Great websites—like your favorite online store, a charity’s donation page, or a slick startup’s homepage—don’t just happen. They’re built by teams of people with different skills: designers making things pretty, coders making them work, writers telling the story, and strategists getting the word out. The real secret sauce? How these folks team up. There are three ways they do it—multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and interdisciplinary—and each one brings something special to the table.
Multidisciplinary: Everyone Doing Their Thing
Picture a team sprucing up a local nonprofit’s website. The UX designer’s chatting with users to figure out what they need. The visual designer’s sketching cool layouts. The coder’s making sure the site loads fast on your phone. The writer’s crafting catchy taglines, and the SEO guru’s tweaking things so Google loves it. They’re all working toward the same goal, but each sticks to their own zone, with a project manager keeping everyone on track.
This is multidisciplinary design—like a relay race where everyone runs their leg. It’s super efficient because everyone’s a pro at what they do. Think of when Netflix redesigned its homepage: designers handled the look, engineers the streaming tech, and marketers the messaging. Boom, done. But here’s the catch: if they don’t talk enough, the site might feel like a quilt with clashing patterns. The design might scream “fun,” but the words feel stiff, or the tech can’t keep up with the vision.
When it works best: When the project’s clear-cut and you need to move fast.
Cross-Disciplinary: Borrowing Cool Ideas
Now imagine that nonprofit site’s live, but people aren’t donating. The team’s scratching their heads. The designer listens to a podcast about psychology and suggests warmer colors to make the site feel friendlier. The coder reads about slick animations and adds a snappy button effect. The writer borrows UX tricks to make the text easier to skim. They’re not experts in these new areas—they’re just grabbing ideas from other fields and running with them.
That’s cross-disciplinary design. It’s like borrowing a recipe from your neighbor to spice up your cooking. When Spotify tweaked its app to make playlists feel more personal, designers used data science ideas to suggest songs, even though they weren’t data nerds. This approach is awesome because it gets people thinking outside the box. It just needs a team that’s curious and open to trying new stuff.
When it works best: When you’re stuck and need a fresh angle without hiring new people.
Interdisciplinary: All Hands on Deck
Sometimes, a site needs a big rethink—like if the donation page is a total mess. The whole team huddles up: the UX designer shares what users hate, the writer pitches heartfelt phrases, the coder suggests smoother transitions, and the strategist ties it to the nonprofit’s mission. They’re not just doing their jobs—they’re brainstorming together, blending ideas to create something awesome.
This is interdisciplinary design, where everyone’s in the same sandbox, building a castle together. When Apple made its iPhone interface, designers, coders, and user-behavior experts collaborated to make every swipe feel like magic. It takes time and lots of back-and-forth, but the result? A site that feels seamless and just clicks with users.
When it works best: For big, tricky features like checkouts or sign-up flows that need to feel perfect.
Mixing It Up for the Win
Real projects bounce between these styles. Start with multidisciplinary to get the ball rolling fast. Sprinkle in cross-disciplinary ideas when things need a boost. Go interdisciplinary for the big, game-changing moments. When Dropbox redesigned its site, they used all three: quick sprints for basics, borrowed ideas for better sign-up forms, and group brainstorms for a killer file-sharing flow.
Great Websites Come from Great Teamwork
At the end of the day, websites are about people—the ones building them and the ones using them. How a team works together decides if a site just works or totally wows. Multidisciplinary keeps things moving, cross-disciplinary adds spice, and interdisciplinary makes it unforgettable. The best teams know when to switch it up, listen to each other, and have fun along the way. That’s how you build a website that’s not just good—it’s great.