Comments on: Death to design by committee

By: Jonathan Elder

Jonathan Elder — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Great article – and possibly worth sharing with new clients.

By: Anntina

Anntina — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 08:59:00 +0000

I like your website…….http://wallpaperswa.com

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:50:00 +0000

Here is what we do to avoid design by committee:

Find the key person who will approve the design, hold a meeting with this person and explain the main factor that makes the website succeed – the website visitors should like the website only then it will succeed . Show some successful websites and ask to guess how many people visit this website per month, then show the actual stats. Then take a commitment to allow us to design the website focusing on the needs of the website visitors.

By: Dan Rowles

Dan Rowles — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:05:00 +0000

Brilliant, I am now going to share this with the world!!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:28:00 +0000

Excellent article with practical advice. My challenge has been getting stakeholders to hold off a bit until I can even *get* user feedback. It’s not as if you can hide the design you’re doing from the organization until after testing happens. We have (in theory) a process where all designs are validated quickly by users before implementation, but management often won’t allow me to complete the process. Anyone have any advice on managing such a situation?

By: Stevie Black

Stevie Black — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:43:52 +0000

I too have had the pleasure ( and the pain ) of designing interactive by and for committees. Unfortunately, committees gauging excellence should be left to the dominion of design competitions, Top Chef episodes, and Rupaul.

In my experience, the best way to deal with design committees is, as you say, not to meet with them as groups (this just brings all of the social-emotional into the equation). I have also found that giving these groups very specific tasks related to the design work can be very helpful; tasks like surveying their current content and their future content needs, can actually work in your favor as this often exposes serious issues and raises questions internally that they might have simply waved their hands at and dismissed had the designer brought them up.

Another great blog post.

By: Andy Rutledge

Andy Rutledge — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:19:55 +0000

@paul, To be clear, my article explained that it's "not always" a good idea to show wireframes to clients. It also alluded to the fact that it sometimes is a good idea.

I don't want you to believe that Paul and I are necessarily at odds here, just that we're each talking about different contexts. Context matters.

Cheers, Andy

By: Sokak Trendleri

Sokak Trendleri — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:17:05 +0000

Really good work, and I agree with @Mark. Very tough process and nobody seems satisfying.

By: Mark McCorkell

Mark McCorkell — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 18:01:30 +0000

Loved the article! Design by committee is something I've experienced first hand, and it is horrible. I learned from it though, and I'm a better designer for it. It will never happen again (god willing).

By: Steven Grant

Steven Grant — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:58:47 +0000

Primarily I work for a local authority council, http://www.southlanarkshire.gov.uk

We appointed Jadu as our CMS provider last year but have been working on the “design” since March(ish). Unfortunately, the site is being designed by a print designer whose only previous website was the monstrosity we have at the moment. That design is going through the the above process and it’s just horrendous.

In the mix we have:
- 3 developers (me + 1 who have actually built other websites and our line manager who is a PL/SQL coder)
- 1 project manager
- 2 graphic designer (1 is head of graphic design)
- 2 web journalists (1 is council mouth piece)
- 3 “content managers” and I use that very loosely as I’ve yet to see a piece of managed content

then add in 2 levels of senior management (1 IT and the other corporate).

Looking to launch in Oct, work is being rushed and the quality is poor.

Unfortunately I’m told “that’s how councils work” but its never thought of to look at ways of improving the process. Wireframing, mood boarding etc were non existent.

Avoid this at all costs if possible.

Thank goodness freelance takes me away occasionally as I couldn’t work that way all the time.