Mastering Design Estimation
How can we streamline design processes to ensure timely delivery and foster stronger client relationships?
When starting in design, I often needed help to effectively evaluate my work to meet deadlines and refrain from working late into the night. This remains a daunting task for many designers, even experienced ones.
Design estimation is a challenging process, influenced by various factors that can impact timelines and outcomes.
Difficulties
Design is time-consuming
The design inherently demands substantial time investment due to its iterative nature, encompassing ideation, technical problem-solving, collaborative decision-making, and continuous refinement.
Impact: Accurately predicting the time required for each design phase can take time and effort, leading to potential delays.
Design estimation evaluates design phases
Estimating time for different design phases requires a deep understanding of the complexity and requirements of each stage.
Impact: Mistakes in predicting each step’s time can make the project take longer and misuse resources.
Missing information from the client side
The lack of comprehensive or definite client specifications introduces uncertainty in the design process.
Impact: Designers may encounter challenges, requiring unforeseen revisions and adjustments not initially factored into the estimation.
Changing client plans
Clients may alter their plans, objectives, or priorities during design.
Impact: Design estimations may need to be updated, and adjustments may be required, affecting timelines and resource allocation.
Design estimation made by someone else
Estimations made by individuals not directly involved in the design process may need a more nuanced understanding of the project.
Impact: Unrealistic estimates may result in insufficient resource planning, elevating the risk of exceeding the project timeline or budget.
Creativity can affect timelines
Designers’ creative input has the potential to influence project timelines.
Impact: Project timelines may face possible delays due to the dynamic nature of designers’ creativity, introducing novel solutions or necessitating additional refinement.
Why design estimation matters
Managing expectations
Proper design estimation is essential as it helps set realistic expectations regarding project timelines and deliverables. By providing clients with accurate estimates, designers foster transparency and trust in their relationship with clients, ensuring smoother collaboration throughout the project.
Process visibility for the client
Accurate design estimation offers clients clear visibility into the project’s progress, stages, and expected milestones. This transparency enhances communication and ensures that clients understand the project’s trajectory comprehensively, thereby promoting alignment of expectations and minimizing misunderstandings.
Establishing a scheduled baseline
Design estimation establishes a scheduled baseline against which both the design team and clients can track progress. By having predefined timelines and milestones, project management becomes more efficient, and accountability is enhanced, leading to smoother project execution and delivery.
Strengthening client relationship
Reliable design estimation is instrumental in building strong client relationships. By instilling confidence in the project’s planning and execution, designers reduce the likelihood of surprises or unexpected delays. Clients feel assured when they can rely on accurate estimations, thus fostering long-term trust and collaboration between designers and clients.
Estimation process
1. Understand project requirements
Grasp the project requirements by delving deeply into them. Interact with clients or stakeholders to collect comprehensive details regarding their expectations, objectives, and specific design criteria.
2. Select tools for estimation
The most common tool is Microsoft Excel. It is widely used for creating custom estimation templates and performing calculations. Excel is versatile and can be adapted to various estimation needs.
Also, you can use:
- Project management software: Microsoft Project, Jira, or Asana; these tools often include built-in features for project estimation, scheduling, and tracking progress.
- Cloud-based collaboration tools: Platforms like Google Sheets, Microsoft Teams, or Slack can facilitate collaborative estimation efforts, enabling real-time communication and document sharing.
- Collaboration platforms: Confluence or SharePoint can support collaborative estimation efforts, allowing team members to contribute their insights and expertise.
3. Start with decomposition or break down the project itself
When confronted with a vast project and uncertain where to begin, always remember: Start by breaking the project into parts. Dive deep into each segment and identify and evaluate all requirements thoroughly.
This initial decomposition step is crucial for gaining clarity and understanding of the project’s scope and intricacies. By breaking the project into manageable components, you pave the way for a structured approach to project execution, ensuring nothing essential is overlooked and laying a solid foundation for successful completion.
How do you break down the project?
3.1 Break down the project into main phases
- Discovery/research and planning. During this phase, the project defines goals, identifies the target audience, and outlines the project scope.
Key activities: stakeholder meetings, market research, development of project plan, and timeline
- Design phase. In this phase, the primary objectives revolve around crafting a user-centric experience. It entails the creation of wireframes and prototypes to visualize the website’s structure and functionality.
Key activities: creation of wireframes and prototypes, graphic design and user interface (UI), usability testing, and refinement based on feedback
- Development phase. The primary focus is on translating the design concepts into a functional website. It involves coding and programming to implement the features and functionalities outlined in the earlier design phase.
Key activities: front-end and back-end development, integration of databases and APIs, and continuous testing and debugging
- Testing Phase. The central goal is to assess the website’s functionality and performance rigorously. This phase involves systematic testing and quality assurance to identify and rectify any issues or bugs.
Key activities: system testing and user acceptance testing, performance and security testing, and iterative refinement based on testing results
- Deployment phase. The primary objective is to launch the website to the public, marking the transition from development to live operation.
Key activities: deploy the website to hosting servers, implement monitoring tools, and address and resolve immediate concerns
- Maintenance and support phase. The primary focus is sustaining the website’s ongoing functionality, ensuring its continued post-deployment success.
Key activities: regular monitoring and maintenance, addressing user feedback and concerns, planning and implementing updates or enhancements.
The first two phases (Discovery/Research and Design) are part of the designer’s repertoire, and designers must evaluate these phases themselves. And I should note that the first research and discovery phase dramatically influences the design phase. Therefore, estimates can be made superficially at first, but after the first phase, it will be necessary to review and re-evaluate. During the research/discovery phase, you can investigate whether more functionality or new features are needed.
3.2 Formulate a process for practicing design
Develop a systematic and organized approach to guide the design practice, outlining key steps, methodologies, and best practices for effective design implementation.
3.3 Sub-project group requirements
Identify and define specific requirements tailored to sub-project groups, ensuring a clear understanding of unique needs and objectives within the broader project framework.
3.4 Decompose requirements into activities & features
Break down overarching project requirements into granular components, distinguishing individual activities and features to provide a detailed roadmap for the design process.
3.5 Decompose features into workflows & tasks
Further refine features by decomposing them into specific workflows and tasks, creating a hierarchical structure that facilitates efficient implementation and management of design activities.
3.6 Build the new design iteratively & incrementally
An example of design research decomposition
- List out all of your methodologies
2. Break down the stages of research
3. Estimate time for each stage
4. Use estimation techniques
Employ estimation techniques to assess and quantify the time and resources required systematically. A few popular techniques follow:
Expert judgement
⭐ Expert judgment is an estimation technique that involves seeking opinions and insights from individuals with relevant expertise to enhance the accuracy of project estimates. It is flexible, adaptable, and applicable across various project management areas, relying on the experience and judgment of experts.
Pros:
- Easy to organize and make
- Might be very accurate
Cons:
- Quality of estimation depends on expert experience
- It is hard to reproduce; two experts will have different estimations
Analogous estimation
⭐ Analogous estimation is a technique where the current project’s estimate is derived by comparing it to similar past projects. This method relies on historical data and is particularly useful when detailed project information is limited. Analogous estimation provides a quick and approximate assessment of time, cost, or other resources based on the similarities between the current and past projects.
Pros:
- Easy to collect data for evaluation
- Accurate estimation, accuracy within 50%
- It can be used in the early stages of development
- No need to have business area knowledge
Cons:
- We need to have an estimated project base
- The quality of estimation depends on the quality of the base
- Inaccurate estimates of previous projects would affect the current estimation
Three-point estimate
⭐ Three-point estimate is a project management technique that involves estimating a task or project by considering three different scenarios:
- Optimistic (O) — all favorable things will happen (best case)
- Most likely (M) — both good and unfavorable conditions will happen
- Pessimistic (P) — all adverse conditions occur (worst case)
These three estimates are used for a weighted average or a more sophisticated statistical approach (like the program evaluation and review technique method, or PERT) to calculate a more accurate and risk-adjusted estimate. This technique helps account for uncertainties and provides a more nuanced and probabilistic view of the project’s timeline or cost.
Pros:
- It is considered to be one of the most accurate estimation techniques in project management
- It reduces the scenario with too-optimistic and too-pessimistic estimates
Cons:
- It requires more time to provide three estimates for each task
Choosing the favorite technique depends on the project’s nature, available data, and the desired level of accuracy. Project managers often combine these techniques to create a comprehensive and reliable estimate. There are also a bunch of techniques; you can choose your favorite. Just try!
5. Account for unforeseen issues
Recognize that unexpected challenges may arise during the design process. Allocate a contingency buffer in your estimate to accommodate unforeseen issues.
6. Involve design team members directly
Consult with designers or team members directly involved in the project. Their insights can provide a more accurate understanding of the work and potential challenges.
7. Consider external dependencies
Identify any external factors or dependencies impacting the design process, such as waiting for client feedback or integrating with other ongoing projects.
8. Review and validate
Review your design estimate with critical stakeholders or team members to validate assumptions and ensure all relevant factors are considered. Communicate clearly the estimated timelines and potential uncertainties to clients or stakeholders, managing expectations and fostering transparency.
9. Iterate and learn
After the project is complete, review the actual time and resources expended compared to the initial estimate. Use this information to refine and improve future estimation processes.
Conclusion
Designers play a crucial role in the estimation process, assuming responsibility for project outcomes and maintaining workflow efficiency. Active involvement of design team members fosters comprehensive project planning, enhances collaboration, and improves visibility within the team.
By mastering design estimation, designers can navigate challenges effectively, deliver projects timely, and forge enduring client relationships grounded in transparency and trust.
Thank you for reading, and wishing you all the best in mastering design estimation!
