Many designers believe the only way to reach your goals is to work harder and longer on a given project. This, to many, is paramount although to others simply working “smarter” usually has a more satisfying result in the long run, whether this is simply choosing the right tools or the best plan of attack when looking at a new project. Many designers get clouded by the curse of diving straight into a project, especially if the brief in hand is ideal to your set skills. This blog will hopefully enlighten you to the proper and decent forms of planning a successful, fast and at times enjoyable project.
It is not that we do not want to be more efficient towards work, it is simply the problem of finding time to do so. Although working smarter is probably the best form of action, it does not mean taking time off to create a new system that will help you become quicker but usually the simple tactics can help the most. From the early stages of initial concepts through to developing more efficient code, there are a million and one ways to achieve a less stressful project.
Basic approaches
Before we can even start to think about designing an initial concept it is usually important to respect the thought process that lead up to any development. For example many designers will jump straight into Photoshop or Dreamweaver partly through excitement of a new project. In many cases this is jumping the gun trying to achieve something far too quick and this is usually where a designer can fail. Although technical know-how is beneficial in this industry there is always something more important – and this is simply having a good idea. Software can aid us, but no amount of programs or knowledge can salvage a bad idea. Before planning the development stages of a project you must decide whether or not the brief is worth your creative flair.
In many cases the best way to test your idea is to explain it to a non designer, someone who will not initially find flaws in the technical side but simply evaluate its “need” in society. In many cases and this is fairly apparent to any designer is using the “old pencil”. A great way of getting your mind around a design or idea is to write it down on anything that is handy. This form of brainstorming can save you a lot more time in the long run if the idea does turn out to be “dead in the water”. Many designers will argue that the need for labs or fancy software is something of a new idea, pen and paper is the best way to understand your own idea, in many aspects to design smarter for the web we must go back to basics.
A lighter toolbox and a neater work area
This post would not appear apparent in its topic without addressing how we can become more efficient without touching on the topic of the tools and practise we use. When we leave the bare basics we touched on earlier and jump into the technical aspects of a project a few things are important. Using tools to plan your project is paramount, tools such as Basecamp by 37 signals is a great place to start. Not only can you manage any given project, but it provides a handy audit if you need to check over discussions made about the project. This can be much better than checking over incomplete multi-threaded emails. Again, looking back at the whole time saving aspect of becoming a better designer, we can already see how we can start to cut corners in a good way.
The most effective tools are often the simplest ones. It is important that our tools aid us rather than give us the impression that we are getting a lot more done than we actually are. Often the best policy is putting stricter rules on the tools we use the most a zero-inbox rule. According to designers such as Andy Budd a keen advocator of this “I answer the emails that take under five minutes, and file the others into folders such as ‘action’ , ‘waiting’, and ‘hold’, only when I have a clear 30 minutes to myself will I go through them” This is another great way of getting things done rather than heaping copious amounts of pressure on yourself.
Are you going fast enough?
Once we have looked at our idea and the planning stages we can start thinking of the development stages. A great way of simplifying the design process is distributing the basic visual attributes of a design to a number of team members, in this way a designer can spend time defining typographic rules and general structures of the design such as colour palettes instead of making them up as you go along.
Think smaller and do not over spend time on projects wondering whether “that font looks right in this light” This kind of design curse can lead to hours lost on the next project. Thinking ahead is an important philosophy to a designer, for example designing in Photoshop can be helped further by naming layers and understanding how to use the tool to its full potential, this basic understanding can help far more when your asked to re-visit that design. A website can looked beautiful on the outside but sometimes to save your own time in the future understand what lies beneath is more important. Getting a site out there is not always the best practice, you may have it done but only to the standards you may understand at that exact time not something you may understand a year down the line.
Control
Organisation should not get in the way of planning and creation, for smarter working however it must also extend to source control. With many designers usually working on multiple websites it does pay not to sit with one set of files and continue to overwrite them, there is only so much that the “re-do” button can do and trust me you will need to go back to a previous version. The smartest and most common way of doing this is to use some form of version control. Many designers use this as a way of covering their back or returning to a design if only to take something from it and implement it to a newer one. For example having “mydesign.psd” and as you feel the design forever changing create another “mydesign2.psd”. Although this is the bare basics of designing rules other tools such as subversion are out there to use, this allows version tracking and comparing the difference of documents.
Know when to fold
The final tip for a smarter approach to design is knowing when to move on. For example, a designer can be working on more than four projects at once, ranging from coding to design. If you encounter a problem that requires you to bang your head against a wall the answer is simple… Walk away and come back later. A rest is always good, and in most cases when you come back to it four hours down the line and find the missing “/>” that stumped you for the 2 hours earlier that day, you will understand why this is important.
Knowing when technology doesn’t cut it anymore can also back up this idea. To many designers the problematic “IE6” is just like that, Basecamp has recently cut support for this browser, although this seems like the right thing to do it’s important to remember that 30% of hits to sites come from this browser so try your best. Some designers agree that ditching IE6 completely would be the best solution; work becomes less stressful with minimal effort the perfect epitome of working smarter. But think of that man in the highlands of Scotland who has never heard of browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Safari.
