Informed design is about understanding. It's about getting to know you, your company, your customers, and everyone you need to reach to achieve your business goals.

It's about understanding all the places that your company and your customers touch and how to best communicate your brand at all those touchpoints. Informed design is about a flexible design process that understands that the ink's never dry on your Web site, that your customers are constantly on the move, that attention is scarcer than ever, that networks rule, that delight and strategy go hand in hand, and that no matter what, it's never about the technology but about the people who use it, watch it, listen to it and interact with it. Informed design is about asking questions first and then really listening to the answers that come back.

At idfive, we believe that great design can only come from superior understanding. And understanding doesn't stop after the initial "discovery" phase of the project: it's a continuous process of learning and improvement that never stops. Every stage of our five step design process helps build the learning and insight to deliver communications that work:

1. Explore:

The first thing we do is to learn everything we can about your business, your goals, your customers, their behavior, their desires, their motivations, and what's the best way to reach them. If you're communicating online, our Web360 process helps us (and you) gain full understanding of what's going on with your current Web site and what needs to be done to get better results.

2. Think:

The next thing we do is take the knowledge gained in the first phase and use it to develop comprehensive strategies for accomplishing your goals. These strategies are developed collaboratively based on the knowledge we've gained, our experience, creativity, and the expertise within your company.

3. Analyze:

A strategy is only as good as its execution. Our third step is when we take the strategy out for a test drive. We poke. We prod. We look at our assumptions and attack them from all angles. Only then can the plan be called ready.

4. Create:

Our designers, strategists, programmers, information architects, and media specialists take the strategy and bring it to life, applying their expertise to create communications that work. The creative process isn't mysterious at all: it's informed design.

5. Learn:

The project isn't over after its public debut. We work with you to develop success metrics and measurement methodologies to be sure that what we've done gets the results you want, then we test those metrics against real world numbers. The results are communications that get results... and isn't that why you went looking for an agency in the first place?