Process is critical when it comes to user interface design and so understanding that there are two types of design is key. Many clients often fail to understand that the first step in the design process is the information design or the information layout, this step is called numerous things by numerous authors in numerous books but what it really boils down to is how the user is going to access the information.

 

So the first step of the process is what guarantees the success of the visual design. We actually sit and work the flow out in every possible user scenario to understand the users. As we map it out, we   consider every detail of every feature and we try and place it into a situation where the user can access it where also a user can then utilize it on their terms not the corporation’s terms.  

The flow should be considered as the blueprints of a building before it’s constructed. certainly the exterior of buildings are beautiful however it’s  the function of the foundation and the steel and the concrete all put together to accommodate the required needs of the inhabitants that really make a building useful.

When we understand the needs of our client and their goals when communicating to the audience we live those roles to insure the plan is flawless. Once we have a low fidelity snapshot of the site we incorporate thoughts and thinking that are not what the customer usually thinks through, often times we find the customer forgets or fails to understand what it is they are trying to accomplish and misses a key aspect. Once we present this low fidelity back to the client to and they see the “HOW” it will work we can then begin to design the site in pixels and get to the creation of the right Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Sometimes clients get so close to their own product that they fail to understand the real potential or life of their product. For instance we were contracted to develop an interface for a medical diagnosis company called Amrisys. Their product Path IQ was an application for a very specialized group of users. The project was to take a large database or raw information that had been accumulated over the course of 10 years. So a large amount of data and the client wanted to serve that data up as a reference guide and to  add pictures to pretty up the product.

 

When we approached the project, we weighed all the possibilities and different angles we came to the conclusion that the data should do something, we did not feel that data dressed up as a picture book would be useful. So the question was how does the end user benefit? We turned all these elements into a diagnosis machine. Where the user can enter in parameters and those parameters will now call to the information in the database and return relevant information.

User’s can see the pictures of what it would look like if you’re looking through the microscope. So what we really do is step away from what the client initially asks for and we rethink it in terms of simplification on the user’s part. We’ve learned that when clients come to us and have a clear picture of what they want they have missed something and what they are telling us is what they believe. This idea is completely different from what they need because they have no idea what the other side could be.

 

The goal of a designer should be to provide them with a different perspective and sometimes to help them see what they might have missed. 90% of the time the client sees the value. 10% of the time the client is determined to be right. Those 10% come to us knowing exactly what they want and when they refuse to see the benefit of our input they fail to see the big picture and it always hurts the project and the R.O.I. The client’s belief is so rooted in them that they refuse to accept a more effective way.