Web Design Blog

5 Steps to a great website!

STEP 1: The Brief

The briefing process is one of the most important processes that a client and developer can go through. The brief is the basis of the project and can make or break the project. From a client's perspective they need to know what they want! Bring examples and research the market. Look at what their competitors are doing. The brief is where the developer gets involved in the project. They need to know in which direction they need to go. From a developer's perspective they need to bring ideas to the table and market knowledge. The clients may not be web savvy but the developers better be and should be suggesting new tools, widgets, and functions that the client could be offering on their website. Things the client may not have heard of. Once the brief is done it's over to the developers.

STEP 2: The Research

While the client may have already researched their target market the developer now has to go and immerse themselves in the market, competition and product. This means hitting Google, looking through the example sites that the client provided and more. This has multiple advantages, one it gives the developer a better knowledge of the market, target audience for the design, plus if they are on the ball it gives them insight into what keywords and key phrases to target throughout the site.

STEP 3: The Design

Now it's time for the creative bit. The developer should now be taking in everything they have learned from the steps above and coming up with a design that meets the client's and market's needs as well as being creative and functional that makes the website stand out above the rest. Here is where the client should not forget what they outlined in the brief. While some designers / developers excel at the graphical and some excel at the functional, the client needs to keep in mind what they are looking for and to not lose sight of the big picture.

STEP 4: The Development

This is the work horse stage of the project. While the client may see the design and major section of the project done. The development stage should not be rushed. Quality HTML, CSS needs to be created and the functionality of content pages need to be thought through. The menu structure and call to actions need to be implemented. SEO needs to be taken into consideration and the website's functionality need to be coded up, implemented, and tested. The whole website needs to go through testing time and time again. These steps, and not rushing this process, is what can make a quality website that will work for the client the day it is rolled out and for many years after and be a showcase for the developers.

STEP 5: The Support

Yay you have a website! But that's not everything. All websites will have updates, you will need to add more content, tweak menus, add new forms or services. This is where a lot of clients can get frustrated with their developers. Freelancers move on, or focus on the new projects, huge companies can have very slow turn around or just hard to contact. Or worst of all your developers simply might not do updates after the initial design. One thing that will make a client love their developer time and time again is the backup support. Make sure you know the developer's policies before starting the project.