“Design is thinking made visuals!”
Have you ever been a part of the web development process? If yes, you must have been pretty aware of the three main aspects- Design, Deadline, and Differing opinions.
On some days, the designing process can be really exhausting, especially when communication is not so proper. Well, if you find yourself in this situation more than once, you need to read this article. Screenshots are a savior when you talk about the designing process. From initial planning to post-launch, screenshots are here to save your day. Wondering how? Let’s get started!
Do you remember the trouble of explaining a visual concept via just words? Well, I do and that’s why I can say, it is pretty irritating. Things like pixels, colors, margins, etc. are pretty impossible to explain without the use of graphics. As web designing itself is a visual medium, using annotation is the best approach to give feedback throughout your journey.
Let’s talk about this journey one by one.
Initial planning:
There is no denying the fact that transparent and accurate planning is the base of any development stage. This is the part, where you get the chance to map out key objectives of the whole project. Since you are already surrounded by multiple limitations here, designs are something you must not take any chances for. Taking timely screenshots is a wise step here.
During the planning stage, you go through multiple websites, taking ideas and inspirations, capturing screenshots can make your day. During my planning phase, I keep taking screenshots of all of the websites that inspire me. It guides me to the right place when I want to start designing. Additionally, this also helps me to show my design ideas to seniors, before even designing anything.
If you want to go one step further, you can take this screenshot process on autopilot. Websites like Stillio can help you with automated website screenshots. All that you have to do is to enter the website URL or social media profile URLs into the dashboard and you’re done. Isn’t that easy?
Designing:
Once all the planning is done, it is time to convert these ideas into visuals.
Let’s all go through how this phase goes on. You start with a few designs that match your imagination. After multiple trying and testing, you are satisfied with a few designs. So you inform your boss and wait for the meeting to get an opinion for the same, right?
What if I could tell you all of this can be simplified with screenshots? Don’t believe me? Let me explain. Instead of setting up meetings or conference calls with seniors, why not send them screenshots of your designs? We all know, screenshots are more helpful in making the communication quicker, you don’t need to wait until your designs are final. You can simply take feedback on every step of the designing process.
Development:
Screenshots are an essential part of designing as well as the development process. With the help of screenshots, the process of sharing information within the teams becomes very easy.
- White space is too much? Take a screenshot! (Just like here)
- Images not rendering properly? Take a screenshot!
- The text size is too small? Take a screenshot!
Among all of the above situations, taking screenshots can ensure proper and quicker communication, no matter your team is right in front of you or across the globe.
Since development is not just about coding and framework building, designing, and development team when working together, can do wonders.
Launch:
Screenshots are extremely helpful when you are dealing with the testing phase of the launching process. Your pages are built, and it’s the time to give all of your designs and pages a final check to ensure they are working properly.
Additionally, you would also want to check the complete production website to ensure all is set to go in front of the public. And that’s where comes the most important part, ie customer experience. To ensure I provide a smooth experience to my end users, I send these pages for review to my seniors. In return, I ask for screenshots. This is the most effective way to get clear feedback on user experience and web page designs.
Post-launch:
So you think now is the time to sit back and relax, well, not really! This is the time when you want to dig into the data. No matter you are using tools like Google Analytics or Crazy Egg, analyzing your web page performance is crucial.
Taking screenshots of this data and sharing them with your fellow team members can help you decide your future steps and strategies. This also speeds up the analysis process.
So, friends, these are some of the ways you can use screenshots to streamline the design and development process. There are hundreds of other use-cases you can experiment with. Do let us know your thoughts about the same.
