Process Overview
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read
Steps in a typical design project
- Understand the company, the brand and the audience (Design Lead+PM)
This involves a conversation with the client and asking questions like the kind in this doc or in this discovery doc or this one. - Understand the scope of the project. (Design Lead+PM)
Are we just improving the UX with existing style guide (like Rothy’s)? Or are we completely redefining the style guide and visual design (like Ron Robinson)? - Define priority of design tasks. (Design Lead+PM)
How can we break up the entire scope into smaller phases and what are the low hanging fruit that can be tackled first? - Define a sitemap/an overview of the experience being worked on (Design Lead+Designer)
- Design wireframes — desktop and mobile (Design Lead+Designer)
- Discuss wireframes with frontend and backend team (Design Lead+Designer)
- Present the wireframes to the client and finalise based on feedback (Design Lead)
- Create explorations of the visual design and get approval on one direction. (Design Lead+Designer)
- Create a v.1 of the style guide and flesh out the design of all remaining pages using v1 (Designer)
- Get approval page-wise from client — desktop and mobile (Design Lead)
- Clean up design files and hand them over page-wise to front-end team — desktop and mobile (Designer)
- Update with a v.2 of the style guide and add finishing touches (Designer+Frontend developer)
- QA staging site for consistency of design (Designer+Frontend developer)
- Final QA before launch (Design Lead)

Daily stuff
- Review Basecamp messages/to-dos and email for new tasks from clients/project management. Create to-dos for design team member with all necessary links. For eg. if Geada posts a design task in Basecamp ‘Messages’, understand it and create a [Design] to-do with the complete design brief with notes for the designer.
- Review all the to-dos tagged with [Design] that are under the to-do list titled ‘Done’. They can be dragged to ‘Deliver’ if they are ready for client review. If not, add your feedback as a comment and drag the to-do back to the ‘Do’ list for the designer to work on again.
- Define priority of tasks for each member on the design team by listing the ‘Do’ items in the desired order of execution
- Review each designers morning check-in and make sure it’s correct
- Schedule a check-in with each designer to discuss their tasks
- Remove blockers on behalf of your designers. For eg. if Chetan has been waiting on something from a developer/client/PM, then intervene.
- Consult with development team to make sure design handovers are up to mark and understood
- Review each designers evening check-in and make sure it’s correct
- Deliver completed design tasks to client
Weekly stuff
- Review work done by each team member in the past week and identify what’s getting ‘stale’
- Create a list of projected weekly goals for each project in the form of a ‘Message’ on Basecamp. Make sure there’s sufficient stuff in the pipeline.
- Review the schedule doc that Nirav sends. It mentions how much time each designer needs to spend that week and on what project. If there is any change you’d like to suggest to the schedule, inform Nirav so it can be altered.
- Check Google Calendar for what client calls are scheduled that week and prepare for them in advance.
- Present design work to clients on the weekly call
- Do a check-in call with Nirav to update him on progress and clarify things
Other stuff
- Identify design process improvements and tools
- Work on internal tasks related to website, proposals and documentation
- Link to useful articles on Slack
- Facilitate design team discussions

