Goal, timeframe TBD:
- Modernize Laddawn.com's overall look and feel and enhance usability.
- Bring new features to market sooner with high fidelity and responsiveness built in as much as possible.
- Other?
How we do this?
Move to a cleaner CSS Grid?
Use a front end coding framework?
- Take care in selecting one that supports the brand and doesn't tie our hands too much
Develop a UI style guide (aka pattern library) with reusable components - is that sufficient? (Is a framework like Bootstrap needed in addition to using a grid and a library?)
People, process, collaboration: Involve developers from the beginning in design concepting and throughout design process, balanced against time and other constraints - this cannot always involve meetings and constant consultation. Need to leverage collaboration tools such as Wiki, and work openly and transparently.
Redesign overall look and feel. Scope? Freeze functionality but... Is "redesign" more than pure cosmetics? For example, make each tab (if we stick with tabs) its own page? Question everything? (Except functionality ... input fields, etc.)
What happens if we don't do these things and proceed with implementation of major new features? How long will it take to make them responsive?
Proof of concept
To answer the questions above, do a time-limited proof of concept.
Determine scope - redesign a single tab?
What development environment will it live in?
Select a framework to try (e.g. Bootstrap) - Derek, John and others? Should we try more than one?
Design the tab (or whatever we agree is being redesigned) and do a design handoff - to answer the questions:
- Does the use of a Grid-based design + transfer tools like Zeplin + framework (Bootsrap, other?) + improved collaboration/communication = faster implementation, with high design fidelity (fewer QA/cleanup issues), and less effort to produce responsive screens?
- What would it take to implement sitewide? (Both from UX - design of all screens + style guide, and Dev. - coding front end and reconciling with existing backend functionality)?
- Will the level of effort, opportunity costs (freeze on feature enhancements), etc., be justified in the end by the gains?
- Does working with a framework like Boostrap feel like it will constrain our design solutions too much? What does it add? (Is Grid + design library sufficient?) Or do frameworks have a lot of flexibility?