When you are working for an agency as a web designer, there are some goals and a tough deadline to meet. You have to work under the constant pressure of getting things done professionally in a given time frame. When things go awry, it results in missing the deadline. This is why you need to be prepared for the worst and manage your work and time efficiently. This is where you need to organize yourself and your way of work so you can get things done as planned within the given time frame without compromising the quality. This is where a workflow comes in.
Workflow is the process and tools involved in a process of a work. In the case of web designing, workflow includes the process of designing a website, from ideation to production and the tools that are used in the process. A properly defined workflow will help you organize and manage your tasks and time efficiently. Here is a workflow that is followed by web designers usually.
Requirements
The process of web designing doesn’t start unless you have the requirements. What is your client expecting? Who is the target audience? What are the industry standards? Unless you know the answer to these questions, starting the process is like shooting in the dark.
Inspiration
Once you have the requirements, it’s to time to look for some inspiration. However, inspiration doesn’t mean looking at other designers’ work or your competitors’ work. It means trying to find out what users really want. This could be done by conducting surveys or interviews with the customers or prospects.
Collaboration Platform
No workflow is complete without a proper platform where you can collaborate with different members of your team and the client. To conduct surveys and interviews, you will have to collaborate with the marketing or sales team. For this, there are tools, like Assembla, Asana, and Trello.
Ideation
This is the part where real design work starts, but it doesn’t include using any flashy tool yet. The only thing you need is paper and a pencil. Start sketching rough ideas and then create a wireframe out of them. You can use tools like Balsamiq or Sketch or any similar tool for that.
Production
Once your wireframe is approved, start designing it using your preferred tool. Try out different color palette, typography, and images. See what kind of combination fits according to your target audience’s behavior. Often designers have to create a couple of versions of their designs. If you are not sure which tool to use, you can use Adobe Illustrator or Sketch for creating custom illustrations and Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or Sketch for designing the UI of your site according to the wireframe.
Rinse and Repeat
Since web designing is an iterative process of getting the feedback and then making the changes, it is important to get feedback from your client or important stakeholders. Make changes according to the feedback you have received, even if you are required to do some major changes.