Tips for Boosting the Efficiency of your Web Design Projects
People tend to see a website only for its face value and underestimate just how much work goes into a web development and design project. There’s backend decisions to be made, plus frontend design work to sign off on, all on top of consideration of client needs, brand aesthetics, and having to organise and communicate between it all. There are also plenty of questions to ask yourself as a web designer along the way.
Thankfully, digital advancements are ensuring that web design workflows become more streamlined everyday. New services, integrations, plugins, and shortcuts are at our disposal to make the whole ordeal more manageable. Programs like Figma or Adobe Illustrator can be used to produce assets quickly. And with the rise of Generative AI tools, you can now even use an AI image generator to mock up web icons (i.e. nav bar icons, custom social icons, etc.) logos, colour schemes, or even site layouts to make quick work of your site conceptualising.
It’s the Age of Automation, and more than anything what makes you stand out in today’s digital design ecosystem is your ability to command and coordinate the work between different programs and processes. Here’s what we recommend to help juggle all the interrelating elements of website design for your next web development project.
Block Time, Batch Tasks, & Beat the Clock
What’s funny about work is that it tends to take as long as you give it. You can build a birdhouse both in a week or in a day. A site is much the same, only perhaps less obviously so. That’s where blocking and batch work comes in. It’ll look different for each project, but the process is the same.
Write a list of the tasks, order them, allocate time to them, and give yourself a buffer at the end of the day to solve any surprise issues. This will evolve as you find what works for you, so experiment with it. Some prefer to split their time up into twenty-minute intervals – see the beloved Pomodoro technique – while others enjoy tackling one subject at a time with deep focus. Find which method works for you to maximise productivity and comfort.
Use Design Mood Boards to Speed up Client Approval
A project starts with ideation and inspiration – and securing client approval. Part of the challenge of building a website is deciding on a design direction. Sometimes a client will come to you with a concept, which is helpful. But sometimes they’ll be just as blind as you are, or worse, lukewarm to your design suggestions. That’s where a strong collection of related works can steamroll the process.
Pinterest is the perfect place to collect these. It’s already brimming with examples you can use to start your concept boards, and it’s easy to add to. Your vault will grow overtime, and this is where you come when you need an example, something to start the ball rolling, or just something to shake you out of a creative funk.
Use Pre-Existing Frameworks and Templates
You are but one in a long line of designers, one thread in the grand tapestry of not just web designers but designers of newspapers, magazines, book covers, apps, and everything else relevant to your line of work. Your job is to take what works and to put them together. Sometimes that includes finding things. Other times it means using designs from the best and brightest as a launching pad.
Look at great examples of existing web design for inspiration. Apple is famous for its stylish and user-friendly web UI. Maybe your client wants a page that feels like Apple. Find examples of what your client doesn’t want, too! You don’t necessarily need to start from scratch on a project, but instead start with something similar to your client’s needs and build from there. It will also save you from the existential terror of a bank page.
And speaking more technical backend now over aesthetic design, it’s also highly recommended that you use easy UI tools like Figma, Adobe XD, and even CSS frameworks for easy HTML formatting.
Use a C.R.M.: Customer Relationship Manager
If you want to reduce the stress of designing a website, you need a CRM. It’s a digital address book with a calendar, an emailer, and practically everything else you need for your clients all rolled into one.
Inboxes can get messy, CRMs fix that for you. You can pay for them or use a free one to start, Hubspot is the biggest free one, so start there. It’ll take time to get the hang of it, but when you have everything in its right place, it’s a tool to schedule your worklife around. Everything is suddenly clearcut and organised and that website will be ready to go live in no time.
Take on Fewer Clients with Shorter Deadlines
Having one client is easy: easy to talk to, easy to remember conversations with, and easy to finish projects for. Having two clients starts to get messy. It’s a good thing to have multiple clients, but there can be too much of a good thing.
Instead of accepting new clients right away, schedule them in with the rest of your workload. Keep it all allocated and appoint adequate time to interact with new clients. And then, go an extra mile and be sure not to create new deadlines that are longer than what you currently have on your plate. This helps set realistic expectations for yourself and your clients. Save on headaches, miscommunications, and crossed-wires. Or hire another team member — up to you!
Elevate your Web Design Projects with these Efficiency Tips
Boosting your efficiency is not just simply about getting better at web design, but how you do the work around your projects. It tends to be about cutting down on the time you spend on everything else.
The goal is to streamline all the surrounding tasks in your workday so your focus is fixed more on the creative and technical aspects of web design. This will get your websites brought to life faster and more efficiently while ensuring client satisfaction and personal satisfaction.
