There has been a lot of conversation/debate recently in the industry regarding “spec work”. The panel, “Is spec work evil?” at SXSW this year as well as emerging online communities such as 99designs and GeniusRocket are only adding to the conversation, for better or worse. We by no means are looking to get into the debate or even truly express an opinion one way or another; the truth is we have pretty mixed feelings on the topic. Fundamentally speaking though, it isn’t about wanting to do spec work or even believing in the idea; it is just something we can’t do more than something we’ve arguably decided not to do. To do “web design” the way we do it (the way we believe it should be done), spec work just isn’t possible; it isn’t feasible or appropriate.
“Web Design” is the summation of parts, of critical elements that together make a unique, usable and stylish experience reflective of the organizational objectives with respect to the end user. To truly accomplish that you’ll need much more than a creative brief or a requirements document. You’ll need a competitive market analysis, content inventory, business objectives, audience segments, use-cases, user-personas as well as a wealth of other information that begins to define the basis for a problem before articulating a solution.
A website is much more than a pretty picture; every product manager, information architect, usability and user-experience designer out there will defend and articulate the importance of understanding the entity before designing the entity. We simply can’t draw the picture without knowing the subject; and in the context of web design, the subject is very complex. Web design is not about art, it is about visual communication – visual communication as a strategy. This is a strategy that can’t be articulated over a word document; it is one that involves stakeholder and executive interviews, one that involves and understanding of the organization, their objectives, their constituents and that relationship.
Misunderstanding of the use of Spec Work
Many misunderstand how spec work is used (for the most part). For most large-scale organizations, spec work is nothing more than early design research; think of it as low-fidelity common-sense based mood boards. Many organizations will seek out spec work only as draft conceptual ideas for the basis of a real design conversation. Essentially taking many early non-strategic “visual” ideas and using them as a spring-board for conversation when developing a strategy; getting the common-sense lowest-common-denominator ideas out and in front early.
Spec work is rarely real work (work meant to be final and utilized), and in that context it really isn’t appropriate work for most. Most are not in the business of creating design drafts for other designers to create design solutions; that is where the misunderstanding of the use of spec work resonates the most.
It is when spec work is utilized to find and execute design solutions without the consideration of the critical summation of parts, the all-inclusive entity that is web design, that the concept fundamentally fails. It is that failure that prevents us from participating in spec work to begin with. Spec work typically asks for a pretty picture and we know web design to be more than that; that is why we can’t do spec work.
