Comments on: Design Last Design

By: Josh Walsh

Josh Walsh — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:20:59 +0000

Matt. – I’m really interested to talk to you some more about this. We’ve had awesome success with it so far.

By: Matt Becker

Matt Becker — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:56:48 +0000

Awesome. Awesome. I love hearing other folks using this method and having it work well for them. I’ve taken the same approach with great success – giving clients grayboxes to start out with and design around the site’s content, gather feedback and work on its structure and layout. It also aids my process of doing more information designing in the browser, which helps cut down on the time making adjustments later.

I’m amazed you were able to keep this so short, because I could go on about the benefits of this method forever. And probably will, now that I think about it.

Great article, Josh. =)

By: Danny

Danny — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:14:19 +0000

Although I confess that I am the first to let the client dictate the process (often a huge mistake), I really like the “Design Last” model. Old habits die hard, but this one might be the resolution I was looking for this year. Thanks Josh!

By: Josh Walsh

Josh Walsh — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 03:10:40 +0000

Joe – Yes, I’ve read that article and really enjoyed it.

The main difference here is that my whole user interface stays lo-fi until the end of the project rather than just in the planning stages. While you can get some great feedback from lo-fi wireframes in the beginning, the best feedback comes from interacting with the real mccoy. By staying lo-fi through the initial build, we can use that feedback to make changes inexpensively.

Thanks for the comment.

By: Joe Fiorini

Joe Fiorini — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:12:41 +0000

Interesting method. I highly recommend Jeff Patton’s “Twelve emerging best practices for adding UX work to Agile development” (http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/emerging_best_agile_ux_practice.html)for further reading. It’s somewhat similar in that the pattern he’s noticed is having low-fi mockups for as long as possible before producing something final.

By: Dave Goerlich

Dave Goerlich — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:17:30 +0000

I’ve seen first hand how effective this is. Meetings with the client remain focused on the interface and the underlying business process, rather than getting bogged down discussing the merits of #3366ff versus #3366fe. Even internally I’ve seen us remain much more focused on the core of the application. In the end, I’m confident this is going to be a very successful experiment!