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Given that design quality correlates highly with results, companies pay surprisingly little attention to selecting great designers and buying service design projects.
Buying a concept design project is not a simple task. Agencies have vastly varying approaches and experience backgrounds, which makes it hard to evaluate whether a certain agency is fit for your job or not. But there are ways to make the selection process smoother and more successful.
This article gives you 10 tips that help you be a better buyer. Follow the advice and I can guarantee that your next concept design project will bring you more results—most likely at a lower cost.
North Patrol is a consulting firm specialized in the design of digital services and information systems. We shape ideas into a vision and service concept, find the best architectural and technological solutions, design a functional user experience, and compete to find the ideal partner for implementation work. We do not sell implementation projects, nor do we sell licenses; we are genuinely on the side of the customer.
Tips 1-5: How to prepare for the concept design project
1) Do your user research. It’s not rocket science and you don’t need a digital agency to do it. If you want help in interviewing your own stakeholders, clients and users, hire a user research agency. The research usually takes a few months so start as early as possible. Make sure you document the process so you can hand the whole package (questions asked, themes discussed, answers received) to the concept designer later on. Ideally, summarize the research results and present its highlights to your management.
2) Set the business goals for the project. Interview your management team and key stakeholders, then build a vision for the project. But don’t wait for the concept design project to set your business goals. You should constantly be clear on your business goals based on user research and management interviews. If you need help in setting the goals, use a consultant or consult your professional network about their experiences.
3) Develop the top 3 user personas for your website. After all, you should know your business and your customers. You can ask the concept design agency to improve the personas, but you should have all data collected and a rough idea of the personas before the concept design work starts.
4) Get a budget for the project. If you understand your business, your current situation and your goals you should be able to estimate roughly whether you need a simple facelift or need to build everything from scratch. Your chosen concept designers should always know in advance how much money you’re prepared to invest. Nobody wants to design elements that eventually get scrapped purely because of money constraints. There is a big difference in the process whether you have 50,000 euros or 200,000 euros for the implementation.
5) Decide the outcome of the project. Do you want a powerpoint presentation or visual design files (PSD) or an HTML prototype? What is the most important document that needs to come out of the project? As a rule of thumb, the more thorough your preparation, the further you can go with the results documentation. If you have diligently done your user research and know what you want, always aim for the high-fidelity prototype.
Set a budget minimum of around 20,000 euro (+ applicable VAT) for a concept design project. If you also want user research, detailed content design and a prototype, calculate up to 50,000 euro. Generally, you shouldn’t pay over 50k euro even for a large and complex website. It is more efficient to split a large project into two phases or two separate projects.
Tips 6-10: How to select the best agency
6) Decide whether you want a digital marketing agency or a user experience agency. There are few agencies who can combine these two skill areas. Even bigger agencies will have difficulty staffing the project if the client demands strong experience from both areas. Most digital agencies are better in user experience design than in digital marketing consulting. The safer bet is to primarily demand strong user experience design skills.
7) Decide whether you want a pure design agency or an agency that can also implement the website. Design agencies are usually better at facilitating workshops and truly thinking about the users. The more you need great design thinking, the more likely you should build your shortlist from pure design agencies. If your project is pretty straightforward, you might prefer an agency with implementation capabilities. Full-service agencies are often better at designing websites that are also easy to maintain and develop further. Especially if your budget is limited you might prefer an agency with implementation capabilities. Even if you don’t continue with the same partner the concept is probably cheaper to implement if designed by a full-service agency.
8) Always demand a fixed price and a good project plan. You should evaluate the methods and workshop plans of the agencies in particular. A fixed price forces the agencies to really think things through and not just showcase their great “design approach” (which they never get to do since it would shoot the price through the ceiling to begin with). It is also good practice to tell the agencies how much you expect the concept design project to cost (at least roughly, such as between 30k and 40k euro).
9) Ask to see the personal CVs and details of each team member’s project expertise. Individual project experience is much more important than agency experience in concept design projects. Every candidate that has at least two really experienced and skilled designers should be seen as a serious candidate. Also you might ask other proof of individual competence and passion for building great web experiences. The best concept designers have blogs, Slideshare accounts and other merits that showcase their passion.
10) Ask the contact details for every reference case you are shown. If you think a particular case is a good fit, call the contact person and ask how the project went and what kind of a role the agency had. Especially ask the contact person what they did themselves before the agency started the work. Too often the best cases are ones where the client has done all the thinking and the agency just turned a strong vision into pretty designs (which is OK if that’s what you’re looking for).
Finally, always meet the proposed team face to face before your final decision. Two finalists should be fairly easy to pick out and the final decision made based on meetings. You want a team that you feel comfortable working with!
Perttu Tolvanen is a web concept design and content management system expert.
Perttu consults with clients on project planning and defining requirements, and supports customers in selecting content management systems and implementation partners. His areas of specialisation include facilitating concept design workshops and selecting content management systems.
Perttu has ten years of experience with web and intranet projects, including serving as a project manager and consultant. Earlier in his career Perttu has worked in procurement and as a project manager at a large media company, a content management system consultant at a large IT company and an independent, neutral consultant at his own firm. He is also a well-known seminar speaker and blogger. Perttu is also the editor of Vierityspalkki.fi, a Finnish blog about the Finnish internet and its creators.
We are a team of ten consultants, all of whom are experienced designers and technology experts. Every year we design and prepare over 50 different online services and information systems. Our customer satisfaction is very high (9.5 out of 10), and we have helped many customers transform their digital services.
We specialize in high-quality design and requirements specification of digital services. Our mission is to help customers succeed in their software project by creating the best possible foundation for implementation – whether it is an agile implementation done inhouse, a project done with a partner, or a publicly tendered project.
We don't sell coding or licenses
Many software companies recommend software solutions that they also implement themselves. We don’t do that. We don’t do software implementation projects or have partnerships with technology providers. Our perspective on the software market is broad, as it should be for our customers. Our goal is always to find the best possible software solution for our customer, whether it’s a custom-built solution, a SaaS service, an open-source platform, or a combination of these.
We are realistic and forward-thinking
We design digital service concepts, implementation methods and architectures that are sustainable and can be further developed. We place great importance on the feasibility of software solutions, the availability of good partners and the predictability of costs.
Psst, would you like to browse our site in Finnish? Most of our reports and expert articles are available only on our Finnish site.
