Design Services

Design Management

"Some CREATE, some ENABLE"

Design Management for us is, helping you "Realize your Goals". From Planning to Execution, design management identifies and answers questions like; "What to do?", "Why are we doing this?", "How will it be done?", "When to do what?", "What after its done?"

Though EVI is equipped to handle all of the above questions and complexities, you may hire our services for any of the ones stated. Our Design team will work closely with you to deliver what gets planned. Design cannot be carried out in isolation. It has components like graphic design, development, planning, research etc. all of these are co-dependent and affect each other.

In design management we propose to work with our clients from day one of the product lifecycle. The more we get involved the more we get a grip of business concerns and user insights.

For entrepreneurs and new products we also like to call ourselves as the "ENABLERS". We visualize the entire product for you as a User would want it to be.

How do we Manage Design?

Product Definition

Product definition need not be a very detailed document; it can be summed up in a few lines. This should basically answer questions like; who is this product for? How does it satisfy user needs and goals? What edge does it have over it competitors? How will users identify this edge? What is the personality of this product? ....are a few questions that the team should be very clear on.

Also see About UX

Business Objectives

This primarily deals with numbers and figures? For a project to be more focused targets/goals which can be measured in terms of cost, time or money must be set. For e.g 100 thousand user by 3rd quarter or $250,000 by Jan 2011 etc. Brand Value is another business objective, though not always measureable it could be a driving force for the product. For e.g. Simple and easy to use could be the objective which in turn will drive the product to be focused on usability and user friendliness.

User Research and Analysis

Constant user involvement helps a product not only to improve but also come closer to user acceptance. User testing or feedback should be taken at each stage of designing, from basic conceptualization to detailed design. Users do not want products that mimick their current lifestyles but want products and services which improve the existing ones. Users can give feedback but how to apply the same should be designer's prerogative. Design management includes what aspects to research, what is important and should be considered and what should be ruled out.

Also see Usability Evaluation

Decision Making

Management is about taking decisions and trade-offs. Design is iterative, hence planned decisions have to be made to finalise product features and functionality at every phase of product development. Product blueprints should be prepared bearing in mind the best possible solution that the designers can come up with. But due to time and technological challenges some features or functionalities could be withdrawn. Hence one would notice most product design life cycles are phased out into product versions. Every version brings with it new and improved features. Some extended as a part of the original feature and some absolutely new, while some shelved completely.

Functional Specifications

One of the main objectives of Design Management is designing functional specs that cover all of the above in a manner understandable by development team. What needs to be delivered how and when should be clearly specified. This would include designing detailed workflows, interaction models, scenarios or use cases, wireframes and graphic design. Nothing should be left to the imagination of the development team. Its easier to rectify errors before they go into production else it would have major cost repercussions.

Also see User Experience Design Service

Effective Marketing Strategy

An effective marketing strategy should be prepared in parallel. Though experts for marketing can work independently, but their plans affect the product development. Does the product fulfill aspirations set by the marketing team? How are people discovering the product? Where do they come first? Where do they leave? Analytics provide insights to the marketing team and in turn they modify their strategies. Their strategies then drive product personality and branding.

Production Management

Execution is the most important. Time, money and resources have to be balanced during production. All work should be broken down into smaller tasks and timelines should be set accordingly. Overlaps and wastages should be minimized by setting daily or weekly schedules for all resources. Quality cannot be compromised hence a project manager should do routine checks with brand guidelines and functional specifications handed over.