Web design workflow: how a small agency moves a site from brief to launch

What does a web design workflow look like?

It looks like a row of statuses that every task moves through, left to right, with one person who moves it on at each step.

A clean hand-off carries four things with the task:

• What was done
• What's left to do
• Where the files are
• Any notes from the client

The board shows where work sits, and the project lead decides what happens next. For the project lead's job on one build, see web design project management.

What does a web design agency workflow add?

An agency workflow adds the client and your brand to the same board: client review steps, written approvals and one person who speaks to the client. If an outside team builds for you, it also needs the work to go out under your agency's name.

• Client review statuses, each with a date by which feedback is due
• A written approval before a design moves into the build
• One person who talks to the client and brings the feedback back to the team
• A rule that every file, email and update the client sees carries your agency's name

Check how any outside team handles this before it touches a client's work. At DeskTeam360, white label is on every plan. Its own name stays off the work, out of emails and out of its project system, so your agency's name is the one your client sees.

How can a web design agency use Trello for its workflow?

Trello is one tool a small agency might use to run this kind of board. Trello's own guide describes a board as a place to keep track of information, and says that's often for large projects, teams or workflows. It also says lists keep cards in order by their stage of progress, and that you can use lists to build a workflow, with cards moving across each step from start to finish. Cards, it says, stand for tasks and ideas.

Here's one way an agency could set up its own board:

1. Make one board for client builds, or one board for each client.
2. Add one list for each status in your workflow, in order.
3. Make a card for each task, with the client's name in the card's title.
4. Put the brief, the files and the due date on the card.
5. Move the card to the next list at each hand-off, and add a note when you do.

Before you settle on any board tool, ask:

• Can you see every build's tasks in one view?
• Can you show a client their own work without showing anyone else's?
• Can you attach files and notes to each task?

Picking tools for the whole agency raises more questions than one build does. For choosing tools for the whole agency, see agency project management.