IXD 302 – Writing the Proposal

Title Page

Client Company: Belfast City Council

Project title: Hill Street Brand and Website

Submission date: November 19th

Company Undertaking Project: Grissam’s Design Firm

Proposal author: Matthew Grissam

 

The Brief

The first I wrote was the brief, not the brief Daniel gave us but the actual fictional brief given for the Hill Street proposal.

Belfast City Council are seeking to create a brand identity and website for Hill Street. Hill Street is a popular area for nightlife and businesses in Belfast. Although Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, foot traffic on the street had sadly declined. A brand identity will help to rebuild awareness of the area. Creating a strong brand identity will help to attract new businesses and tourists back to the area. The brands logo will be inspired by the area’s cultural significance and heritage.

A web presence will provide businesses, tourists and even local members of the public with information on what’s happening in the area. This will include events, the history of the area and nightlife. A news page will also be included to help inform people of what’s going on around the area such as new businesses. The webpage will also highlight the areas focus on working with businesses and supporting art and culture. The plan will be to follow a set down guideline of phases to keep on target and within a deadline.

Project Approach

We will be following a series of phases of “Discover, Preparation, Define, Design, Prototyping, Testing and Deploy”. These phases help break up the work and will help you the stakeholder to understand the processes we will be undertaking to produce the outcome

 

Phase 1 – Discover – Planning the overall strategy and researching the businesses on the street.

Phase 2 – Preparation – Preparing all the gathered research into mind maps and site maps.

Phase 3 – Define – Defining information into a User Journey Map and looking into the Information Architecture.

Phase 4 – Design – Illustrate wireframes and designing other aspects of the website.

Phase 5 – Prototyping – Creating high fidelity wireframes and also creating the first prototype.

Phase 6 – Testing – Giving you the user the chance to test the website and give feedback.

Phase 7 – Deploy – Provided feedback goes well and no major issues are found, the website can be rolled out and then less glaring issues are resolved.

Starting with phase 1, the researcher of the team will gather research of the general area and the street itself, looking at the business within the street and what audience they tailor too as the website may need to incorporate their audiences needs. While the research is being done the UX designers in the team will put together a strategy plan.

Tasks to be done in Phase 1 are as follows.

  • Writing a project brief – This document will outline product goals and objectives, identifies project team members, roles, and responsibilities.
  • Persona Development – Personas are documents that describe typical target users.
  • Analysis – Competitive analysis, reviewing competitor products to identify where the new product will have to stand in the competitive landscape.

 

Once the research is done, we will move to phase 2 and prepare all the gathered research and start putting it into charts, mind maps and graphs so we can get a picture of what the target audiences are, the needs of each business and starting to consider the overall design of the website.

Tasks to be done in Phase 2 are as follows.

  • Minimum Viable Product – A detailed report from gathered research from the previous phase will determine the requirement of the product.
  • Minding mapping – Mind mapping ideas and creating site maps with the goal of generating ideas

 

Once we reach phase 3 the team will look at aspects such as information architecture and creating a user journey map. The user journey map will help us map out the mental models of the users, this means how things should behave, the flow of interactions and possible points of contact.

Tasks to be done in Phase 3 are as follows.

  • User Journey Map – Looking at the flow of interactions and possible points of contact.
  • Information Architecture – Website architecture to define the overall structure, navigation and homepage design.

 

Moving onto phase 4, we will start to fully fledge out the ideas through designs. These designs will be shown with the client to receive feedback regarding structure, colour, typography, imagery etc. This will be one of the more time-consuming phases as every aspect will be explored in terms of how it will affect the design if implement.

Tasks to be done in Phase 4 are as follows.

  • Concepting wireframes – Initial sketches, rough and basic these will lay the fundamental ideas of layout out the pages.
  • Looking at Colour – We will also look at colour, for example which colours may suit the area in question.
  • Typography – Looking at type faces and playing around with them find the best synergy with the other elements.
  • Laying out the Structure – In the phase the structure will be constructed in wireframes with the finalised design being forwarded to the next phase.

 

Phase 5 will start with creating the high-fidelity wireframes these will be designed from the designs that were made from feedback with the client. These high-resolution mock-ups will then form the basis for creating the working prototype. The Prototype will then be constructed from the mock-ups being given the interactive elements that are not able to get from a still image. The prototype will then be shown in front of the client for further feedback. Once all is finalised, we will move onto constructing the actual product for testing.

Tasks to be done in Phase 5 are as follows.

  • High Fidelity Mock-ups – These will be created right after phase 3 is finished.
  • Prototype – The prototype will be made from the mocks up and then shown to the client.

 

 

 

Phase 6 will give the client the opportunity to play with the website and test it, the businesses of the street will also be given the opportunity as well to give more insights and more feedback. Depending on the outcome of phase 6 we may have to back track to phase 4 if redesigns are needed. Although these may not take much time to fix at all. If the outcome is good, then the next stage of deploying the website will happen.

Tasks to be done in Phase 6.

  • The only task that will be needed to be done will be to take notes, on feedback and on seeing how people interact with the website.

 

The final phase will be the completion of the brief and the end of the job, any small issues will be touched up and fixed before payment will be requested. Although do bear in mind these fixes will go under working hours so you will be required to pay for the time as usual.

Project Extension

The project team may identify further opportunities to enhance and improve the product, if this is the case it will be based on information during the above phases. If this occurs, those opportunities can be explored in a separate proposal underlining the activities required to do so.

Assumptions

A total of 5 people will be working on this project, each and everyone will have specific role within the project. This includes the researcher, the UX team and a team leader. A total of max 5 hours a day each.

The activities of phases 1 and 2 will not require any revisions based on feedback as they will be purely on the basis of research.

The development of the final product is limited to 3 rounds of revisions.

Making the website interactive is acceptable and will be encouraged.

Project Pricing

 Brand Identity

Phase 1 – Discover                                                                                                                                                      2 Days

Phase 2 – Preparation                                                                                                                                                1 Days

Phases 1 & 2 – Meet up to go over research and plan the route ahead                                                                   1 Day

Phase 3 – Define                                                                                                                                                         3 Days

Phase 4 – Design                                                                                                                                                        4 Days

Phase 5 – Prototyping                                                                                                                                                2 Days

Phase 6 – Testing                                                                                                                                                        1 Days

Phase 7 – Deploying                                                                                                                                                   1 Day

Total Days                                                                                                                                                                    15 Days

Brand Identity

Research and analysis: 10hrs x £25 = £250

Idea generation and feedback: 5hrs x £25 = £125

Design production and feedback 16hrs x £25 = £400

Project Roll out and management: 10hrs x £25 = £250

Total= £1025

Website

Phase 1 – Discover                                                                                                                                                      2 Days

Phase 2 – Preparation                                                                                                                                                1 Days

Phase 3 – Define                                                                                                                                                         1 Days

Phase 4 – Design                                                                                                                                                        3 Days

Phase 5 – Prototyping and Production                                                                                                                 6 Days

Phase 6 – Testing and feedback                                                                                                                              2 Days

Phase 7 – Deploying                                                                                                                                                   1 Day

Total Days                                                                                                                                                            16 Days

Website

Research and analysis: 15hrs x £25 = £375

Designing: 15hrs x £25 = £375

Prototyping: 10hrs x £25 = £250

Production: 25hrs x £25 = £625

Project Testing and Roll out: 10hrs x £25 = £250

Total= £1875

Acknowledgement and Sign-off

This proposal is agreed and acknowledged by Belfast City Council. The proposal must be signed and dated by an authorised representative of the Belfast City Council for the project to commence.

This proposal constitutes the agreement between the parties in relation to the subject matter of this proposal. This proposal merges and supersedes all prior oral or written agreements, discussions, negotiations, commitments, writings, or understandings. This includes without limitation any representation contained on any sales literature, brochures, or other written descriptive or advertising material and is the complete and exclusive statement of the terms of the party’s agreement. Each of the parties acknowledges and agrees that in executing this proposal it has not relied upon, and it expressly disclaims any reliance upon, any representation or statement not set forth herein or on the Agreement.

Accepted by the authorised representatives of:

 

 

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