23 Design Process tips, tutorials, techniques & resources
6 Phases of the Web Design & Development Process
"There are numerous steps in the web site design and development process. From gathering initial information, to the creation of your web site, and finally to maintenance to keep your web site up to date and current. The exact process will vary slightly from designer to designer, but the basics are generally the same."
Wireframing with Fireworks CS3
"Wireframes are barebones sketches of your website or application and you can use to demonstrate, document, and often validate the functionality of a design without any distracting pixel artistry. This article expressed my thoughts on why Fireworks CS3 is a particularly good tool for wireframing. I also share some of the techniques that have worked well for me in the past."
The Delicate Art of (Web) Design Critique
"It's quite one thing to criticize someone's code; one can argue the merits or not of being a stickler about standards compliancy, or using CSS, or whatever. But design is more personal than writing code. How do you constructively critique someone's work without being taken the wrong way? How do you accept criticism without feeling hurt or angry? Here are just a few ideas, gathered from observations and comments from others."
Designing the "Future Of" Sites
"Our first step in any project is to formulate a strategy for the design. This is very important in helping us ensure that the design communicates the right message about the brand. It also helps by giving both us and the client something to test our ideas against—a design litmus test of sorts."
My Development and Design Process
"My first step is an attempt to envision the overall structure of the document. I’ll first pick out the overall structural elements that need to be put in place. From there I’ll pick out such things as divisions, lists, paragraphs, headings, and definition lists, as those are the most common elements I end up working with. This process of envisioning the document structure doesn’t take long, but proves to be extremely valuable."
Improving Your Process: Site Planning Guides
"Sometimes improving your process not only helps yourself, it can benefit your clients as well. Using your time more effectively allows a client to receive more time and effort from you focused on enhancing the project as opposed to spending time resolving miscommunication."
Improving Your Process: Sitemaps and Design Preparation
"Sitemaps aren’t exactly a popular topic for conversation as of late. Given the improvements both in site architecture as well as search engine intelligence, it seems as though sitemaps have taken a backseat as far as priority is concerned. I’ve written specifically about sitemaps and whether or not they’re applicable today."
Stonebriar Community Church Redesign
"In our initial interviews, it was clear that the team at Stonebriar was eager to have a website design that more accurately reflected the vision and DNA of their community. The previous design wasn’t bad, but it needed freshening, and more personality."
Redesigning the ExpressionEngine Site
"I now tend to split my design process into somewhat separate phases: wireframing, design exploration, and detailing. In this article, I’ll attempt to detail those phases with some practical examples from the design of the ExpressionEngine.com website, as well as demonstrate what to do if the process encounters snags."
Design Process of WDW
"Usually, I keep the sketches of every project I designed and use them as simple documentation. Sometime I might refer back to the old sketches for ideas and references. Here I would like to share my development process of Web Designer Wall with you. This article will show you how WDW is done - from start to finish."
Critiquing
"Though this won’t be a detailed process to critiquing (you should hopefully be somewhat familiar with the nature of a critique already), I will try and shed some light on constructive and respectful critiquing."
Keeping a Sketchbook
"This week we are going to take a brief look at the benefits of maintaining a sketchbook and the impact it can have on your own creative process."
Collecting for Design
"There are three disciplines that have been useful in my design self-education: Reading, practicing, and collecting. Let’s talk about the finer points of collecting."
The process of redesigning a logo
"Who do I actually design the logo for? Who is their audience? What does that audience feel comfortable with? And so on... The answers to such questions are fundamental in order to create a decent and representative logotype."
The Logo Design Process of top graphic designers
"This article will reveal exactly how 75 top designers of todays modern age create their logos - a way previously untold or explored - the way they don’t want you to know about. It will show the design process that these designers go through to get to their final logo design."
Questions to Ask Yourself When a Design is Coming Up Short of Your Expectations
"In this post we’ll take a look at some questions to ask yourself when a design is not living up to your expectations. These questions focus primarily on the design, not necessarily the effectiveness of the site overall, the usability, or the content."
Better Web Forms: Redesigning eBay's Registration
"The eBay registration form isn’t so unusable that it brings sign-ups to a screeching halt, but it is rough enough to justify some tweaking."
Paper Prototyping
"With interfaces becoming more complex, and development schedules growing shorter the best prototyping tools may be simpler than you think."
Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign
"Too often, look and feel, color scheme, layout, and identity are presented as solutions to problems discussed in these conversations long before regard is given to other less-aesthetic issues that may very well be the root of the problem. The old warning against treating symptom rather than cause comes to mind."
On Creativity
"As designers, we’re wrongly perceived as custodians and exponents of creativity. This matters because business currently overvalues creativity. To avoid the inevitable backlash, we must lead our clients’ perceptions."
10 CSS Tips from a Professional Front-End Architect
"Simply thinking through your process before starting each project will save you headaches as the site grows."
A Design Process Revealed
"A detailed look at the process and decisions which were part of a design for the CSS Zen Garden submission titled, Golden Mean."
Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal
"I'm all for being as original as possible, but a beginning Web designer (or any designer, for that matter) should start out by copying other well-created designs."