Our Design Process at Sun
A while back I put together some slides to describe our design process at Sun to interested colleagues at other companies. It's a pretty detailed slide deck (see link below), but there are a couple of key ideas. One key idea is that 80-90% of the projects we see don't need a new design -- they just need standard templates and a standard treatment applied. In those cases, we don't do very much design at all. We call these the "fast track" or "turn key" projects:
Here's how a "turn key" project works: We capture the initial requirements in an intake form (not shown here, but use your imagination of something that hovers just above the ideas phase). Then, if the project is non-trivial we ask the person requesting it to create a short strategic brief (a topic I have blogged about previously). Once we have these initiation steps complete, we can size up the project pretty quickly and understand whether it is something very standard ("turn key," as shown above) or requires new design work. The example shown above shows an informational page that we determined would simply need a standard template. So, in that case the team creating the page(s) would simply figure out their content and calls to action" (what they want the site visitor to do), and the right components. They'd then request some artwork from our central process for banners and graphics, put the page together (or have one of our publishing experts do so), and they'd be done. This process can take as little as a day or two if all of the pieces are in place, but of course usually it takes a while for the sponsor to figure out all of their content and objectives, and sometimes content and objectives change in the middle of the project (which eats up time and money).
But then there are the non turn key projects: In some cases, when we look at the strategic brief, it's clear that we need a brand new design. This can range from something simple -- like a new or extended template type -- to something complex like an overhaul of the search system or a rollout of a new commerce subsystem. That's when we bring in our full process:
In this full design process, we pull out all (or many of) the tricks: We review or gather customer research; analyze best practies from other sites; study site metrics if they apply; create simple scenarios, user stories and business use cases to model the experience; storyboard and walk through ideas; and then develop schematic wireframes, test, iterate, and create the final designs. This blog you're reading has been focused on this very design process (for instance, see Opteron Pages as a Web Design Case History), and I know my team at Sun
will keep posting about these best practies even after I have moved to Cisco.com, now this this is a group blog!
The full Design Process slide set explains a lot about our design process and the tools we use. Ask your friendly local web design team at your company to explain the nuances -- they'll be glad to!
Technorati Tags: Design Web-Design CustomerExperience
Tunes: 94: Lefty Perz: Solseros Unidos
Here's how a "turn key" project works: We capture the initial requirements in an intake form (not shown here, but use your imagination of something that hovers just above the ideas phase). Then, if the project is non-trivial we ask the person requesting it to create a short strategic brief (a topic I have blogged about previously). Once we have these initiation steps complete, we can size up the project pretty quickly and understand whether it is something very standard ("turn key," as shown above) or requires new design work. The example shown above shows an informational page that we determined would simply need a standard template. So, in that case the team creating the page(s) would simply figure out their content and calls to action" (what they want the site visitor to do), and the right components. They'd then request some artwork from our central process for banners and graphics, put the page together (or have one of our publishing experts do so), and they'd be done. This process can take as little as a day or two if all of the pieces are in place, but of course usually it takes a while for the sponsor to figure out all of their content and objectives, and sometimes content and objectives change in the middle of the project (which eats up time and money).
But then there are the non turn key projects: In some cases, when we look at the strategic brief, it's clear that we need a brand new design. This can range from something simple -- like a new or extended template type -- to something complex like an overhaul of the search system or a rollout of a new commerce subsystem. That's when we bring in our full process:
In this full design process, we pull out all (or many of) the tricks: We review or gather customer research; analyze best practies from other sites; study site metrics if they apply; create simple scenarios, user stories and business use cases to model the experience; storyboard and walk through ideas; and then develop schematic wireframes, test, iterate, and create the final designs. This blog you're reading has been focused on this very design process (for instance, see Opteron Pages as a Web Design Case History), and I know my team at Sun
will keep posting about these best practies even after I have moved to Cisco.com, now this this is a group blog!
The full Design Process slide set explains a lot about our design process and the tools we use. Ask your friendly local web design team at your company to explain the nuances -- they'll be glad to!
Technorati Tags: Design Web-Design CustomerExperience
Tunes: 94: Lefty Perz: Solseros Unidos
Posted by Kevin on May 26, 2007 at 11:24 AM PDT #
Posted by john on May 26, 2007 at 06:25 PM PDT #
Posted by Martin Hardee on May 28, 2007 at 10:48 PM PDT #