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THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2019

Web design strategy part 1: strategic

design
Strategic design helps you learn about your clients and
their businesses, and solve their problems
systematically. The more you’re able to break problems
down and communicate them to your clients, the more
you’ll be able to sell great ideas that do them justice.
The rst step is to know what you’re trying to achieve.
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When your client doesn’t know what they need, they certainly won’t know what they want.
Every project should have a clear objective. If it doesn’t, you may as well be designing blindfolded. You can set your
client—and yourself—up for success by helping them focus on what they need. 

The value of a goal

To succeed, we start with a goal. Goals give you and your client something tangible to work towards. They create
consensus at the outset of a project. When you and your client are comparing di erent solutions, the goal acts as a
compass. It turns art into science by letting you measure a design’s e ectiveness.

Here are two straightforward questions to get the conversation owing.

1. What are your marketing goals?

Perhaps your client came to you to help launch a new product. Their challenges will be di erent than someone who
wants to generate leads and acquire new customers. Di erent clients will have di erent goals. 

Your client may have trouble articulating their situation, or they may have several competing needs. Encourage them to
prioritize what’s most important, then build on top of that. A strong foundation is better for their business than a series
of patches or a coat of paint.

Once you and your client have identi ed their primary goals, you’ve established a baseline to measure the e ectiveness
of your work. 

2. Why do you think you aren’t meeting your goals yet?

This question can introduce you to some of the challenges the brand is facing and your client’s point of view. The
backstory will give you a broader understanding of where the brand ts in the market. 

It will also help you gauge how close they are with their customers and give you a few places to start. But this is just the
rst step.

Scaffolding and sequencing

Great design—and trust in great design—doesn’t just materialize. It comes from a common understanding of the
problem and the solution. And that’s no small feat. You and your client live in two di erent worlds. 
Sca olding and sequencing are two tools you can use to help you solve your client’s problems and get their buy-in. 

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Sca olding
A skyscraper doesn’t just materialize. It’s built on a foundation, from the inside out. Similarly, great design doesn’t just
happen. It requires prep work and a vantage point that allows you to see the client’s situation clearly. 

Sca olding is how you and your client frame your ndings. In essence, it’s everything you do upfront that simpli es the
build. In strategic design, this includes brand and user research and building rapport with your client. All of this work
sets the stage for the actual design. 

Sequencing
Sequencing is related to sca olding in the sense that all of this upfront work prepares your client for your design
solution. To continue the skyscraper analogy, a construction crew doesn't just wing it. The skyscraper comes after the
client buys the architect's vision. 

Sequencing is about organizing your process. It builds on ndings to help your client understand the solutions you
present, and ultimately select an e ective one.

If you jump straight into execution, your client may not know why you made certain choices. They need to see how your
work comes from your research into their brand and their customers. Sequencing helps you achieve this.

For illustrative purposes, we’ll pretend that Skyroad, an imaginary commercial real estate company, is the client as we
explore how sca olding and sequencing play into research and design.

Getting to know the brand

Skyroad is roadblocked by legislation that prevents them from retro tting their properties with green architectural
elements. Their goal is for people to contact their city council to overturn these restrictions.

Brand principles
Before creating anything for a client, it’s important to know who they are. To this end, explore their brand principles.
Most brands have a few guiding values that convey their identity. These may be written in a brand book, or they may be
inside the founder’s head. In any case, a baseline understanding of who they are can greatly simplify your decision-
making process. 
For instance, the principles that guide Skyroad are: Active, Invested, and Self-driven. As a result, an educational
campaign makes sense for their brand. The work for them will be for a niche, engaged community. It will likely have a
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strong tie-in with email and other social channels. 

You would want to choose a template that accommodates blog content and white papers. You may also encourage
them to share content through social channels and email campaigns. On all Squarespace sites, these integrations are as
simple as a few clicks.

Existing collateral
Once you know the brand essence, see how these principles play out in the market. Get as many pieces of collateral as
possible and immerse yourself in their brand. Audit their tweets, social presence, and how their website has evolved
over time. Subscribe to their newsletter, and see if you can get old editions. 

This process will educate you about the brand and the work your clients have bought into. It will also show your client’s
that you’re interested in them, which helps you gain their trust. If any collateral seems inconsistent with their brand
principles, take note and ask your client.

In the case of Skyroad, you nd that they’ve produced a lot of content over the years. Even so, they haven’t plugged it
into the right channels. 

Stakeholder interviews
Once you have a sense of how they think about their brand, it’s time to talk with the people who bring these ideas to
life. This is a good time to feel out your client’s priorities and tastes. Get clarity on anything interesting or ambiguous
that you’ve found through research. Talk to them more in-depth about their goals. If you have any initial ideas, casually
oat them. When you talk about the di erent ways to share the content they produce, the client will light up.

Know the target

A brand is the sum of its people, products, and customer interactions.
Even if the brand’s guiding principles are intact, and your client is the perfect advocate for them, there may be an
understanding gap. There are many ways to spot these holes and nd ways to ll them in.

User research
Find out who the customers are and dig in. Many companies have a wealth of research on their target market.
Investigate the data you have and combine it with qualitative methods. Talk to real and potential customers, and talk to
the company’s marketers and sales reps. 

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After this step in the process, you nd that what matters most to Skyroad’s customers is community. They’re actively
engaged with the issues of today. They’re looking for others to share their enthusiasm. They thrive on momentum.

Personas
When clients are constantly dealing with business realities, it’s easy to lose track of the humanity behind every data
point. Customer personas can remind them of it. Many brands have existing personas. Others may want personas
sketched out. This is a good way to synthesize user research and make it more usable. 

Take Jack, a persona for Skyroad. Jack studied civil engineering and business. He found himself in commercial real
estate. While some of his friends think he’s a sellout, he believes that business can change the world for the better. He
runs 5ks a few times a year. He’s always on the lookout for others who share his passion for sustainable change.

Design
This process helped you and your client lay the foundation for great design. Brand and user research helped you
eliminate ideas that won’t work or don’t make sense, so you can focus on ideas that matter. Each step helped you
generate, validate, or disprove ideas you may have had. Going through this with your client prepares them for the
solutions you’ll present. 

But before that, it’s time to face the blank screen and put your ndings to work. Everything you know about Skyroad
and their audience suggests that the brand needs a design refresh, a channel to explore the policy of sustainable
architecture, and community engagement to fuel outreach and action.

You may nd it’s easier to make a case for your design choices because you’ve partnered with your client to de ne
objectives, brand, and challenges. 

Iterate
After you’ve sold and designed your solution, you get to test your hypotheses. See if the design helps the business
reach its objectives. If it doesn’t, optimize.
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Strategic design begins with a purpose. It covers brand identity, UX, and the creative process. While a strategic
approach may involve more work upfront, it can save you from rounds of opinion-based revisions. Ultimately, your
strategic process is another design tool that leads to better results for you and your clients.

Written by Tony Syros

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