This is a guest post by Erika Hall, a founder of Mule Design Studio and expert in audience-centered design strategy, content development, branding, and information architecture. Come hear her at Startonomics (session: Marrying Design & Development: a Match made in Heaven, not Hell)

Better, Faster Design
When start-ups come to us looking for help with their product design or branding, the first question is “How long will it take?, “ followed immediately by “Can we get it done faster (and cheaper).”

Yes, you can. Maybe.

Whether you are working with an internal or external design team, instituting a few key practices can get you much further much faster. Ignoring them can bog your team down in frustration.

Begin with the goal in mind. Make it an important goal.

This sounds like the ultimate “duh”. However, it is continually surprising how frequently start-ups hire designers based on a vague sense that their product is ugly or clunky, and nothing beyond that.

Without a clearly articulated goal, there is no way to determine whether the design work has succeeded, and it is possible to go around and around, iteration after iteration, feeling stuck in subjectivity, and never knowing which design solution is the right one.

Or, you and your team can end up debating which goals have precedence while the design work is already going on. Even if you ultimately approve and implement the work, a lingering dissatisfaction can remain.

Likewise, if the design goal you choose isn’t important to the success of the product or tied to a business goal, it’s easy to set design work aside while you focus on things that feel more important to you. Your designers will get frustrated and lose momentum that is impossible to regain.

If the state of your interface design or branding isn’t impacting your progress towards your particular business or development goals, don’t hire designers. Many products can get very far without the aid of visual designers (see: Craigslist, Google).

Having a clear goal has the added benefit of making design decisions easier and less subjective. You can ask, “Does this solution meet the stated goal, why or why not?” rather than, “Do we like it?.”

Don’t skimp on the initial discovery.

Entrepreneurs hear the word “discovery” and specters of interminable brainstorms, puerile mood boards, and general expensive wankery start dancing before their eyes.

Whether you call it discovery, research, planning and strategy, or just getting everyone around a table, this initial piece of work is critical. It is part of the design process, as much or even more so than cracking open the Photoshop. Design is ultimately making and documenting decisions. You want those decisions to be as informed as possible.

Discovery serves to get all of the project stakeholders on the same page before they have an artifact to react to and evaluate. If there are fights to be had or questions to be answered, handle this in the first week or two of the project before skilled people are off making things that are of questionable value. This will ensure that everyone is making the best use of their time.

The amount of upfront information gathering required depends on the scope and complexity of the work, the size of the team, and the stage of the company or product. The further along you are with any of these, the more you will need. And, as a general rule, involve as many people as possible early in the project, and as few as possible in the following decision-making process.

Productive activities can include: a general kickoff meeting, interviews with your team, interviews with representative users, competitive analysis, branding worksessions, conducting or reviewing additional research.

Don’t do focus groups.

The outcome should be a document that summarizes goals and aspirations, success criteria, target audience, constraints, and approach. It can be as short as a page. Even if you never look at it again, having gone through this process with your team will decrease conflict and misunderstanding and increase the chance of achieving what you set out to.

Have a clear decision-making process.

If you have defined an important set of goals and you have gotten everyone’s input at the start of the project, this should be cake. Identify who should provide feedback, and who has authority to make and approve design decisions. The feedback team should represent all key points of view (e.g. business and technology) with as few people as possible. The decision-maker/approver should ideally be one person.

Have a process for gathering and evaluating feedback and presenting it to your designers in one unified voice. Nothing slows down design iteration like relying on the designer to interpret multiple points of view.

And make decisions quickly. If you have done your homework in the first part of the project, you should have a strong sense of why certain design solutions are more or less likely to work. You won’t know for certain until you put it in front of your users, and then you can always modify it.

Be very clear and honest in your evaluation. Once again, shocking how many times we have been encouraged down a path by a positive response, only to be told “We never really thought that was right.” For some reason, design can elicit tender sensibilities that waste a lot of time.

So there you have it: Clarity of purpose, understanding, and process will make any design project go faster.

Heard enough yet? Join us at Startonomics