Design

Design is a broad term encompassing user experience (UX) design, information architecture (IA), visual design, user interface design, interaction design, product design, and content design.

We excel in all of these practices and apply our experience to the design challenges we face with care. We don’t put every project through the same process; we do what’s needed.

A dual streamed approach

Following initial research, we tend to split design work into a stream focused on aesthetics and another focused on content and functionality. For example, design exploration examines component styling while prototyping focuses on content design and information architecture.

Workshops

Whether in person or online, we find the best way to initially explore design ideas with our clients is through workshops. We aim to build a common vision for a site and get inputs into all aspects of the design process.

We typically run hands on exercises including assignments such as ‘collaborative moodboarding’ where different teams explore their design visions. Another example is ‘word pairs’ where we present various design ideas associated with pairs of words, such as formal and informal, and the client team chooses which is more appropriate on a sliding scale. This is alongside more established exercises such as card sorting.

Design exploration

Armed with inputs from the workshops we develop the design further through the use of moodboards. We expect to focus on specific aspects of the design before attempting full page mockups. These aspects could include typography, photography, navigation, or banner design.

We often work with our clients at this stage to start defining – and looking at design options for – the elements that will make up the final design: design components.

Finally, we develop page mock-ups to see how the components work across different page types. By now there should be no major surprises, no big ‘ta da!’ unveiling moment. 

Prototyping / wireframing

Alongside the visual exploration work we focus on a site’s structure and labelling, and content design.

We develop a draft IA in a workshop and work collaboratively with the project team to finalise the IA following workshops.

We identify the types of page needed for the site and use wireframing to analyse the content required for different types of page and the patterns needed to present that content.

We start wireframes by considering mobile layouts, since these are the most constraining.