Why Web Design Projects Need a Multidisciplinary Team

The design of a website is a complex project that requires a diverse team to maximize your return on investment. Many projects fail because they do not align with a specific business goal.

The objective of this article is to understand the role of each participant, the advantages of having a multidisciplinary team, and the risks it presents to your project.

Composition of a Multidisciplinary Team

Although the ideal team for a project depends a lot on the business goals pursued by it, here is a list of key positions for a general web design project:

Product Strategist Marketing Strategist Copywriting Specialist User Experience Designer Art Director Developer Quality Assurance Specialist

The product strategist is responsible for the user vision of the platform. They will often be the person who can translate the client's vision into features to be developed. They will be present throughout the project.

The marketing strategist is responsible for the digital performance of the platform. They will help the client understand the opportunities related to their vision. They will enable the design team to steer the visual aspects of the product to optimize the website's performance.

The copywriting specialist will work in collaboration with the client to express their vision in words. They will need to validate their writing strategy with the marketing specialist so that the choice of words is made based on opportunities.

The user experience designer will create the framework of the project with recommendations from the product strategist, marketing strategist, and copywriting specialist. This step is critical because an optimized user experience will facilitate post-delivery work.

The art director specializes in the visual appearance of your website. Colors, fonts, and images are the tools they will work with to optimize your brand's digital presence.

The developer can bring to life the work of other team members. They work in collaboration with the product strategist to understand the business rules to be implemented and the project's business objectives.

The quality assurance specialist works upstream of development to identify potential issues with the product. They will also validate the project to ensure it meets the success criteria.

The Advantages of Having a Multidisciplinary Team

The number and frequency of interactions between team members will increase the velocity of information. The worst thing for a project is solo work. Lack of interactions between team members will result in waste. Every time someone goes too far in their part without validation from the rest of the team, potential waste can occur. Waste in a project represents invested time that has no direct impact on the project. An art director who starts searching for inspiration before the marketing team has finished defining the target personas is a good example.

The strategy team can work with the design team to optimize the value of your website. A development team cannot predict the optimal structure for SEO. A common belief recommends working with an agency specialized in SEO or Google Ads campaigns, but digital strategist's work is done in collaboration with the design team and the development team. Few people know that code semantics will have an impact on their Google ranking.

The performance of your website will have a major impact on your Google ranking. If your webmaster does not optimize images, you will likely drop in rankings. WordPress can also decrease your performance because it is a fairly heavy CMS that often requires a lot of plugins to be loaded. Technological choices will help optimize your website's performance.

The Risks of Having a Multidisciplinary Team

Be careful, because the number of participants increases the complexity of the project. The only way to limit the scope of this problem is to promote interactions between team members. Interactions must be framed by rituals to avoid becoming catastrophic.

At a minimum, the team must meet once a day to discuss priorities and resolve blockages. Ideally, the client should be as close as possible to the team. In cases where you absolutely must have an intermediary, know that this role is one of the most important in the project because this person will have the responsibility to act as a communication channel between the team and the client.

Turf wars can occur when there is a lack of cohesion among team members. Each specialist tends to see the project's success according to the parameters they can control. The art director will want the site to look beautiful, despite the fact that other design choices could allow for more visitors to sign up to meet the business objective. It is important to always remind all participants of the project's main objective.

Finally, a multidisciplinary team will allow you to get the most out of your budget. It is enough that the work parameter of each participant is well defined.

Author: Founded in 2014, Bulldozer is a company located in Quebec City. Bulldozer specializes in digital product development, digital strategy implementation, and organizational coaching. Bulldozer works in co-creation with its clients to produce a return on their investment.