Designs are rarely right first time. It’s only by continuously assessing, reiterating and refining design work that the best result emerges over time. This article by Jason Fried of Basecamp lists the questions he asks himself when reviewing his design work. It’s helpful to see each one listed down, acting like a quality-assurance checklist.
These are in no particular order, and I not all are applicable all the time:
- What does it say?
- What does it mean?
- Is what it says and what it means the same thing?
- Do we want that? Why do we need to say that here?
- If you stopped reading here, what’s the message?
- What’s the take away after 8 seconds?
- How does this make you feel?
- What’s down below?
- How else can we say this?
- What’s memorable about this?
- What’s that for?
- Who needs to know that?
- Who needs to see that?
- How does that change behaviour?
- What’s the payoff?
- What does someone know now that they didn’t know before?
- How does that work?
- Why is that worth a click?
- Is that worth scrolling?
- What’s the simpler version of this?
- Are we assuming too much?
- Why that order
- Why would this make them choose that?
- What does a more polished version of this look like?
- Why would someone leave at this point?
- What’s missing?
- Why are we saying this twice?
- Is it worth pulling attention away from that?
- Does that make it clearer?
- What’s the obvious next step?
- How would someone know that?
- Would it matter if someone missed that?
- Does that make it easier or harder?
- Would this be better as a sentence or a picture?
- Where’s the verb? Why is that there?
- What matters here?
- What would happen if we got rid of that?
- Why isn’t that clear?
- Why is this better?
- How can we make this more obvious?
- What happens when this expands?
- If we got rid of this, does that still work?
- Is it obvious what happens next?
- What just happened?
- Where’s the idea?
- What problem is that solving?
- How does this change someone’s mind
- What makes this a must have?