Few things are as responsible for setting back the timeline of a digital project then when a project is sent to development incomplete. The excitement at getting through the front end/design portion of the project is indeed palpable, but a word of caution.
Take a breath, review this checklist and sure your project is ready to be handed over. You’ll thank us (and your non-grey hairs) later.
Full Final PSDs – this is not a joke, let us emphasize the final part of this statement. If you still have changes or need someone to sign off, don’t send it!! A seemingly small change (move the nav to the other side, etc.) can take a day or longer in dev – if you’re time and budget conscious make sure you’ve got everything finalized!
Overstates – everyone always forgets the overstates. Make sure they’re in your design files!
Final Copy – it’s OK if this isn’t integrated in the designs (although it really helps!) but make sure you’re done tweaking your copy, nothing is worse than losing a day in your timeline because you tacked on an extra sentence and had to restructure the page because the paragraph didn’t fit the space anymore.
Responsive Direction – whether this is wireframes or designs, this is incredibly helpful! Asking your development team to either assume or guess what you want for responsive breakpoints is a significant risk to your project. As the creative/client lead you want to make sure these are black and white – any grey can lead to increases in project costs and time to launch. No one wants that!
The full annotation of the designs – for example: you’re linking to your Twitter account on the homepage – provide the link! You expect a click to open an in page drawer – tell us and provide the designs! Look through every page and ask yourself – what isn’t shown here that I want to happen? Animations? Then document that and send it over with your designs.
Anything we’re integrating with – an API? A CRM? Are we pulling in an XML feed? Provide this along with your initial delivery of files. It will make your project go faster and more smoothly!
It seems in many digital projects there is one thing that is forgotten or overlooked and needs to be reviewed. This is will always be a part of the collaborative process. However, the more detailed and thorough you are in the transition from design to development will save you time, money, and frustration.