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New Processes (Phase-0Setting up GoalsFree Consultation (2meetings)…
New Processes
Phase-0
Setting up Goals
Free Consultation (2meetings)
Motivation for this phase
(Reference)
Great design is actually about creating a website that aligns with an
overarching strategy
.
Well-designed websites offer much more than just aesthetics.
They attract visitors and help people understand the product, company, and branding through a variety of indicators, encompassing visuals, text, and interactions
. That means every element of your site needs to work towards a
defined goal
.
In this initial stage, the designer/marketing specialist needs to identify the website’s end goal, usually in close collaboration with the client or other stakeholders. This is the most
important part
of any web design process. If these questions aren’t all clearly answered in the brief, the whole project can set off in the
wrong direction
.
Whether you’re starting from scratch, or you’re doing a complete redesign,
you need to know what you want a user to take away from your new site
. What do you want to communicate with the content? What calls to action need to be woven in? Understand what these focal points are so that you create a design that magnifies them.
Ultimately, their website should
help fill the gap between what customers know, and what your client wishes their customers knew
.
Often a client will think that they fully understand the problem and have a sure-fire solution. Sometimes, they will have no direction, but just a gut feeling that what they have needs to be improved. As the design experts,
it’s our job to explore the options and recommend an optimal solution
(and failing that, a decent solution).
If there’s one goal all websites share, it’s to connect with its audience.
By knowing more about who you’re speaking to, you’ll be better able to effectively reach them
.
A creative brief
needs to define the who, what, and where of the project
, laying out the scope and what needs to be done to accomplish each goal.
You can define any project in terms of deliverables and the people tasked to create them.
But without well-defined goals informed by the target audience, no one will know why they’re building these deliverables
.
When people understand the why, they also better understand how to achieve their goals.
Find these goals at the beginning of a project so that you can find success at the end
.
Creative Brief
(Template)
Describe your company
Summarize the project
Key Challenge/Core Objectives
Who is your competition
Target Audience
Tone and Brand Voice, Style
Brand Keywords/Identity
Media Strategy(Digital Marketing)
Parameters | Timeline
Specify Your Budget
What will tell us that we’ve solved your problem?
List of Key Stakeholders
What’s non-negotiable?
What is Think Tanker’s point of view?
Reference Documents
10 Key Elements of a Successful Creative Brief
13 Questions to Help You Write a Compelling Creative Brief in 2018
How to Write the Most Compelling Creative Brief (with Examples)
Creative Brief Template
Expected Timeline?
4d | 2-3w | 2-4m
Budget Available?
Project Estimate Range: 50k-80K
Note: Will vary drastically by the addition/change of new or unknown requirements.
List of things to be communicated to the Client:
Scope Creep/ Broader Vision and Perspective
Transparency, Client Involvement & Feedback
Status updates for every stage
Nominal charge for Requirement gathering and Scope of work document(only if the clients back off after that process)
Or else the Requirement gathering and Scope of work will be included in the final quote.
Why do we do this?
YES or NO? Sign on Creative Brief
Example product: same functionality - good UI/UX & bad UI/UX
Technical Head POC
(Design + Dev)
(Responsibilities)
Should have a complete overview of the application development lifecycle
(from Design and Development to Deployment)
.
Should understand the team and their abilities, as well as understand the current state of projects which are in active development to come up with reasonable development timelines for the respective project.
Should be able to display a level of professional attitude and should obviously seem very technical to the client.
Should deliver a sense of trust and confidence that the application can be handled by us from end-to-end.
Current Issues with existing workflow
Lenience From Management
: No fear from the employees that the management will take action or they will be removed them from the job if they don't perform well.
Motivation/Survival
90% of motivation is not there because salaries are not given on time or being held since January. For some team members meeting their basic necessities are a problem where they are borrowing money from their friends.
There have been several attempts to acknowledge the problems, but every time there was just discussions on how to improve them but no action taken.
Team has lost interest to suggest anything new or telling about the concerns because they believe that they will be no action taken against it.
This is one of the main reasons for not showing interest in the workshops.
Tech Team Concerns
Scope of Work:
No fixed concrete requirements once a project is started, small iterations in a project is fine, but coming up with new requirements and new modules even once the project is almost complete is absurd.
No understanding of the project the team is working on, missing assets and content. Which will result in poor execution and no creativity or passion in the projects built.
The team wants something creative and new, their intention is not to copy a whole design end-to-end, they want to be inspired by a design but not copy it.
No browser testing/functional testing being done for any projects. It will effect us in the long-term.
Always there is a list of projects that are brought into the picture and need to prepare for development, but the actual projects which are signed are few. The motivation to do something will go down.
There should be a in detail knowledge that should be shared about the requirements as well as the functionality of the application.
Delay in getting resources from the design/digital team
Clarity on who is the point of contact for every aspect of each project.
When developing landing pages, there can be a lot of time that is taken for getting the images/resized and content, but the landing page is expected to be delivered in 1 - 2hours
At the end of a project delivering the application is generating a lot of pressure on the tech team as there are lot of things which are added into the development cycle. And there could be a lot of delays that happen because of the resources that they need to get.
When there is no contact with the client from a technical perspective in the requirements phase, there will be a loss of knowledge when its transferred over to the tech team.
No Fixed Deadlines:
Deadlines here are just to tell the client initially we will do something by the given deadline. It can be called as a iteration since all of the clients require more features/add requirements.
Phase-1
Requirements Gathering
POC's
Marketing Specialist
(Responsibilities)
Technical Head
(Design + Dev)
(Responsibilities)
Should be able to display a level of professional attitude and should obviously seem very technical to the client.
Should deliver a sense of trust and confidence that the application can be handled by us from end-to-end.
Knowledge transfer to the Client
(Educating the Client)
When the Client gives us basic functionality
Depending on the category of the product what the client needs, give them extensive insights into core functionalities of similar applications.
Whatever functionality is given, there should be a basic set of standards for any application. Make sure you make them understand about all these things as well.
When the Client doesn't know what he wants
Do your part of the research to find what would benefit the target audience the most.
Give them a vision of what their intended product would look like.
Give them references and a lot of examples on what should be the included functionalities of the application and etc.
When the Client is adamant on design
The Client is not the best person to design an application, that's the reason he is hiring us.
Make him understand that there are a lot of things we take into consideration in a design perspective.
If they are inclined towards a particular design, give them several other options before they lock on something.
If they are picking some crappy design, educate them that you are the design experts on this and give them little insight on what are your views of that crappy design and why they should not go that route.
Make it very clear to them that the design should not be in terms of their own personal preference, but rather how we can provide their target customer with the best design and User Expirience.
When the Client gives References
Make them understand exactly how much time and resources would have went into a project like that. And estimate those numbers so that he can have a overview of how much time and work it would take to build something similar.
Do your research and give them extra references so that they have more options to look at and get something in their specified budget.
Should have a complete overview of the application development lifecycle
(from Design and Development to Deployment)
.
Should understand the team and their abilities, as well as understand the current state of projects which are in active development to come up with reasonable development timelines for the respective project.
Intent/Attitude to work for the client
We don't need to treat client as a God and just nod our head for everything he says, but we definitely need to make sure that he is being delivered a quality product within the given timeline with a sense of passion for the product.
We should not just make sure the Client gets what he wants, we should even make sure that we develop a product which could be helpful and useful for his end-customers. Then only his business will develop and he stays with us for the future as well.
No matter how arrogant the client can be, a sense of loyalty and respected should be integrated into our core fundamentals of how we work as a company.
Action Items
(Things to get done before moving to the next phase)
Individuality of this phase
This phase is intended as a starting point for any application. The main intent by the completion of this phase is to give the client a broader vision and perspective than what he have initially had.
This is the phase where we understand/analyze and research on different aspects of the application which the client will need.
We need to get a complete detailed overview of the system before we even touch the design phase.
This phase is designed to be individual for client's understanding of what he is getting into, and if it is required for him at this point or not.
Policies
We take a period of 1-3weeks(depending on the complexity of the application) for analyzing, researching, suggesting and to come up with a concrete set of requirements and functionalities for the application. This phase would be consisting of a lot of interaction with the client, so this phase has a dependency on the Client to be finished, any delay in that would result in a delay of completion of this phase.
These 1-3week process is independent of all the other phases of the application, hence it would be billed separately. We consider this as a individual service. Once the money is payed for this phase, we would move on to the next phases.
It is done this way so that, once this phase is completed if the client has issues as listed below, we can make sure that we get paid for the amount of work done, because now they can go to any other company and they would have a concrete starting point:
Client thinks that the quote is too much for him to pay.
Client didn't think about the application this extensively and now he feels that its probably a not the right time to purse this route.
There is a timeline clash between, by when the client needs the application and by when we can deliver it, keeping in mind about the actively developed and existing projects in the pipeline.
Client doesn't trust in our capabilities to finish this work.
Once the actual design/development is started, the Client needs to pay 50% of the total quoted price up-front, 25% before deploying to their server and the rest of 25% after successful deployment and bug fixes.
Once we have the concrete list of requirements/functionalities, at the end of this 1-3week period, after getting your confirmation we will freeze them.
If there are any major functionality and requirements that are going to change it must be done before freezing this phase
.
But we do understand that application development is an iterative process and are willing to make reasonable changes on the fly. This is to ensure faster development of the application and to complete the project within the expected deadlines.
The Client will be billed individually for all the below modules:
Concrete set of requirements, functionality and documentation.
Design, Development, Integrations, Testing, Deployment.
New functionality and modules(which come after freezing of functional requirements).
Training.
Maintenance.
What is to be done in this span of 1-2weeks
Gathering Requirements
Adding/dropping requirements
Understanding the product in depth from a client's perspective.
Researching what the target audience would expect and need from the application.
Analyzing different aspects of the application from what we have gathered so far and improvements or additions to the given set of functionalities.
Freezing of the requirements and core functionalities of the application.
Write an in-depth document of all the Core Objectives, Concrete Scope of Work, Design Processes, Functional requirements, Testing.
By the end of this phase, with all of the concrete details we have, we should be able to estimate the approximate timeline for the completion of the project.
Phase-1
Defining Scope
Billed Individually/cumulatively (1-3weeks)
*Gather Requirements
Scope Of Work
Template
Introduction, Summary, Portfolio
Suggested Solution
Site Structure
Additional Features, Design, Testing...
Execution Timeline
Project Costs
Ongoing Fee's
Custom CMS, security, role based access?
CMS modules?
Reference Documents
Building a Scope of Work (SOW) document for a website project
Website Development Proposal
Website Design Proposal Template
WordPress Development Proposal
Contract
Template
Compensation
Late payment penalties
Unforeseen circumstances
Maintenance/Training
Business Hours
Downpayment/Kill fee
Content/Assest provision
Portfolio Acceptance
No.of design/content reviews
Reference Documents
Sign Off
YES
Welcome Package:
Customized Cover Letter
Processes Document
Home Work list
FAQs
Creative Brief
Scope of Work/Contract
NO
Charge nominal fee for the work that's done on
gathering the Requirements
and
creating a Scope of Work document
.
Motivation for this phase
Scope of Work
(Reference)
What is scope creep, how to keep your projects on target, and
how to only do the work you’re getting paid for
?
Suddenly, the client has a better idea of what you can do to make the project a success, which, yes, will involve some additional work you didn’t talk about earlier. You've worked hard, but the client now wants to change direction, making everything you’ve done a waste. What you thought was a straight shot to launch has turned into a meandering journey through the backroads of indecision. Welcome to the wonderful world of scope creep.
When a project grows beyond what was agreed upon in the beginning, you've got scope creep on your hands
. It’s okay for a project to evolve, but if it puts you in the position
where you’re doing more work for the same money, then it’s a problem
.
Unfortunately,
being too informal can mean setting yourself up for disappointed, frustrated clients
. Which is so very unchill.
Define what services you’ll be providing.
Be direct and detailed in your language
and make it clear how you’ll bill your client
We all want to be accommodating and keep our clients happy.
But when we start agreeing to do things that aren’t covered in the contract, we’re just encouraging bad habits
— like the client thinking that extra tasks are just par for the course. Part of our job as developers is ensuring they don’t think that.
A contract saves you from doing additional work without getting additional pay. If a client needs something more, like an email campaign or a revamp of their social media content, you can add a change request clause to your contract.
For anything that falls outside of the contract, such a clause can ensure you’re paid for your hard work
.
Identifying a single person who will communicate edits to you will streamline the process, and force stakeholders to get on the same page
. Having multiple people giving you feedback can result in conflicting ideas and muddy the project’s objectives.
It's easy for a project to grow beyond what you've planned and take on a life of its own, like a monster breaking free from a mad scientist's lab. To avoid having to curse the creation you've unwittingly created,
you need to set boundaries with your client
. Communication is the key to avoiding scope creep.
When both you and your client have a mutual understanding of the work involved, the process will be easier
.
Contract/Policies
(Reference)
Good client relationships brim with lively banter, crazy stories, and friendship. Bad ones bring headaches and stress
. You know the kind. Clients who take ages to pay (or never do), make unreasonable demands, expect endless rounds of revisions, or keep trying to expand the scope of the project.
Thankfully, a good contract can make even the most difficult client much easier to deal with.
For the most part, it’s all about setting the right expectations, and sticking to them.
Detail how long you expect the project to take, and define milestones along the way
. This adds transparency, gives the client something to look forward to, and helps keep you organized and motivated.
Be honest with yourself when setting a deadline.
It’s all too easy to let your desire to please your client override all other concerns and deadlines.
It’s worth remembering that you’re the expert here
. You know how long it takes to build an entire website—your client probably doesn’t.
So add some buffer time to your estimates
. It could save you some embarrassment, and it will definitely help your client set realistic expectations.
Note:
This isn’t an opportunity to quote low and promise high to try to outbid other designers. Dishonesty will only lead to arguments and animosity later on.
Before I wised up (a little), and started using contracts and implementing late fees,
my clients often took months to pay
—despite me sending over a new invoice every two weeks. To prevent this, always detail your payment terms: how much, when it’s due, and how to pay you.
A retainer is just a non-refundable down payment
. It reserves your time, and helps you cover any non-refundable expenses that might crop up, such as design assets.
It also covers you in case your client changes their mind, vanishes, or refuses to pay you
. They’re most common for flat-rate projects.
Payment is due within 14 days from the billing date.
For every week past the due date, there will be a late-payment fee of 10%
(or more, though 50% is the usual maximum)
Note:
Just because someone is slow to pay you doesn’t mean they’re vindictive. They might just be forgetful, or under financial pressure. Try polite and respectful reminders first, and only pull out the big guns if you really need to.
All of this advice goes both ways—you need to treat your clients very respectfully as well.
A happy client will be more cooperative, forgiving, and understanding, and will keep coming back. They’ll also spread the word to their friends.
Find the clients who make you smile.
Remember that you choose your clients. Instead of battling with a client who stresses you out, spend your time and effort on the clients who put a smile on your face. A great client can be a friend—and a source of work for years to come.
Even if they pay a bit less than the next person, it’s worth it for your peace of mind.
Project Manager POC
(Dev)
(Responsibilities)
Phase-2
Design + Content
Phase-3
Development + Integrations + Testing + Deployment
Phase-4
Maintenance/Training