Growth Driven Design is Not About Design at All...Or is it?
The phrase must have been coined by a marketer—a smart one! One way of looking at it (mine) is that Growth Driven Design is a business approach—not a design approach. Unlike its predecessor design systems, GDD is only about creating websites that are better for business, not necessarily better designed. GDD “experts” talk about the “traditional website design process” being broken, but the frustrations they speak of are related to budget, timeline and results—not design. In fact, I would challenge GDD proponents to look at any site I have designed and tell me if it incorporated a GDD approach or not. I guarantee you they won’t be able to. And the reason is that GDD is not about design. Drilling down into “how it works” of growthdrivendesign.com however, will uncover another way of looking at it (also mine): GDD is what we, as designers, have always done.Growth Driven Design Strategy
At the strategic level, GDD is about understanding the audience’s world and how your website can solve problems along their journey. Admittedly, we didn’t define it clearly enough in the beginning, but who in this design community ever attempted to redesign a website without first seeking to understand the target persona? We have been doing this for years.The Launch Pad MVP
The next step of the process is defined as “build quickly and deliver something that works better than the current site….then iterate” Again, this does not speak about design. Moreover, I find myself asking yet again, has there ever been a web designer that did not focus on delivering quickly and generating a design that performs better (fully knowing that it will be iterated on and optimized further down the road)?Continuous Improvement
Setting aside the business-side of the equation for a moment, I have never met a designer who would choose not go back and optimize designs if they could. I have, however, met many customers and agencies who do not want to pay for continuous improvements to a site and therefore stifle the designer’s innate need to continually improve. It therefore comes down to this: design, by definition, is (and always has been) growth-driven. The current state of the buzzword is designed (excuse the pun) to help customers recognize and agencies sell what designers have long known and practiced.To GDD or Not to GDD?
Let’s forget about GDD as a buzzword for a few minutes (bench it, if you will). Now that those paying the bills have caught up and want us to keep doing what we have been doing (albeit, call it by another name), what’s a designer to do? The answer is a 3-step solution based on a methodology that involves the design process, but does not change it.1. Understand the Need
Customers have started asking for a growth driven website. Often, if asked to describe what they mean, they will either:- Stutter and not know (hint: this unveils GDD as a buzzword—those who use it, don’t fully understand it—they just think they need to have it to keep up with the Joneses); or
- Explain that they want it quick, cheap, and easy to change based on data.
2. Use a Growth Engineering Approach with the Entire Team
Once you recognize that GDD is not about design at all, but rather about the entire process of websites, you may find it beneficial to change how you work with the entire team. Tackling unknown, dealing with changing priorities, relying on data—these are not problems reserved for designers. The entire team deals with these issues—both on the client side and the agency side. The solution is a growth engineering approach to the process. We believe in investing in processes, not in projects. For example, in our recent work on a SaaS client’s site, we uncovered a need to not only improve the website, but also build a mobile app. We involved our content team to create assets that provide value to the target persona and even got granular with the client’s product team to make some required changes to the product itself and their onboarding process. Growth Driven Design is just one cog—the entire machine needs to work in iterative processes where all participants learn and apply in continuous cycles. Our culture is driven by numbers, out-of-the-box creative thinking, and passion for engineering growth.3. Use a Pattern Driven Approach for Design
While design principles per-se are not altered in a GDD approach—your fonts, white space, lines, iconography, etc.—how you go about putting them together may be improved. Ever pondered the term homepage? The pattern driven approach can take that analogy to a new level. Instead of building a home—that is hard, expensive, and time-consuming to renovate, we are building a wardrobe. We define the style and create many pieces that can go together and swap out easily. If your neighbor gets a new roof and you want to keep up with the look and feel, you are in for a long and costly venture. But if your neighbor’s daughter gets a new hat, a quick trip to the mall (or the Amazon app) will have your girl in one that’s even better before the bell rings for recess—she can even do it herself because the style has already been defined. We design patterns. And how they relate to each other in an organic way. Let’s say a section intro block that has:- An H1 heading
- A description <p>
- A CTA button
Growth Driven Freedom
If Growth-Driven Design isn’t about design, then what is it about? In a word: independence. Creating websites built on patterns puts growth in the hands of everyone—both clients and agencies can run tests and make changes easier than ever. The idea of constant improvement moves from the realm of buzzword to standard operating procedure. Aligning with customers and consultants about the need to continually improve gives power to the people. In an era long fallen by the wayside, marketers used to need a coder to make text changes to their sites. Then came CMSs that gave them the power to update text themselves. This did not put coders out of a job, it allowed them to focus their efforts on actual coding rather than a Find and Replace script for new buzzwords. In much the same way, GDD empowers marketers to update site designs based on data they track—and it will not put designers out of a job—it will allow us to focus on designing rather than changing the CTA button from red to orange...and back again. Is GDD a buzzword? Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ride the wave of its popularity to create the same beautiful and effective web designs...in a new way. Now, who is up for some GDDodgeball?Alberto Contreras
Alberto Contreras is a cofounder and partner of InboundLabs, a HubSpot Platinum Partner and makers of The Startup Framework, a free HubSpot template created for designers and marketers alike.
Read Next
15 Best New Fonts, September 2024
Welcome to our roundup of the best new fonts we’ve found on the web in the previous four weeks. In this month’s edition…
By Simon Sterne
3 Essential Design Trends, October 2024
This article is brought to you by Constantino, a renowned company offering premium and affordable website design
You…
A Beginner’s Guide to Using BlueSky for Business Success
In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses are always on the lookout for new ways to connect with their audience.…
By Louise North
The Importance of Title Tags: Tips and Tricks to Optimize for SEO
When it comes to on-page SEO, there’s one element that plays a pivotal role in both search engine rankings and user…
By Simon Sterne
20 Best New Websites, September 2024
We have a mixed bag for you with both minimalist and maximalist designs, and single pagers alongside much bigger, but…
Exciting New Tools for Designers, September 2024
This time around we are aiming to simplify life, with some light and fast analytics, an all-in-one productivity…
3 Essential Design Trends, September 2024
September's web design trends have a fun, fall feeling ... and we love it. See what's trending in website design this…
Crafting Personalized Experiences with AI
Picture this: You open Netflix, and it’s like the platform just knows what you’re in the mood for. Or maybe you’re…
By Simon Sterne
15 Best New Fonts, August 2024
Welcome to August’s roundup of the best fonts we’ve found over the last few weeks. 2024’s trend for flowing curves and…
By Ben Moss
Turning Rejection into Fuel: Your Guide to Creative Resilience
Rejection sucks. And for some reason, it’s always unexpected, which makes it feel like an ambush. Being creative is…
By Louise North
20 Best New Websites, August 2024
The overarching theme in this selection is simplicity. Minimalism never really goes out of fashion and with good…
Free AI-Website Builder, Scene, Helps With the Worst Part of Site Design
AI website design platform, Scene
As we’ve been hearing constantly for the last couple of years, AI will soon replace…
By WDD Staff