Growth Driven Design - The New Web Development

So wise, you're looking to create a new website? How do the words 'website design' make you feel? If you're anything like me, it all sounds like a bit of a faff. It's a tale as old as time really, traditional web design is painful, complex, time-consuming, expensive and a guaranteed vibe-killer. But help is at hand! The passing of traditional web design (R.I.P) means that the process doesn't have to be so painful. Say howdy to the best thing to grace your digital marketing strategy - Growth Driven Design. 

Growth Driven Design, or GDD, minimises the inherent risks of traditional web design through a systematic approach that shortens the time to launch by focusing on real impact and continuous learning and improvement. You'll be seeing results faster than a Married At First Sight relationship, through having your new website up and running in under three months! 

This is then used as the 'launch pad' for understanding what your visitors are doing and loving, and how you can improve the site's performance. Rather than the 'launch and pray' tactic of yesteryear, GDD evolves as the website does. It embraces constant researching, experimenting and insights about your user's experiences and then takes all of this ever-so important info to drive your overall marketing strategy. 

I know this might sound too good to be true, but bear with me. Let me show you the magic methodology that'll have you feeling big love. 

1. Strategy

The first step of the GDD framework is where you get inside your audiences head. Other than the frankly obvious thought of - 'Wow what a glorious company' - you are also going to need to identify their pain points and how your website can better solve their problems along their journey through the creation of some business and website goals. 

To do this, you are going to have to gather everyone together, get in a huddle, and audit that bad boy - giving you amazing insights like where your users are coming from and how they are interacting and engaging with your site. 

To whittle this down, focus on the user's jobs to be done (their underlying need for connecting with your site) and the fundamental assumptions (user problem statements, current user behaviour habits, etc.) to then develop a journey map showing your persona's journey before, during and after they enjoyed associating with your website. 

After this deep-dive, the group needs to re-surface and brainstorm a wish-list of every feature and function you'd want the website to have. Once your list is looking like the less-than-humble relic you wrote to Santa when you were six, perform an 80/20 analysis - determine which 20% of your wish-list will deliver 80% of the impact.

2. Launch Pad 

The second stage is where you build and launch your website - interestingly the last step in the traditional web design process (teehee). The idea is to quickly build a website that looks better and performs better than what you have today, but is not the final product. Oh no, this launch pad is designed to get into user hands fast, so you can start monitoring the performance of the site and make immediate updates based on user feedback. Lightning fast. 

To get your speed on, check these out: 

Customise an acceleration approach 

There are a number of ways to maximise acceleration while maintaining quality. But because each website is so unique, it will require a mix of different approaches to make sure it's the best damn launch pad it can be. This is why it can be super helpful to work with an experienced HubSpot partner agency, ahem, to guide you on the best approach for your new launch pad!

Run design sprints on high-impact pages and sections 

A design sprint is a short, concentrated time period focused on solving a problem using brainstorming, design, prototyping and testing. They help you use your teams incredible intellect and creativity to generate the best possible ideas to bless you with a high-quality prototype of your new website in record time. Neat. 

Effective content development 

Those of us who have built websites in the past, may know that developing high-quality content is one of the most challenging aspects of a website build, because the process is tough on our big ol' brains. But having an effective content development process can accelerate your content production and ensure the quality is next-level. 

Investing in internal efficiencies 

The last way you can accelerate the process is through investing in internal efficiencies. This may include switching from a waterfall process to an agile or scrum process, building an internal library of pre-built templates, removing developer dependencies or leveraging collaboration tools. 

3. Continuous Improvement 

Now that your strategy has been created and your launch pad is more live than Jon Snow (*spoilers*), it's about time we started identifying the high-impact actions you can take to grow your business based on real user data. In all the madness and excitement of creating a super website, it may be difficult to stay focused on improving the highest impact items at any given time. 

So here's a simple and agile process to get you continuously improving: 

Plan

In order to decide what you'd like to accomplish in this months sprint cycle, compare your performance against the goals you outlined in Stage 1 - identify any items on your wish-list that could be initiated, and use a performance roadmap to ensure you and your team are spending time and energy on improving the most impactful areas. 

Build 

Once you've got your plan, it's time to put it into effect. Don't forget to set up validation tracking to measure your precious success metrics and develop marketing campaigns to drive traffic to your new pages and features that you've worked so hard on. 

Learn 

This is where we strap our snorkel back on, and see if all the changes you've made have had the desired effect - what more have you learnt about the user that you can leverage to improve the overall user experience? 

Transfer 

Now we get to go full 'show-and-tell', and share what you've learnt with the rest of the company. But instead of showing them a super underwhelming papier-mâché fish (thanks dad), you're going to be telling them all of the powerful and fascinating insights you've uncovered and ensure that the entire business is working toward the same objectives. 

So there you have it! Born from the ashes of traditional web design, Growth Driven Design invites you to bask in all its glory, by enjoying increased revenue, happier employees and happier customers ... and quite frankly, a far sexier way to do website development.