Setting Goals

[MUSIC] 0:00 Going from a blank screen to a finished website can be daunting. 0:04 What's the best way to get started? 0:09 And what are the rest of the steps involved? 0:11 Good designers don't immediately start creating color palettes or 0:14 coding a web page. 0:17 Instead, they start by learning the goals of the site. 0:18 Then they consider the audience that will use it, and 0:22 finally, they gather the content that needs to be present. 0:26 It's only after this initial phase 0:29 that they're ready to start on the layout and visuals. 0:32 For many people, design can feel ambiguous. 0:36 There's no single path to follow, and there are no industry-standard procedures. 0:39 It's inexact and filled with decision-making. 0:44 That means that with every new design, 0:48 it's best to assume as little as possible and learn as much as you can. 0:51 And designing a website is no different. 0:56 The early phases of design have many names, 0:59 but sometimes people call this first chunk the discovery phase. 1:01 Because we're trying to find as much information as we can, 1:07 before we start designing something that doesn't actually fit the right needs. 1:11 A great way to start a new web project is to take a step back from the computer, 1:16 talk to people in your organization and ask, why are we building a website? 1:22 Another way to think about it might be, what is the purpose of our website? 1:28 Or what are problems that we're trying to solve by building a website? 1:32 It might seem like an obvious question, but the answers are not always so obvious. 1:37 You may want a site to increase awareness of your brand for 1:42 when people are making purchasing decisions in the future. 1:46 You could also what them to immediately purchase a product or 1:49 service, share your content or take any number of other actions. 1:53 For instance let's say that we're a web designer at a company, and 1:58 the company is launching a new product called Flamingo Friend. 2:03 It's a smart device connected to the Internet. 2:07 It goes in a front or back yard of a home, and 2:10 it tracks the health of grass by measuring hydration, pH level and other metrics. 2:13 Most project have what are called stakeholders. 2:20 A stakeholder is a person that has an interest in a project or 2:24 some level of involvement. 2:28 This could include clients, managers, coworkers or 2:30 anyone else that might have a vested interest in the outcome of the project. 2:34 When you talk to stakeholders, it's important for you to ask questions that 2:38 help you understand the organization strategy and their priorities. 2:42 In the case of a product launch, 2:46 you might ask things like, how important is this product launch to the company? 2:47 How does this product connect with the company's brand? 2:52 How does this product relate to other products 2:56 the company has released in the past? 2:58 For more questions like these ones that can help guide the conversation, 3:01 check out the notes associated with this video. 3:05 When you communicate with stakeholders they can sometimes be 3:09 too solution oriented. 3:12 They might propose that you design something a specific way or 3:14 include a particular website feature. 3:18 While that can give you some insight into their thinking, make sure that you 3:21 follow up those types of requests, so that you understand the underlying intent. 3:26 People tend to jump right into the details of building a solution, 3:31 like the color of a web page or the types of pictures to display. 3:35 But during discovery, your job, 3:40 as a designer, is to keep the conversation focused on defining the problem. 3:42 If you jump to a solution too soon, 3:48 there's a good chance you'll completely miss the goals of the project. 3:50 A quick solution might also not communicate with the audience effectively, 3:54 and you might mistakenly leave out important information. 3:59 In this case, we're just going to create one 4:03 page of what would normally be a larger and more complex website. 4:06 We'll pretend we've spoken to the product and marketing teams, and 4:11 they want us to create a landing page. 4:15 Typically, a landing page is a special destination on a website for 4:18 a marketing campaign. 4:23 This could be for the launch of a new product, the announcement of a sale or 4:25 a new PR initiative for the company. 4:30 A special URL like example.com/product 4:33 is an opportunity to create a design that's custom tailored to the campaign and 4:37 gather more accurate analytics data about the success of the campaign. 4:42 Let's say that after one or two meetings with the marketing team, 4:48 we've agreed that the landing page needs to do three things, 4:52 capture the attention of a website visitor, 4:56 educate visitors about the product and entice visitors to pre-order the product. 4:59 So with those three fairly straightforward goals in mind, let's move on. 5:05