The past 15 years have been a period of quick and substantive change for the web design industry. The web design team structure has grown and shifted along with it, like a living organism. If you want to understand how design teams provide their services successfully for their clients (or fail, for that matter), you should first get an idea of how the parts of such an organism function together.
Web design is a very competitive industry, where website design companies come and go with the blink of an eye if they don’t do things right or are too sloppy with their designs. A newly founded web design company must have an organically functioning team that only takes on projects it can definitely complete. But, before projects come in, the company must have a solid team, where each member fully understands their duties and responsibilities. There are quite a few web design companies on the market that have spectacular teams and are examples of true success and a progressive approach to design. But, since you’re only starting your way in this business, you should first learn the basics.
So, website design involves three main skills: design, programming, and project management. It’s time for us to look into the structure of a successful web design team and how it affects the completion of projects.
Project Manager – the Hearer
In a nutshell, the project manager is a 24/7 communicator and should always be a careful listener. Their primary role is to comprehend – and record – project objectives. They need to put branding, research, requirements, budgets, deadlines, and all the other project aspects together. They must pay close attention to every detail, correctly communicate project status, and always carefully listen to the client and the team.
A web design team without appropriate listening skills can make the client feel insignificant or even ignored. A web design team that doesn’t hear their customer is unable to provide the appropriate support.
Poor hearing may also mean not “listening” to what potential customers are looking for, by not looking into key phrases. Missing this vital step will result in the website not having pages that align with keywords used by users when they search for the required services or products. As a result, fewer and fewer people are going to visit the site over time.
Designer – the Seer
A great web design team has an awesome designer, a talented expert with a vision capable of bringing the website to life. But no matter how great the designer’s ideas may be, it’s important to remember that every website visitor is a critic and tends to judge what they see almost immediately.
When their eyesight is not so good, the project may end up looking flat or trivial. The message might not be conveyed clearly and quickly by such sites. But what’s even worse is that it might be confusing for the user.
If the designer has a 20/20 vision, visitors would get a great first impression when visiting the site you’ve launched, and they wouldn’t have any issue making sense of it. When branding is to the point, and all the content fits in perfectly, traffic metrics, especially the conversions and bounce rate, are all positively affected.
Developer – the Builder
Creating websites is pretty much as manual a job as constructing a building. Various working pieces must fit into their positions to become a fully interdependent operational structure. Web developers are specialists who build websites brick by brick.
A great developer always remembers about potential updates. When the team’s builder creates tools to keep the website up to date, its lifespan extends dramatically. A team without a good builder will create a website that’s rather difficult to update. It will look like it’s suspended in some old form. Creating updates for such sites is always quite expensive.
The tool could be an off-the-shelf content management system (CMS), or a custom CMS, or something intermediary. Whatever the case, if you have a great team, you have an outstanding builder.
Process – the Thought Center
When all of the above parts come together and work together, they become one thought center. This center handles the processes and project management tools that seamlessly connect the components.
Close and persistent communication is critical. All the details have to be supervised, and all the check-lists have to be managed. All the tasks have to be assigned appropriately. If the process isn’t set up right, a lot of things will be overlooked. If the seer doesn’t talk to the builder, and if the hearer misses something, results will inevitably be subpar.
Web Design Team Biodiversity
Teams can drastically differ in sizes and shapes in the web design industry. Each of them has an individual approach to the process. But, each size and composition has its pros and cons.
On smaller teams, one specialist might handle several roles, like the increasingly seldom designer/programmer or designer/project manager, which is a more frequent occurrence. It may help to reduce prices and diminish turnaround times.
However, it also could mean template overuse and existing tool exhaustion, which leads websites to become less unique. The biggest downside is that service frequently suffers if the team’s structure lacks a dedicated project manager.
Larger web design teams may have more experts, like individual usability analysts, animators, copywriters, etc. These may be useful pieces that bring the particular experience into the team and, thus, lead to greater results. However, larger teams are known to have higher prices, and projects normally take longer to finish.
Whatever the team’s size, the team and the customer have to be certain that the project’s needs can be covered by the team that handles it.
The Bottom Line
Today’s world is a world of experts. Web design team members have their specializations. It’s essential that you, as a business owner or company administrator, make sure that all parts work well together. You may even go as far as considering each task a mission, and the organic functioning of your team is the guarantee to successfully accomplish missions.
When a part is too weak or is missing altogether, the web design process suffers, and the result can be far from satisfying. Therefore, it’s critical to make sure that each part is in its place, healthy, and can function at its full potential.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
