All Tools
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Art Direction Attributes
Art Direction is how your website or any work of design looks and feels. It’s a benchmark for the emotions or traits that we want to resonate with your users. As designers, we can achieve this through specific decisions about how we use typography, color, and whitespace. Art Direction Attributes are a collection of (often […]Art Direction Inventory
The Art Direction Inventory is a broad look at websites grouped by a common theme. This exercise helps us ask guided questions aided by real-world examples.Card Sort
A research method for determining how users think content should be organized by having them group items into categoriesCentral Design Challenge
A concise, research-informed statement that defines a project's main challenge, which can be referenced throughout the design processCompetitive Analysis
A tool for analysing a site or product's competition based on a set of predefined metricsContent Audit
A method for reviewing and analyzing a site's current content to identify content that can be removed, updated or areas of potential improvementContent Gap Map
A tool used to do a deeper dive audit of your content that helps you identify your most significant content gaps and content that is not aligned to user and business goals.Content Inventory
A method for taking inventoy of the content that exists on a site to prepare for the next steps of auditing and editingContent Template
A text-based companion to a wireframe that seeks to convey guidelines for content on a particular pageCore Content Strategy Statement
A guiding statement that captures the goal of a site or product's content in a compelling and memorable wayCreative Direction
Before we dive into the particulars around the Creative Direction, we’d like to define what we mean when we talk about creative direction. This can be difficult to put a finger on. It can also mean different things from one agency to another. At ETR, the Creative Direction refers to the overall vision that we […]Deliverable Gut Check Exercise
An exercise for determining if the deliverables outlined in the SOW still make sense after going through DiscoveryDesign Requirement Canvas
A tool to help you brainstorm design requirements - high level considerations that keep the project aligned with goals and findings from our research.Discovery Findings Report
A deliverable moving out of the Discovery phase that summarizes our biggest findings and insightsEffort/Impact Matrix
An idea selection tool that plots ideas on a matrix based on how feasible and impactful they are.Functional Requirements
About this toolGameplan Worksheet
A worksheet for establishing shared values, goals, and norms for a team throughout a projectIA Lenses
IA Lenses are a tool developed by Dan Brown that help you to craft better information architecture by assessing your ideas through a series of "lenses" or questionsInnovation Mashup
A collaborative idea generation method in which participants come up with innovative concepts by combining different elements together.Interview Guide
A template to help you getted started with a user or stakeholder interview along with some basic questionsLean Survey Canvas
A tool to help you create a concise research survey that targets the right peopleLotus Blossom
An exercise to find examples of our design requirements in the while and understand why they workMood Boards
A collage of photography, text, colors, and patterns used to provide a snapshot of how a brand or product could look and feel.Purpose, Context & Success Canvas
This is one of the first tools we will breakout when beginning work with a client. We work together with our client on this document, having important first conversations about their organization’s objectives and values, who their audience is and what the market is like, and what success for our project will look like.Purpose/Context/Success Report
About this tool.Research Questionnaire
A tool to help you come up with research questions that will get you the information you need during the Discovery phase of a projectSEO Report
A template for forming an SEO focused report after conducting an SEO auditSite Map Template
Various templates for creating a site map - a type of documentation that visualized how a website's information architecture is mappedSitewide Architecture
A sitewide architecture deliverable can and often does take many forms. The most common architecture deliverable is probably a sitemap. Sitemaps can range from very high-level to very granular. A static sitemap diagram is often sufficiently useful and informative for smaller sites. For larger sites, an interactive sitemap can be more useful. Lately, we’ve been […]Sketching Studio
Our approach to a Design Sketching Studio is an adaptation of the Design Studio/Prototyping Exercise published by the good folks at Good Kickoff Meetings. Instructions Gather all materials and participants in a large, quiet room. Write out the design problem(s) that the group will be ideating around in the session on a whiteboard or flipchart sheet. […]Storyboard Template
A template for drawing on the steps of a specific flow or journey to communicate an ideaSurveys
When to use a survey: If you need to better understand how a community broadly feels about something, consider using a survey. It’s important to supplement survey research with more in-depth research since you can only get so deep via the survey method. Surveys are a useful way to capture customer feedback and can often […]Team Audit Worksheet
A ice-breaker type exercise that allows new teammates to get to know each other's working styles and personalitiesTree Testing (Reverse Card Sort)
A method for testing information architecture with users by having them complete wayfinding tasksUI Inventory
A method for taking inventory of all of the visual styles and elements that currently exist on a siteUsability Checklist
A heuristic checklist that measures a site's usability across multiple categoriesUser Journey Template
A template that asks you to analyze the stages of a user’s journey through using a product or service by recording their actions and thoughts and feelings through each stageUser Stories
User Stories are a way of defining the functional parameters of a product or service. They tell the story of how an end user expects to interact with a system and how they expect the system to respond. There are two general formats for a User Story: Persona-Based and Jobs To Be Done (JBTD). Which […]