Design Audits are one of the most common practices in the modern age of digital marketing.
Basically, a design audit ensures that a website or a brand has all its graphic elements following a preferred theme. As graphical elements are one of the most significant aspects of visual branding, many digital agencies face clients who want to conduct a design audit for their websites.
Conducting a design audit requires a panel of graphic designers to communicate effectively and see and compare the graphical elements of a website. However, with a remote team, design audits are one of the hardest tasks for graphic designers.
Modern trends for digital marketing show a rise in remote teamwork. In the US, 42% of the labor force was working from home full-time in summer 2020.
Without a physical presence, outlining the graphics of a website and sharing them amongst a team can be challenging. As a result, comprehensive feedback and revisions follow, which simply can’t be done on a group call.
This is where teams fall in the need for good website design tools, just as Webvizio. But before you learn how to use the right visual feedback web design tools, you need to understand the problems in depth.
Productive vs. Costly Back and Forth Communication
Back-and-forth communication refers to a discussion between a team where both sides provide inputs to the topic. In a digital marketing department, this refers to communication taking place between the hierarchy of the department.
Looks pretty confusing, doesn’t it? Well, this does reflect the communication channels of many digital agencies, which causes havoc in working out the simplest of projects.
This is a visual aid of why good communication is one of the most important factors of achieving productivity. Further backed by the survey, which shows 97% of workers believe that communication impacts tasks every day.
Good communication channels ensure that a remote team engages only in positive back-and-forth communications and eliminates negative impacts.
Here are some examples where back-and-forth communication is productive in a digital agency.
Planning
Efficient planning of the creation of projects requires inputs from employees all around the office. Even with a remote team, back-and-forth communication provides a headstart to a project.
This approach motivates employees working on the project and also informs project managers of feedback from their subordinates regarding previous projects.
Feedback
When tasks need revisions, especially during the QA web design phase, back-and-forth communication with visual feedback tools becomes essential. This communication helps subordinates understand which elements need additional work and helps managers comprehend why the team didn’t complete the work initially. On the other hand, here are some examples where back-and-forth communication costs remote teams money and time.
Lack Of Visual Communication
Verbal communication with graphic designers is a major red flag for a web design company. In many cases, this leads to failed designs, necessitating back-and-forth communication for revisions.
Chinese Whispers
Agencies with a tall chain of command prevent direct communication. Each message follows many supervisors in a hierarchy to reach the top which can cause unclear communications and lead to needing even more back-and-forth communications.
7 Tips To Reduce Back and Forth Communications During Design Audits With A Remote Team
- Face To Face Communications
While face-to-face communications aren’t possible remotely, the closest means of communication is conference video calls. These provide a chance to speak for everyone in a team and prevent misunderstandings. - Clarity Over Quantity
In meetings with a large number of people, managers need to be clear and concise. Additionally, in many cases, the more a person speaks, the less likely subordinates will follow. Furthermore, stretching a topic that could be summed up in minutes to hours can make employees bored and not pay enough attention. - Visual Communication
For design audits, visual communication is a primary need. Graphical elements need to be shared on an online platform where everyone can view them clearly, and annotation tools should be used to point out requirements. - An Equilibrium Of Speaking and Listening
Especially for project heads, if you don’t want subordinates to follow up later on about a meeting and waste time, make sure you listen to every query in the meeting that takes place. - Ask Questions
Most back and forth communications arise when over time subordinates find themselves asking questions that didn’t ring a bell in their minds when they had a chance to speak. To prevent that, create a list of questions before meetings and ask the questions yourself. - Ask For Feedback About Previous Projects
Before starting a new design audit, hold a meeting and ask your subordinates for feedback relating to previous design audits they’ve done. This will help you highlight inputs from employees that can help in a better job done in the future. - Use Webvizio
Webvizio is the only web design tool your design audit remote team would need to tackle all of the above problems. Firstly, it creates a shared platform using an annotation website. Additionally, it enables managers to dissect graphical elements for design audits. Furthermore, it uses visual feedback as the primary means of communication and ultimately enables a comprehensive QA web design for client satisfaction.
In just a matter of seconds, you can separate graphical elements of the most comprehensive of websites.
Register Now and Give It A Try Yourself!
Streamlining Design Audit With Webvizio
Remember the Design Audit communication chart from above? The one that looked too complicated to be productive? Well, here is a visual representation of how Webvizio can help simplify all of it.
86% of employees and executives cite the lack of effective collaboration and communication as the main causes for workplace failures. This is just another reason why good collaboration tools are primarily needed for remote teams.
With Webvizio as your web design tool, design audits can be easily conducted with a remote team.
Webvizio helps create an online shared platform with real-time updates, such that remote teams have no communication barriers.
Using an online annotation website, graphical elements can easily be collected from the most comprehensive of websites and can be assigned to different employees, along with additional notes priorities, deadlines, and more.
While eliminating the need for back-and-forth communication that causes negligence in work, positive back-and-forth communication for feedback and revisions can be easily performed using Webvizio.
