I’m a web designer

I don’t call myself a UX, UI, Service Designer, Interaction Designer, Interface Designer or any of those other phrases.

I don’t even know what a UX, UI, Service Designer, Interaction Designer, or Interface Designer is.

I’m just a designer that (usually) makes stuff for the web. Therefore I’m a web designer.

I don’t have a complicated or secretive process when it comes to designing things. I sit down with as many people as I can who are important to a project and I chat with them for as long as I can.

After that, I’ll work on sketching some ideas in a notebook, and sometimes that even happens in a meeting with the client.

Sometimes, but not often, I’ve got an idea in my head that I know will work before I’ve even left the first meeting.

After sketching some stuff I make wireframes. I then use these to show the client how the website might work and what things will go where and we chat about the project again. We work together to produce some wireframes that’ll make a good website.

The client knows their industry better than anybody and I never miss an opportunity to pull out some of that knowledge from them.

I stay humble, I stay interested, and most of all: I stay curious.

Once we’ve finished chatting and going back and forth, we’ve got some wireframes that we both agree on. Once I’ve got those, I’ll design some stuff. I design it in Photoshop because I like to use Photoshop.

I come up with some designs and then I’ll sit down with the client again and talk about them. I do this so I can sell my design decisions and explain my reasonings.

I’m not prescriptive about much, but I believe the only way you can sell your design as a designer is face to face, with words out of your mouth and never from your keyboard.

More often than not the client loves what I’ve done, but sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they want a few changes, and sometimes they want a lot of changes. Either way, things will get discussed and points put forward. Eventually we work together to get some designs we both think will make a good website, then we go build a good website.

My process isn’t special. It’s an order of actions I’ve used and tweaked over the years of being a web designer. It doesn’t just produce nice-looking websites, because that’s only one small part of it. It produces websites that gets people to contact our clients more regularly, and makes them more money too.

I don’t need to call myself an Experience Designer, A Happiness Engineer or a Concept Director to sell my services anymore than I already can.

I’m happy with being a web designer. I call myself a web designer because that’s what I do.

Simple.