Change And Improve
The next step is to work on adding new features and additional design touches to your site. Even small details such as a soft stroke around an object or a very light gradient can play important roles in the end to improving a design.
In many cases, you’ll find yourself throwing out your first idea and starting new, or making so many changes that you first mock looks nothing like the final, even though you were working off your first mock and so with every edit.
In the case of Devlounge, it wasn’t until the eighth revision that things started coming together like we had envisioned. Now, it was all about tweaking out final layout changes, and adding and subtracting things we wanted to have and things were really didn’t need.
Don’t Set the Bar Too High
Too many times, especially with the launch of a new site, designers try to overshoot their skills by making the best design possible with every feature you can think off. Of course, you’re intent is to make the best design you can, but you also always need to leave room for improvement. Certain features may not be essential right at the launch of a site, so there’s no need to include them. You want to be able to leave yourself room to make improvements to not only the design, but the site and user interaction.
Finalize and Prepare for Coding
After what has probably turned into a few weeks or months worked, you may finally have the design you’re looking for. Show the design around to various designer communities, and get proper feedback before launch. This helps you clean things up before the general public sees things, and usually, other designers will be nice enough to point out both goods and bads, making it easier to expand on the high points and fix the problem areas.
Once you’ve cleaned everything up and you’re happy with your design, you can relax – now, you only have to code.
Coming up, I finish up the Process series by breaking down the coding process, with real Devlounge examples.