Discovery & Planning

Discovery and planning is an important first step in any web design or redesign project, or it can be undertaken as a standalone project.

Our work includes feature identification mapped to business goals and persona needs, a strategy brief, sitemap, wireframes, and production budget, developed in collaboration with you, to prioritize the highest impact initiatives.

We begin by reviewing personas, user flows, analytics, and business goals, working to sharply define your company’s brand attributes — who you are and who you’re not —and your website’s goals.

What does success look like for the site? What features are must-haves, shoulds, or nice-to-haves for both users and admin users? How does this list change or get re-prioritized when we consider time and budget impact to implement them?

Delivering a practical strategy

We’ll recommend how you can improve or optimize your site’s user experience in a comprehensive strategy brief, which includes the website information architecture and a detailed content strategy. The summary also includes a sitemap and several explorations of key web pages in the form of high-fidelity wireframes.

Scoping and planning for greatest impact and return

This scope of work includes a detailed build estimate that accounts for UX recommendations, budget and timeline priorities, and often a suggested phased approach that shows where you can make the biggest impact, first. A separate technical strategy session is often held for sites that integrate with existing third-party systems, followed by a software specification document.

UX Audits & Research

Research includes reviewing historical analytics and isolating any problem areas that could be causing visitors to leave your site. Also, an in-depth analysis of user flows will influence the strategy and design of any new site that’s created. To help us learn how your site visitors perceive and navigate your website’s content, we will use inexpensive, yet effective online tools such a Hotjar, Google Analytics, CrazyEgg or others.

Customer value investigation and user testing

Sometimes, deeper conversations with your prospects and customers are necessary to learn more about their purchasing motivations and areas of influence within their companies. Through an informal process we call a customer value investigation, we’ll interview individuals to gather insights and background that ultimately influences your key messages, value proposition and content strategy. We can also implement easy user testing and card sort tools to get user feedback.

To create a custom approach for you, contact us.