Your web development team's design skills are in question. What is the best way to assess them?

1 Define design criteria

Before you can evaluate your team's design skills, you need to have clear and consistent criteria for what good design means. You can use existing standards and frameworks, such as web accessibility guidelines, usability heuristics, or design principles, to define your expectations and goals. You can also customize your own criteria based on your project's requirements, target audience, and brand identity. Make sure your criteria are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART).

2 Collect data and evidence

Once you have your design criteria, you need to collect data and evidence to assess how well your team meets them. To do this, you can use various methods and tools, such as user testing platforms like UserTesting or UserZoom, online survey and interview tools like SurveyMonkey or Typeform, analytics tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar, and peer review tools like InVision or Figma. Invite real or potential users to interact with your website and observe their behavior, reactions, and satisfaction. Ask users or stakeholders to rate or comment on your website's design aspects. Track and analyze your website's performance metrics. And ask other web developers or designers to review your website and provide feedback. Doing so will help you gain valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your website's design.

3 Evaluate and communicate results

After you have collected enough data and evidence, you need to evaluate and communicate the results to your team. To present and discuss your findings, consider using scorecards to summarize and quantify performance based on design criteria (e.g., Excel or Google Sheets). Reports can explain and illustrate performance with data and evidence (e.g., PowerPoint or Google Slides). Additionally, feedback sessions can be conducted and recorded via tools such as Zoom or Slack to share and exchange feedback with your team in a constructive and respectful manner.

4 Identify and implement improvements

Finally, you need to identify and implement improvements based on your evaluation and feedback. To help your team improve their design skills, you can set specific and realistic goals with tools such as Trello or Asana. You can also provide them with opportunities to learn and practice new or advanced design skills using Udemy or Coursera. Additionally, show your team examples of good or bad web design and explain why they work or don't work using Awwwards or Behance. This will help them gain a better understanding of web design principles.