Paper to Pixel

Your job is much more than creating graphics.
And no matter how much you might not like that, there is much more to it.

I always get surprised looks from students of our workshops when I mention this.
But the truth is that design in itself is only a part of the process. In fact it’s not even the first thing you should be taking care in the project.

It’s hard to realize that sometimes. And thus the surprised looks. Nonetheless when you do you immediately start noticing how many more items you have to take care of. How many only design-related decisions you have to make.

And I don’t mean coding or project management.

I mean all the other aspects that make the website work and be friendly to the user.

So what are your responsibilities as a web guru then?
Well, to begin at the beginning

1. Creating the sites structure
Very often clients hand you over their desired site structure. A site map showing how they would like their site to be organized. And sometimes they have it right but often perfectly wrong. It is your job to point out any potential errors and create a proper structure that will be easy to use and navigate.

2. Designing the user experience
Every day we get more and more used to the fact that web interfaces communicate with us. They tell us where we are and what we can do there. Or what we did wrong and how can we fix that. One of your tasks is to design the user experience on the site, write potential commands and error messages and any other communication with the user.

This may also mean any automated emails sent by the site to the user and so on.

3. Overlooking the content
It is not your job to write content for the site, by all means. But indicating to the client what sort of content they need, where would it go and how it should be constructed, is. And doing so would greatly help both you and the client with completing the project.

4. Designing the interface
Following all the decisions that have been made you need to create artwork that will sell the clients idea and provide a nice environment for the user.

5. Deciding on technical requirements
Very often clients won’t know what they need. They have a problem and they come to you to solve it. And sometimes that involves making a decision on technical matters Some of them might include CMS systems, or choosing a specific E-Commerce system or deciding on building a custom system to run the site.

6. Testing
This is one of the most overlooked ones. As part of the process you need to test the site and make sure not only that it works but also that users can use it without any prior training.

7. Providing support
As you probably know already, most projects don’t end with the site launch. And the support is very often dragging the project on and on. It is also your responsibility to make sure that there is a proper valuation to the site. And even if you were working with a developer, you will need to liaise between the client and him.

So your job is really much more than creating graphics. And when you go through the list above again you will notice how small part on it the design itself plays.

But the truth is that design is also the biggest part of the process. So don’t worry the you will be spending too much time doing things you don’t want to. You will have to look after them but they should not take that much of your time.

The design will. But that’s good, isn’t it?