’s direction, we’ll develop a design timeline to give you an idea of what to expect. Your timeline will include:

• Start dates outlining when each part of the design process will begin (e.g., wireframe, visual design, etc.)
• Meeting dates to review progress and obtain feedback
• Deadlines for obtaining stakeholder approval for each part of the design
• Anticipated timeframe for conducting user testing
• Target date for when the design phase ends and is handed off to development

This week-by-week roadmap will lay out exactly who is responsible for each part of the design phase from start to finish. It will also spell out what we’ll need from you — and when — to keep your project on track. 

Our Approach to Design is Laser Focused on Your Users

After the discovery phase wraps up, it’s time to put the building blocks of your design together to start making abstract ideas tangible. In all the following areas, we’ll make design choices with your overarching business goals and audience needs in mind. 

Designing Around One Core Concept

Your wireframes, information architecture, and content strategy should all support one high-level concept. For example, a nonprofit might design its site around its mission statement to inspire donors to make a gift. Or a higher education institution might orient their design around nudging prospective students to fill out an application.

To define your core concept, we’ll ask: What is the single most important thing you want site visitors to do? What are the micro-goals that will lead users toward this objective? And how can we create a design that clearly supports your website’s primary focus?

Answering these questions ensures we create an effective design that meets both your needs and that of your audience.

Designing with Accessibility in Mind

To reach your target audience effectively, it’s essential for your design to be accessible and inclusive for all. That’s why we incorporate accessibility best practices into every website we work on, as a matter of course. 

We will:

• Choose colour schemes that have adequate contrast to improve visibility
• Select fonts and point sizes carefully
• Write link text that is semantically meaningful (e.g., avoid vague text such as “read more” and “learn more”)
• Avoid using colour alone to indicate meaning
• Order content logically to support keyboard and screen reader navigation
• Break up long walls of text to improve readability
• Consider how menus and navigation function on a wide variety of devices (including accessibility devices such as keyboards and switches)
• Make the user interface as simple to navigate as possible
• Design forms carefully to avoid navigation traps and reduce errors
• Include adequate touch area and space for controls
• Add audio and video elements to supplement the written word — and use transcripts and closed captions consistently

Removing the Guesswork Around User Testing

Organizations are often hesitant to invest in user testing — perhaps because there’s a perception that the process is overly expensive or onerous. But the truth is there is a lot of good information to be learned even from very limited user testing. Whether you have users test new wireframes so we can iterate on our design or test out the functionality of high-profile forms and buttons, the key is to focus your efforts in the right areas. 

To help us identify the greatest opportunities for impact, we’ll ask:

• What insights can we glean from quantitative data (e.g., Google Analytics; heatmaps) about where there might be usability issues?
• Who is your primary audience, and what are some ways we can involve them in testing?
• What questions do you have about your site’s effectiveness that we can explore together?
• What information do we need to gather in order to make confident decisions about your site’s design?

There are plenty of user testing options that are highly effective and also inexpensive. Investing in targeted testing might even help you make decisions when you and other stakeholders disagree about possible design directions. 

For example, one of our clients couldn’t decide on the best approach to their information architecture. So they conducted user testing and collected data, which helped them refine their course of action and obtain buy-in from previously reluctant stakeholders.

Data provides proof that you’re moving in the right direction and enables you to proceed with confidence. 

Creating a Construct for Content Design

There’s a lot that goes into creating your organization’s content strategy. Much of that work takes place adjacent to the design process. From a design perspective, we’ll work on putting the framework in place that will ensure your content structure is visually pleasing, accessible, and intuitively navigable. 

And to make sure you can continue to update your content and put new pages in place in the future, we’ll create a style guide that spells out everything from ideal character counts for headings and subheadings to the size and pixel requirements for photos. 

Timely, Constructive Feedback Keeps Your Project Moving Forward

Your most crucial role in the design process is to provide feedback when requested and obtain approvals according to your project timeline.

Providing Feedback

Throughout the design phase, we will request feedback from you on the concepts and ideas we generate. For example, early on, we’ll create a variety of visually rich mood boards and ask you to weigh in on the styles, colours, gradients, fonts, and other design elements we’re considering. 

When sharing these with your stakeholders, it’s important to realize they’re not meant to be literal. These are ideas, not completed pages. Ask for candid reactions, compile feedback, and bring it to us collectively so we can make the right design choices for your organization.

Obtaining Approval

Making decisions about your website’s design can be more difficult than you expect. This is especially true if multiple stakeholders feel ownership of the project. You’ll need to clearly define who has decision-making authority as early in the design process as possible. Then hold your stakeholders to the approval timeline we establish at the outset. This will keep your project moving forward and ensure the development phase isn’t negatively impacted.

Your Website’s Design Doesn’t End in the Design Phase

The design phase of a web development project can easily take on a life of its own if you’re not mindful of your established scope and timeline. As your design takes shape and you see what’s possible, it’s tempting to request additional functionality or try to slot in “one more thing.”

But it’s imperative to keep your project within your budget and scope. Your project plan was built with your business goals and audience needs at the forefront. Keep those in mind to avoid blowing scope and missing your desired launch deadline.

Remember: there’s always time to add in features later when resources allow. The great thing about a well-constructed Drupal site is that it’s scalable, extensible, and flexible. It can easily grow and flex with your organization as your needs evolve over time. 

The key is to work with a vendor who’s committed to supporting your organization’s business objectives long term. So if you want to learn more about how we approach not only the design phase but an entire web project, let’s chat.