The Web is a fluid medium that can energize and communicate a message with agility and power.

My job is to produce a Web site that reflects my client's unique identity and creates a meaningful connection with their online visitors. By leveraging the Web's evolving technical and aesthetic standards, I define the shape of a site, based on it's core purpose, and make it stand out on the Internet.

Background

Duncan Gibbs is a professional with ten years experience designing and developing web sites for corporate and non-profit organizations and individual clients. His master's degree in Educational Technology focuses on multimedia production with an emphasis on learner psychology, making him an expert in user-friendly interface design.

Behind the Firewall

Corporate Web Publishing: Notes from a producer

Business objectives and green boxes


Saturday, April 25, 2009

One of my most persistent challenges as a Web producer is helping my clients separate business requirements from design specifications. For example, I was designing a Web-based search page for a clinical trials database. The content was complex with lots of associated data points: disease name, organ site, doctor, government-assigned research category, trial number and patient population demographics. The audience for the content was compound: doctors, patients and administrators. My client was the veteran director of clinical trials administration and I was glad to have her perspective to help model the user experience. But, when I asked her how she expected users to query the database (searching on disease name or on doctor or on trial number, etc.) her reply was "I envision a green box at the top of the page."

To help clients articulate their business objectives I sometimes use a three column table. During a discovery meeting, I whiteboard the three columns: Business objectives; Content; Design. As the client talks about the product they're requesting, I capture the features described and sort them into the appropriate columns which we can view together on the wall.

Clients understand their business needs, but often they try to communicate those needs to me in graphic or interactive design terms. They imagine the final product that will solve their problem, support their process, address their business needs and the inclination is to describe that product's graphic and structural features. My job is to plumb their business expertise and help them articulate their business objectives. The key is making space to facilitate both their creative ideas and their business requirements.