You have made a decision – the new website is coming. The excitement mixed with the doubts: how can I recognize the exact users’ needs? Does the agency have a feeling of our business? What is the goal we want to achieve with this effort? The farther you go, the less you know, they say. We know how you feel.  We helped guide many clients through this path before.

How you start the project will influence the cooperation and its results until the very end. Because of this, this is the agency’s role to guide you through this process and make sure all the business goals are unearthed. Having over ten years of experience in building websites for technology companies, we have developed a design thinking-based workshops that encapsulate all of our experience of launching a new website build. These workshop sessions will let you synchronize internally within organisation and build company-wide clarity on goals, help you organize information:

• brand archetype,
• content tone of voice,
• personas,
• web architecture,

It helps you feel more confident about mutual understanding of the business needs. Sounds good? Take your seat and see how we do this.

Osom fact: Did you know that we organised workshops for participants from 4 different time zones? During one meeting, we connected with: UTC+01:00 (Poland, France), UTC+08:00 (Hong Kong), UTC-05:00 (New York – USA), UTC -07:00 (San Francisco – California – USA), and it was a resounding success!

Are workshops for me?

Usually, the new project starts with a brief. Our clients often have a tough nut to crack – how to answer all those questions we ask them? What is crucial in the scope, and what can they reject? There are plenty of reasons for this issue. Take part in our quiz to check if the workshops are a good choice for your project:

1. Filling the brief is a hard task. I am not sure how to answer the question.

2. I want to make sure that we understand the users’ perspectives.

3. The main goal for my project’ is not precise at this stage.

4. I have limited time for this project and want to speed up the preparatory work.

5. It is challenging to address all needs: users’, stakeholders’ and team members.

6. I have never done a website-building project before.

7. My company needs new branding.

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, the workshops are probably a good solution. The investment, at this stage, will save money later. When you clarify the main goal and users’ needs, making decisions can be more cost and time effective. Our experience shows that including stakeholders early on leads to smoother projects, better results and higher satisfaction for the whole client team.

“Great job guys, it can be difficult to get a group of people to collab & come to decisions, and I thought this was a great exercise for the team!” 

Participant of our workshop’s feedback

Feel the chemistry between your business and our specialists

Searching for the ideal business partner is similar to finding a lawyer. You need someone you can depend on who is knowledgeable in the field. That makes you feel safe. After all you are entrusting them with your nomen omen (business) case. But with lawyers there are no test runs, whereas Osom’s workshops provide great value for your internal team to synchronize and work out the strategy for the website execution but also to verify whether we are the partner you’ve been searching for before making the final commitment. You get the best of both worlds: tangible strategy of execution you can use independently, and a clear idea whether to move forward with Osom.

At Osom, we believe that you are an expert in your business. We are specialists in helping our clients to communicate with others using technology. Together we can work out the best solutions.

For more clues on how to choose the digital agency – check our articles:

Where to look for Digital/WordPress agencies?

What are web development agency red flags? Osom checklist.

Corporate website – choosing key features and the right web agency

Design thinking approach – the User’s perspective

The question, probably, pops into your mind: OK, but what can I expect during the workshops? Our workshops follow a design thinking approach in five steps: 

• empathize, 
• define, 
• ideate, 
• prototype,
• test.

During the first part of the workshops, we empathize with the user. We aim to prepare Personas (read more here: Persona, what is that? and here: How can you use a buyer persona when designing a B2B website?). We also check how the new website helps users to solve their problems (Value Proposition Canva exercise). During this meeting, we cover the first two steps: empathize and define.

In the second part of the workshop, we ideate and prototype by exploring design paths, brand archetypes, and tone of voice. Finally, we create the website’s initial scope with architecture during the MoSCoW exercise.

Not a summary of the meeting

We gather the necessary information to prepare a Workshop Report with Personas, brand archetypes, tone of voice, design mood board, and website architecture (which may vary depending on the project scope). Clients have a clear idea of their needs and goals by this stage.

After workshops

Sometimes the results can be surprising, and you may find that, for example, it will be better to optimize the existing website: Creating an Effective Website: Is it Better to Build New or Optimize an Existing One?

Typically, based on the report, we will create wireframes (prototyping step) and enter the design and development phase (more about: Effective Communication from First Contact to Website Launch: Osom Studio’s Tried and Tested Process ). After launching the website, we will test its value to users and your business.