The Collaborative Web Design Era Sharpens Agencies’ Focus

To be a successful web agency player, great design isn’t enough anymore. You could have brilliant design, but if you can’t get it out in time, it loses much value. Whether we like or not, professional web design has become a very competitive market commodity. So how else can web agencies compete today?

The answer is time. Time is that one, great equalizer. All else being equal, in a saturated and competitive market, time savings is the way to web design success. With entry barriers lowered, tech democratization has pushed web agency margins slimmer. The key differentiator for agencies is great web design work… delivered faster. Collaborative web design reorganizes team processes for speed, and uses shared, dedicated systems and tools. It boosts teams from working in slower silos and dams, to working in streamlined bridges and highways.

The truth is, small or growing businesses still need professional web creatives 9 times out of 10. DIY site builders like WIX and Squarespace fill about 10% of the solopreneur and startup web design needs of the market. The other 90% of complex website design projects are still entrusted to professionals and web agencies. These industry players provide big-picture project work encompassing holistic brand standards and ad channel continuity.

Going up one step, even solo web design platforms used by individual developers and designers can’t competently handle larger project scopes. These types of complex, strategic projects require a more intensive co-creation, achieved only in highly organized and coordinated collaborative web teams.

Most clients who want a website also need their entire brand image constructed online. They seek a wide-angle brand conversation spanning their online and offline marketing assets. Their web design needs form part of a larger brand image strategy.

It’s process over product: you’re more likely to produce better ideas (and faster) if you perfect your teamwork rhythm first. It’s something many brilliant creative web agencies have continually struggled with, but it can also mean the difference between a happy or a frustrated client.

The idea is to set up a clear and optimized creative process that avoids those typical slowdowns and bottlenecks so often inherent in human teamwork. Inside of the four main groups working as a web design team, you will find project management, design, content, and code. These four groups also need one additional process overlay, to help minimize production slowdowns in the group interactions. The three added main steps in this process overlay go along with the project management group. Inside of project management, they include preparation, creation, and feedback.

For that 90% of the professional website market with complex web brand design needs, agencies now organize and optimize their team processes as intuitive and collaborative web design flows inside of shared design systems. These design systems are integrated no-code, web tech toolstack structures that enable those optimized collaborative work processes to take place.

Design systems are built on no-code components to be scalable libraries of shared, reusable web designs. They are the cloud-based workflow structures that now seamlessly bring together project teams to collaborate swiftly and smoothly. Everyone is accessing the same project components, working with confidence in the project designs, adding their input at the right stages, and avoiding any wasteful, redundant or confusing project design work.

Using this no-code design system, each team member in an agency group is plugged-in and focused on their specific work contribution inside of their timed, predefined work process. Project management adds client requests and internal communication to their list while tracking the next milestones. Meanwhile, coders are developing changes for updated components in the UI library. Designers can create graphics in their separate tools without modifying that UI code library. Copywriters in turn are drafting their content topics into their document views for editorial ease and version control.

The entire process moves along a collaborative, managed timeline, with shared milestones, review points, and native design libraries. Everyone works inside their toolset views, using efficient closed-loop review processes to move creative work along at warp speeds. It’s collaborative web design at work, using design systems, in successful teams and agencies.

Design systems address the need for teams to work faster and grow by sharing online design libraries. They provide the key framework for doing great-quality teamwork using collaborative web design work processes.

Give your team the right tools for the job, and they will do great work. With advances in web technology permeating our lives, collaborative work has quickly claimed the new normal. We’ve moved from the communication era to the collaboration era.

This shift has been more intuitive in web design, as compared to other industries. Using a powerful tech toolstack and the smart use of data, collaborative web design enables and improves effective teamwork through the entire web design process. It uses a full-stack web design solution focused specifically on the process, not just the activity at hand.

Collaborative web design adds a holistic teamwork process that is smart, integrated, and data-centered. Incorporating smart data into its processes can elevate a team’s work quality and speed. It can automate resource skill selection or allocation, even suggesting shortcuts or quick tips, customizing interfaces, offering best work practices, and countless other improvements.

SiteManager, the first collaborative web design platform, stands out from other web creation tech for two reasons. It provides a sharp focus on the entire web design process (process over product). It also leans on the smart use of data to improve collaboration inside its platform.

This emphasis on process clarity and smart data allow web design agency departments (grouped into coding, design, content, and projects) to work better together. Collaborative web design processes are the key to agencies’ sustained growth, providing tangible working advantages:

• Improved communication and understanding across departments and projects,

• Efficient workflows that eliminate team bottlenecks and smooth the creative process,

• Consistent user experience and lean creative asset libraries,

• Faster time to market thanks to a more effective web design workflow.

What makes collaborative web design such a game-changing new approach for web agencies? In a nutshell, its ability to help a team work smoother and faster; to better iterate and deliver; to use a work style defined by clear and focused closed-loop processes. The results of this improved collaborative process are highly impactful work, effective teams, and happy clients.

To learn more about collaborative web design processes, reach out to us here. We look forward to exploring your current agency work style!