Design

Questions for Design Review

Since the design mockups are secretive, I prepared questions to ask during the “unveil” meeting. These questions are strictly for the designer who doesn’t code.

Research

  • Had you conducted any research for the redesign? If yes, can you share something you had found?

Accessibility

  • Have you used an accessibility tool like WebAim to check your color contrast?

Navigation

  • Are we getting rid of the quick links, which is one of the most frequent use navigational item on the current site
  • How does the menu function on mobile devices?
  • Are repeated links in the footer necessary? The Nielsen Norman Group suggests, “Eliminate redundancy on webpages whenever possible to reduce cognitive overload. Each extra link makes your site harder to use.”

Fonts

  • How are you planning on hosting the fonts? Local or third-party?
  • Will we be using static or variable fonts?
  • Do the fonts support beyond English? Do they include diacritics? We have quite a few faculty and staff names with diacritics such as: Helen Alvaré, Seán O’Connor, and Tammy Trần

Mock-ups

  • We use tables for various tabular data such as course schedules. Do you have a mock-up for tables? How do tables respond to various devices? How do you sort each table column?
  • Do you have a mock-up for the faculty and staff bio page? How do you list their credentials and bio?
  • Do you have a mock-up for an emergency message at the top of the site?
  • Do you have a mock-up for a spotlight story? Are there options for including photos—algin left, align right, or full width?
  • Do you have a mock-up for the events section?
  • Do you have a mock-up for secondary pages?

Banners

  • Do we use responsive images for banners? How do they look on mobile vs. desktop?

Design System

Layout

  • What is the max width of the site?
  • Are there flexibilities for the layout?
  • Can we drop the sidebar for a full-width design?
  • Can we switch the columns around?
  • Is there a grid pattern we can choose?