Recently I had a chat with Marcus Handa. He is the UI Designer who assisted me with the award-winning SnowflakeStories.com. What follows are some of the key takeaways from our conversation.
Like what’s in it for Marcus?
What are some tangible benefits?
And how does a browser-based UX first approach affect his process?
Marcus provided the following 2 benefits.
- All the major decisions were already made so there were no last-minute additions. He understood what was required of him.
- The content was final. Everything was ready to go and he didn’t have to wait.
But these are not just complaints. Both delay your timeline and blow your budget.
Let’s dive deeper on last-minute decisions. Where you have finalized designs, each small change you add to the project can cause delays. This is because even small changes can have huge impact there are so many moving parts.
Missing content is a common way projects come off the rails. There are entire services dedicated to this such as Gather Content.
To get more specific, I asked Marcus what types of issues not having content might have.
Marcus told me about how difficult it is to work with “lorum” text and titles. He said he need to change the titles. Most of the time he might need to start over and source a whole new set of icons to go with them. In addition, Marcus exclaimed, “if the text they provide is longer than I expected it can throw the whole balance off.”
Adjusting the design may be necessary if there is a lack of context. For design context is super important.
Think about the difference between something generic. For example: Bootstrap sites vs. something specialized like SnowflakeStories.com. You cannot approach these two projects in the same way.
I also asked Marcus about who is the ideal designer to bring in on a Designer Last workflow.
He told me that you want to source a designer who does not demand complete creative control. He also suggested to look towards the UI side of the design spectrum.
