The Design Funnel

Salespeople have a roadmap of the sales process, often called the Sales Funnel. The Sales Funnel
is a metaphor for the typical process, from contact with many potential customers to the eventual
payment of a single customer. It’s time we designers treat ourselves to our own funnel metaphor:
The Design Funnel.
The Design Funnel doesn’t introduce any new tools. It’s simply a roadmap of when a designer can use which tools to stimulate better work. As a matter of fact, many successful creatives use similar processes on a daily basis.
Here are the steps:
1. Define values and goals
2. Discover moods and metaphors through association
3. Generate ideas and define a concept
4. Create a visual language
5. “Design” it
Between each step comes the same sub-step: Verify that you’re on the right track. Why is most design bad design? Because most designers “jump into the funnel” at step 4 or 5. These are the steps involving “using Photoshop” and other fun, tool-based stuff. The funnel, on the other hand, focuses on the hard mental work involved in designing. Let’s walk through these steps in more detail.

DEFINE VALUES & GOALS

Notice that the Design Funnel is slightly different than the design process most of us have seen before:
• Define the problem
• Generate ideas
• Design stuff
• Pick the best design
• Produce it

These steps are implied in the Design Funnel, but the problem is defining the problem. Ever heard a client say they’d like a “modern” design? How about something “dynamic”? Or “professional”? Well, what are these people talking about? Don’t worry about it. We’re at step 1. Our job is to aggregate everything the client (or you, if you’re designing for yourself) can give you, no matter how vague. Ask the client what they want to accomplish, communicate, sell, or tell. Ask them for keywords describing their company, product, services, values, and most importantly, ask them for keywords describing how they would describe the ideal design for this project.
Remember that clients often offer solutions to problems instead of simply stating their problems. They’ll say, ”We want the focus to be on the brand, so the logo should be pretty big.” Don’t fire your client just yet. Just get this stuff down.

Ask lots of questions. To whom are we communicating? Are there any branding guidelines? Who will be making decisions regarding the design? Are there any restrictions whatsoever? Technical? Creative? What are they? How will success be judged? What’s the budget? What design work do you like? What don’t you like? Why? Once you get the answers to these questions, go home. Review your notes, and then do nothing for a day or two. Let these things incubate. You’ll start to form ideas about what the client is looking for. Often, it’s not necessarily what the client says it is.
Do look at what the competition is doing design-wise, but see this simply as an orientation exercise. Note the things that work and the things that don’t. You will not be copying what the competition does. That would be design sameness. Read that sentence about five million times. VERIFY: Reformulate the client goals in your own words, as YOU think they should be, based on your findings. Just goals, no solutions yet. Make the goals measurable, and give them a deadline. Present this to the client and ask if you understood them correctly. If the client agrees with you, go on to step 2. If not, review your notes again, think again, ask more questions, reformulate.

Once you get the answers to these questions, go home. Review your notes, and then do nothing for a day or two. Let these things incubate.

To read the rest of the manifesto click this link: 4804designfunnel

About the Author
Stephen Hay is co-founder and Creative Director of Cinnamon Interactive, one of the first web design and development firms to successfully combine professional visual design with open web standards and accessibility best practices. A native Californian now living and working in the Netherlands, he worked as art director at a Dutch advertising agency for 8 years before moving full time to web development in 2000. Stephen was instrumental in the development of the Web Guidelines of the Dutch Government for the accessibility and sustainability of government websites. Aside from his client work, he speaks and writes on the subjects of web accessibility, open standards, design and creativity. Visit Stephen Hay online. http://www.the-haystack.com/