Work Plan Analysis
After you have talked and the contractor sent you a work plan, your task is to evaluate what this plan consists of. The work plan should include at least three things:
- Analysis. This is connected with immersion in the project: user flows (map of the user path), studying the niche, competitors, and everything like that.
- Prototyping. The task of this stage is to design all product pages so that, in the end, it turns out to be understandable and convenient. Ready, but still in schematic form.
- Design. This is everything related to beauty: fonts, colors, icons, creating a corporate identity for a product, a UI library, and so on.
If the work plan does not contain any of the listed items, this is an occasion to think about the designer’s competence since these are three integral components when working on a product.
It will be good if the designer also breaks the budget into parts regarding the stages (visible result). This is important so that you do not lose all the money if the designer suddenly becomes dishonest. Also, do not forget about the contract.
How To Know That Everything Is Going Well
Looking at the product within your team is excellent but subjective. It is essential to find\define more objective evaluation points. This paragraph is not even about whether you have a good designer in your team, but more importantly, this understanding is whether you are moving in the right direction.
I would advise that even at the prototyping stage, the designer will prepare an interactive prototype, and you could give it to the focus group for testing. If it turns out that the product is inconvenient and incomprehensible, then you should not immediately blame the designer. Even a professional designer is not a god and cannot take into account all aspects.
Sometimes there is a mistake not in the design and not in the designer. The team could have made a mistake with the choice of the target audience or the product. But there is a nuance. If people still do not understand the product, even taking into account 2-3 iterations, then it is worth considering why the designer did not solve an already understandable problem.
Afterword
And finally, I would like to say about one more important thing, which I did not begin to take out in a separate paragraph since I think it is banal, and I know little about it.
The first contact is essential. When you call for the first time, try to find out how the designer works, what tasks he solves, and whether he can help you specifically with your job. It is essential to communicate, talk, and already on an intuitive level to understand whether you are on the same wavelength. This is important because sometimes he is suitable as a designer, but not as a person.
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