“Design will save the world right after rock and roll does.”
- David Carson David Carson Design
HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS
So it's time to bring your old website kicking and screaming into the 21st century? Or maybe you saw some cool feature you want to 'borrow' from another site you liked. Perhaps you've got a new brand or comapny that doesn't have a website yet. Regardless of the situation there are certain key elements that go into the design process, that when done effectively by both parties streamline the message, get you hits and hopefully make some money.
The Web design process is not unlike other communication processes. If you are familiar with developing a creative brief, a public relations plan, a communication plan or a new product, the phases will look very familiar. The phases of the Web design process include the following steps.
1 DISCOVERY
Spend appropriate amount of time with key stakeholders to establish scope, goals and needs to reach consensus on critical website issues. This makes sure everyone is on the same page going forward and we are all clear on the ultimate goal.
2 RESEARCH
Review of history and current web presence for your company. Collect data about your competition and your market demographics.
3 CREATE A PROJECT DEFINITION DOCUMENT (SCOPE)
The findings document incorporates all the information gathered during steps 1 and 2. containing information about your products, services and organizational attributes and more. Defining the scope of the project is a critical step. One of the most common frustrations with Web projects is scope creep. By creating a well-defined project scope plan that outlines specific activities and deliverables, along with specific timelines, we will be able to clearly set expectations from both parties.
4 DEVELOP SITE ARCHITECTURE AND WIREFRAME
Site architecture includes the sitemap and wireframes of pages. Creating the sitemap ensures that you’ve considered all the key pages in the site, showing their relationship to each other and defining how the sties overall navigation should be structured.
5 CREATE VISUAL EXPLORATIONS
Utilizing mood boards to capture your visual brand expression. It is not a specific design or “tactic”, like the site itself or a print ad. Here we explore the color palette, typography, image style and iconography. All these together express your brand positioning.
6 DEVELOP THE SITE
With the visuals approved, it’s time to flesh out the actual design of the pages, develop new content and refine old content, create videos, slideshows, podcasts and other media that will appear on the site as well as start to build out the HTML and CSS of the site.
7 SITE TESTING AND GO LIVE
Before the site is launched, it will be placed on a production server where only internal audiences and anyone who you share the link with can view it. Testing of the site is critical as there will inevitably be issues that need to be addressed before the site goes live. There is nothing that erodes a brand more than a site that doesn’t function properly or that has misspellings (you'll need an external editor, I can't spell vary well) or broken design elements. Once we're satisfied, we go live.
Websites are living, breathing entities and need constant care and maintenance. Updating content, making changes to the backend and fixing broken links are all in a day’s work. All of these phases are critical to the Web design process. But the thread that runs through the process is strategy: the desire to achieve a goal, to move the organization forward, to prosper in a competitive environment. Let’s take a look at that strategy, how it is formulated and how it translates to the Web.
WEB DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN
Build for the future.
If your small or medium sized business needs a website, After Orange can help.
If you are in need of more than just web design, I do that too. I design and develop in Drupal which allows clients to take over the website and not have to contact me for small changes. CMS it's Content Management System and as easy as using a word processor. Drupal is essentially wordpress for big boys.
Whether it’s just a simple website refresh or a much more complicated project, I'll help you solve the puzzle and make the process a pleasure. I want your small business to have an amazing website. If you can envision it, we'll work together and bring your idea to life. I've created websites for musicians, websites for investment advisors, websites for management companies, websites for resorts and more!
In my mind, we're at a stage of the internet (and I was around when there were no images) where it's time to glaze it, to use a pottery term.
I don't draw a line between the coding and the graphics, I have come to understand that the two, especially with the advent of HTML5 will become one. Fun, fun, fun.
I think we'll be OK.
