Hooray for Teamwork in Web Design

There’s a fine line in determining if a project deserves the attention of multiple workers.  In my time as a web designer I’ve faced the extremes of being overwhelmed from start to finish as well as having too many cooks in the kitchen.  There are a lot of factors involved such as site complexity, size and time frames.

The main argument is that teamwork burns more hours.  This can happen if people aren’t working well together whether it’s design style differences, communication, meetings or too many strong-opinionated workers.

But the point is that teamwork can lead to a better product!  There’s a thin line between the right amount of brains in a project and too many, but it’s obvious several minds hold more knowledge and experience than one.   Any given website may require strategy, planning, design, front-end code, back-end code, marketing and more.  Freelancers and small web design companies that assign one person to complete a project from start to finish can produce great work, but they can’t excel at every aspect, so the question is, which part of the site could improve and by how much?

• Collaboration is the key.  User interface experts and designers come up with effective and interesting interactivity.  Designers challenge developers to push web technologies to the limit.  Developers implement content management systems and solid code  so other developers can easily and quickly make additions and edits.
• Yes meetings take time that don’t involve production, but talking and planning about a design or code element before diving in often dramatically reduces the production time.
• Having multiple designers on a project yields more creativity, innovation and a better user experience.  It may not always be as efficient in terms of hours spent, but you’d be amazed at how fast it can go in terms of turnaround dates.
• If stumped on design or code, often the best and fastest solution is asking a teammate for help.

If you’re a web designer that hasn’t had the opportunity to work with others, I’d highly recommend giving it a shot.  Not only does it improve your end result, it also makes work more interesting and fun.  There are co-working offices and tons of web design community groups out there, so get to it.