Designing and refiningA snapshot of a website design journey

Purpose of this talk

• Give you an insight into my work

• Provide me with a chance to reflect on the journey

Setting the scene

• Web Manager for CASS

About me

The brief

• To create a website identity for CASS and its Schools

‘a website identity’

‘we’re all individuals!!’

• Photoshop comp of web page

Where to start?

Drawbacks?

• No guarantee that a website will look exactly the same for every user

• Makes a catalogue of assumptions about the placement and position of elements

An alternative starting point…

• Style tiles establish a direct connection with actual interface elements without defining layout

Style Tiles

• A more developed form of mood board

• Can compliment the traditional Photoshop comp route

• Listening, researching, ask questions

Style Tiles

The Process

• Break down and interpret feedback into themes and design principles

• Create a visual language

The advantages?

• Making changes out of context allows me to work faster

• Suit ‘responsive’ design as they don’t imply dimensions or device only that the design will be digital

Style tile to web page

• Photoshop layouts

• Designing in the browser

• Further refinement of the style tile to create user interface elements

CASS

Education

Psychology

Graduate School