Honing Conceptual Design Treatments

Designers are frequently called upon to mock up comps that emphasize a single concept, related to either a content or brand strategy. This request is made, generally, to support a business development effort or presentation. In this situation, the conceptual design should be "pared down," and not include too many ideas, tactics, and details. Razor sharp focus is most important, when the objective of Design is to illustrate a conceptual direction. Here's how it works: 

1. Emphasize a set of tactics that support a single concept - A conceptual brainstorm with the design team may result in a "shopping list" of potential tactics to support a single theme. Quantity of output is important, but only to provide enough valuable, tactical choices to choose from. Force the team to prioritize only 2-3 tactics to include in the design comp. Don't try to incorporate everything, or the design will quickly become a "patchwork quilt" of content modules. If this happens, the design will lose clarity. 

2. Exaggerate focus and prioritization on supporting design elements - Visual Designers often find it aesthetically offensive to mock-up large interface elements (text, buttons, tabs, widgets, etc.). However, in the case of visualizing a concept, it may be necessary to exaggerate the page elements that underscore the idea. The conceptual comp is a visual aid for a presentation. The strategic concept must be recognizable in 2-3 seconds. Don't make the client read paragraphs of text, or work too hard, to "get it." The point of the exercise to is to bring an idea forward, not to hide it in a forest.

3. Don't get caught up in the UX details (aka - "the weeds") - The Information Architects on the design team, myself included, will likely get caught up in tactical details related to "way-finding," "affordance," and "design consistency." These are all extremely important objectives for "market-ready design," but not for the purpose of painting broad strokes around a concept. The important details can be worked out later.

Measure the success of conceptual design with client feedback that indicates complete understanding of the concept and general acceptance of it. 

How to measure the success of digital design

Art may be subjective, but there are definite objective measures for digital design. As is the case with any type of success criteria for digital tactics, goals must be set prior to measurement. Defining benchmarks and projections are paramount to evaluating success.

Success Metrics - Defining key performance indicators for a business is a most important first step in projecting the growth of the business. Success means different things to different types of businesses and across various industries. Of course, most businesses set out to make money; however, the pathway to profit isn't always a straight line. That means there are other measures to consider other than direct revenue from a digital platform. A fledgling business may consider traffic growth, repeat visits, or membership over time to be key performance indicators of success. Success may mean duration of visit or engagement with interactive content.

Video platforms - Advertising-based revenue on a broadband video platform requires video ad views. In general, on an advertising-supported digital experience, the longer users stay engaged, the more likely they are to be exposed to advertisements.

Ecommerce - Even on an ecommerce experience, not all success can be directly measured from sales. Conversion percentage from the shopping cart is an extremely important metric, and one that can be optimized through design enhancements to increase the likelihood that end-users can easily checkout their purchases. Additional measurements include average order value (the total average value of all items in the cart prior to checkout). Similar to an advertising-supported platform, however, engagement with an ecommerce platform often translates into increased sales because the longer the end-user stays engaged, the greater the likelihood that the user will make a purchase.

Qualitative Measures of Design- The success measurements above are quantitative analyses of data collected over time. Some of the most important measurements, however, are qualitative. While quantitative data can reveal what is happening on a digital platform, qualitative data can reveal why its happening. Collecting qualitative measurements of a digital design is a matter of interacting and asking questions with end-users as they experience the design itself. Moderated interviews enable facilitators to probe end-users after they make decisions and engage in specific behaviors.

Design Enhancements- The key to optimizing design for success requires an in-depth understanding of what success means, and measuring from baseline to projections over time. As outlined above, these measures should be both quantitative and qualitative to reveal the complete picture of the impact of the design to the end-user. Evaluation should be the starting point to understanding how to increase the effectiveness of design.