A new design brief lands on your desk. The
attributes are the same for most design briefs. The common factor
with any design brief is the requirement to be creative.
This creative element is the differentiator of
success and failure, the ability to break from the norm, from a
designer’s point of view, the ability to meet all client
requirements and still deliver an innovative and engaging
design.
During the design process, there is a sliding
scale, with structured and practical at one end, flexible, and
aesthetic on the other. The first step for a designer is to gauge
where your client wishes to be on this scale. This is identified by
the various elements you can gather from the client’s design brief
or in a discovery discussion with your client.
Each time you establish your client’s
direction on elements such as target audience, industry sector,
stakeholders and scope, the opportunity for creativity moves back
and forth along the scale. For instance, public sector clients
adhering to e-government guidelines and/or Accessibility Level AAA
guidelines will require a design scope within which practicality
and usability will be key requirements.
Once you understand where along the scale your
client sits, you can then start to become creative. The real skill
at this point of the creative process is working in and around the
boundaries of the structured and the practical; taking what
designers often see as restrictions, and being imaginative, in
spite of the challenges set by the design brief.
Each client will have a set of objectives, the
project mandate as you were, and the reason for the job in the
first place. These objectives often translate into website
features, processes a user must go through to reach a client’s
goal. These ideas should be driven by function, delivering the
technical features required to meet the client’s objectives and
that will be suitable for the target audience.
Yet, this functionality still benefits from
creativity, to deliver these functions in an interactive, exciting
and engaging manner, which reflects innovation and originality,
while considering the client’s sector, stakeholders and adherence
to guidelines and good practice. A designer’s ability to brainstorm
new creative ideas to deliver functionality that you see on
websites everyday, can set apart your design from the rest or in a
client perspective, its competitors.
A successful website is the result of this
measured blend of the creative and the technical, the aesthetic and
the practical. Only the correct balance will produce a successful
project with the client’s objectives and brief answered and fully
considered, harmonised with the originality that differentiates a
website from its competition.