Measuring Success
Posted in Design ServicesJul 12, 08 | 12:09 am
Mubashar Iqbal
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After you complete a website do you review the project and try to measure the results? Was the project successful or a failure?
I have built my share of websites, both for myself and for clients, and find that measuring the success for these can be very different.
It is easy to measure the success of my personal websites. Before starting a new project I set some pretty clear goals, and I’m usually one of the two people involved in building the website so it easy to measure my impact on the project and whether it reached its goal. I usually measure my performance using the following metrics:
Traffic levels
I’ll often measure the success of websites on the traffic levels they achieve. Metrics such as monthly page views, and unique visitors, to RSS feed subscribers are often a good measure of success. When I started Design By Grid I wanted to build a resource for other designers, so I set myself a target of 500 RSS feed subscribers in the first 6 months.
Time saver
I often build websites to assist me in performing tasks. Most Inspired for example was originally built to help me find sites for Light on Dark. I was tired to browsing all the existing CSS galleries each day to find new Light on Dark sites, so the idea of a CSS gallery aggregator came about. Most Inspired saved me time each day and helped to keep Light on Dark full of fresh content.
Income
Some sites are built to make money, if they don’t they are a failure, if they do they are a success, simple!
It can be more difficult to measure my performance for a project built for a client. Yes, the client will often have their own goals for the website, against which you are ultimately measured, however the client can themselves be an obstacle in getting the job done. Maybe they don’t get you the information you need, when you need it, or provide you feedback you need as the project progresses.
On projects for clients I usually am working as part of a larger team where the success of the project will be affected by the performance of the other team members as well as my own.
Finally the client can go against your recommendations for a certain aspects of the projects perhaps excluding a feature you recommended, or including elements you recommended be left out, which may affect the overall results of the project, sometimes for the better — some times not.
Some ways that I use to measure my performance on larger projects are:
Was I able to complete all my tasks on the agreed upon schedule?
Whilst my ability to complete tasks on schedule may be affected by external factors, keeping things moving or keeping the schedule up-to-date as timelines change is an important skill.
Quality of the final product
Does your contribution to the product perform according to the specification or design brief? Are you happy with what you submitted to the client for approval? These are often good measure for success.
Team work
When working with other people, how did I get along with them? Was everyone able to work together well on the project or where you constantly at odds with other team members?
Client Satisfaction
Since I am providing a service to the client, this is sometimes the ultimate performance measure. The deadline may have been missed or certain features left out for later phases of the project, but if the client is happy with the results I have cause to be satisfied with your performance.
Everyone will have their own way to measure their performance, so how do you measure your performance on personal and client projects? Or do you not worry about such things?
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inspiring commentary
July 12th, 2008 at 7:48 amty.Gossman
Thanks Mubs.
Sometimes my goals as a designer for client sites is simply, do I like the final design outcome.
Most of my designs are like a finished piece of art, I enjoy visiting the sites years later.
With web standards design being at the forefront of my coding now days that adds another criteria. Did I resort to taking coding shortcuts, such as using tables for specialty data that might have been included where column layouts were necessary beyond the regular design.
Using blueprint or some other CSS framework is a possibility, and one I haven’t explored when it comes to the grid.css. Finally, did the client request some art changes early on that took me out of my creative path for the project.
Sometimes clients have good instincts for what they want, and some times they really manage to hinder any creativity you put in to it.
thoughts…
July 12th, 2008 at 10:46 pmSteven Snell
That’s funny to hear how Most Inspired got started.
An additional struggle in some cases with judging the success of client work is that you may not have all of the information available to you like you would if you owned the site. For example traffic stats. Once a project is finished if you’re not doing ongoing work, chances are a few months down the road you’ll have no way of knowing what type of traffic it’s drawing. Same with income. Of course, much of this is out of your control as the designer and not as the site owner.
July 13th, 2008 at 7:00 pmMubashar Iqbal
@ty: you must be happy with what you produce, and i agree some clients know exactly what they want which can make life a little easier, as long as you feel comfortable with what they are requesting, but they will often make this clear before you start.
@steven: most inspired has some interesting roots and has come a long way since i started it.
you are right about not be able to use some of the standard metrics when reviewing client projects. you also have to keep an eye out for the client changing things after you’ve finished which can affect the performance as well.