Web Design Process

Web Design Process

Designing a web site is a process consisting of six phases:

1. Project Definition
2. Site Structure
3. Visual Design
4. Site Development
5. Testing
6. Launch Plus

60 Questions to Consider When Designing a Website

We spend a lot of time asking ourselves, our clients and other people questions. Whether it’s choosing the perfect shade of green for our latest web layout or figuring out how to implement a complex typographical solution, the ability to ask the right questions is among the most critical of skills for a web designer. In this article, we’ll go over 60 specific questions that web professionals should ask before taking their website public.

Why Asking Yourself Questions Is Important

Many professionals work with the aid of checklists, while others routinely check for certain issues as the design evolves. While there isn’t a sure-fire way to avoid the embarrassment of forgetting something post-launch, the habit of continually questioning your work as you develop a website is critical. Sometimes it can be as simple as "Does this work?"; in other cases, more technical questions need to be asked (and answered).

The 25-point Website Usability Checklist (PDF) can be a helpful aid to your workflow.

It doesn’t make the job any easier to second-guess yourself into a state of neurosis (something perfectionists do quite often) or to make blind decisions. There’s no perfect method for gauging a project’s needs or the decisions we make, but asking difficult questions during the process helps us avoid issues later on.

15 Questions for Project Management

One of the central tasks of web design is project management. Building a new website is like setting the foundation for a house. With so many details to deal with, planning ahead and managing the ongoing tasks is essential.

Basecamp is a popular and effective project management app.

1 Has the client signed the contract? Working without a contract is extremely risky.

2 Do you know what the final product should look like? Having a solid plan of action, including a few diagrams, wireframes, prototypes or mock-ups, can enhance clarity.

3 Has all of the content been written? A website without content is like a painting without a canvas; ideally, a website should be built around the content, not vice versa.

4 Does the website require any pre-built solutions? Life can be made easier with tools such as content management systems (e.g. WordPress) and scripts, so determine what you need before you start coding.

5 Do you know what the competition offers? Your rivals are often the best source of ideas, and knowing what they offer can help you meet visitors’ expectations.

6 Have you set appropriate deadlines? Setting realistic deadlines and tracking your progress towards those deadlines is always important.

7 Will you need to factor in additional costs? Websites are relatively inexpensive, and you can build a good one using free software, but still, you must be on top of any expenses you might incur.

8 Do you have the necessary skills? Some websites are more complex than others; consider which technologies you will need to work with and whether your knowledge of them is current.

9 Have you thought about marketing? A website without visitors is useless. Look into your options for social networking, SEO, advertising and more.

10 Will the website actually be useful (or even necessary)? There is no point wasting your energy on a project that will have no value for end users, so start by weeding out bad ideas.

11 Is a target audience mapped out? Knowing what kind of people you hope will visit the website will help you not only write appropriate content but design effectively, too.

12 Do you have a checklist or criteria? Even a set of basic criteria to maintain quality control or a checklist for larger projects would help.

13 Can your host cope with the demand? Getting the right type of hosting is important; there’s no point in having shared hosting if you’re going to be streaming gigabyte-heavy video.

14 Have you got the media? Some websites require video, audio and special file types such as PDF documents. Accounting for assets early on lessens the risk of launch delays.

15 What features do you hope to include? Perhaps you need to accept payment, or maybe you want a photo gallery. Whatever you need, plan ahead prior to designing the layout.

15 Questions for Code-Authoring

Next up are questions to ask regarding writing code. If you design or develop websites, you’ll find yourself working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Every language has a range of best practices and guidelines to follow, which is great if you want to standardize your end-product. However, there are a lot of other things to consider besides being standards-compliant.

The impact of source code on the effectiveness of your content is often overlooked yet very real.

16 Does the code validate? While validation isn’t a complete testament to code quality, it does help to make sure that your code follows recommended standards and can show you errors in your markup, CSS, and JavaScript.

17 Have you considered using CSS3 and HTML5? Though many users still don’t use browsers that have CSS3/HTML5 support, if implemented with progressive enhancement in mind, taking advantage of these future W3C recommended standards gives your products added value and improves the craftsmanship of your web designs.

18 How semantic is the code? Using the right tag for the job is essential, and search engines love semantic code. Use

for paragraphs,

for listed items that have no ranking,
for items that have a sequential relationship, for hyperlinksand

4 Important Questions Your Web Designer Should Ask You Before They Design Your Personal Training Website

Getting a website up and running to promote your fitness or personal training business *should* be a straight-forward process.

But have you ever had that feeling when working with someone that you just don’t know whether they really “get” you, understand quite what it is you’re looking for or never seem to advise you on what will be best to promote your fitness business?

Whilst some web design firms may tell you not to worry, sit back and relax and they’ll cook you up something snazzy to help you attract more personal training clients, in our experience it doesn’t quite work like that…

Unfortunately, if you want a website that actually does something for your business (generates leads, answers prospects’ questions, helps keep leads warm) rather than just look snazzy, it will require you to provide some input into the process to ensure the website reflects what you can do for your clients – and just who it is you’re trying to reach in the first place.

Here are 4 important questions your web designer should ask you before they even start designing your business website…

#1 What’s the purpose of your website?

To design an *effective* website for your personal training business (one that does what you want it to do), this should be the first question a designer asks you. The purpose of your site (to attract interested people, the showcase your wares, to interact with prospects, to provide additional support etc.) will determine the functionality, lay out and even the look and feel of your site.

If your designer doesn’t ask you this, how can they build you a site that will do the job you want it to?

#2 Who is your target market?

Another crucial question which can determine the navigation, layout, contents and look and feel of the site; web designers who don’t ask this will usually design something they think looks great – and you may even think so too – but will your target market think the same or will it just turn them off?

#3 What messages are you looking to convey on your website?

Like the above question, the kind of messages and the way you want to convey them on your site is something your designer needs to know; if you’d like to convey a modern, high tech, ‘with the times’ approach then using video or audio to do this may be a great choice to share your message; if you’d rather convey a more traditional, old-fashioned message, then this may not be such a great choice.

It once again all comes back to your target market and the way they’ll respond most effectively to the messages you’re looking to convey.

#4 How often do you think you’ll need to be able update your website?

If you’d like your personal training website to be a living, breathing work in progress or you’re not quite clear on your message or whether you’ve honed the copy correctly – and you’re likely to want to make frequent updates to the site even once it’s built – then think about how expensive this might get when you have to pay your web guy to make the tiniest of changes for you.

They will (and should be) charging for this and therefore asking this question before they get started on anything may determine the web platform they build your site upon. There are many options which allow you to update your own website, just ask your web design company about the most suitable one for you.

AUG 23 Using Sketchboards to design great User Interfaces quickly

We’re always on the lookout for new ways of doing things better and faster at Box UK. One area of change that we’re particularly excited about involves our User Experience (UX) design process. Taking inspiration from UX leaders like Brandon Schauer, Leah Buley and Todd Zaki Warfel, we’ve embraced the use of sketchboards to collaboratively generate, evaluate and refine User Interfaces. Based on the Design Studio method, this approach has enhanced the collaborative process between us and our clients, and dramatically reduced the time required to achieve the desired results.

Like all good User Experience designers, I have a bit of a stationery fetish, with more expensive notebooks and marker pens than could possibly be healthy. I’d always start any interface design on paper before firing up my favourite wireframing or prototyping tools, but my sketches were only ever intended for my eyes only – I’d try a few things out, and as soon as I was happy with my creation, I’d create wireframes of varying fidelity to share with colleagues and clients. Any feedback would be worked back into the wireframes and repeated until everyone was satisfied with the final output. Although fairly time-consuming, this method has been working perfectly well for us and our clients for a number of years.

Back in May of this year, I was fortunate enough to attend UX London, where among many great presentations and workshops, I saw Leah Buley of Adaptive Path present her excellent “Good Design Faster” workshop. The workshop described Adaptive Path’s own process of rapid ideation, communication and collaboration using low-fi sketching techniques and sketchboards. Their process is adapted from the “Design Studio” method, which is a commonplace teaching method in urban and architectural design. Essentially, the Design Studio method is a collaborative sketching workshop, where stakeholders work together to generate, evaluate and refine their designs.

“The goal is to generate a number of concepts, get them out of your head as quickly as possible, and move on.”

Todd Zaki Warfel

In his book “Prototyping – A Practitioner’s Guide” Todd Zaki Warfel describes sketching as “the generative part of prototyping”. He continues “The goal is to generate a number of concepts, get them out of your head as quickly as possible, and move on.” As firm believers in the power of prototyping, we’ve found that sketching significantly speeds up the prototyping process.

Introducing Sketchboarding to Box UK

I first got the chance to put this technique to work on an internal project, so with the reduced risk, I commandeered a colleague, purloined an armful of office supplies from the stationery cupboard and we set to work, sketching and scribbling like men possessed. As we finished a sketch, we discussed and critiqued each other’s work and fine-tuned our sketches before sticking them to the wall. By the end of the day, we’d sketched out an entire application from scratch. Once the sketchboard was complete, we invited colleagues to review our work, letting them know that all feedback and criticism, however negative, was a required part of the process.

For us, the mere fact that we found the sketchboarding technique an enjoyable and productive activity was reason enough for us to include this as an integral part of our design process. It wasn’t long before we were able to try out sketching on a real client. We were delighted to find that the results were even better than our first attempt, and the feedback from our client was way beyond our own lofty expectations.

Process

We use Jesse James Garrett’s ‘Elements of User Experience’ approach to User Centred Design, so sketchboards fit naturally at the beginning of the Skeleton Plane. As we’ve already covered Strategy (business objectives, users, personas, user needs and success metrics); Scope (functional, content and technical requirements); and Structure (information architecture and interaction design), we already know why we’re building the site, who we’re building it for, what the requirements are and how those requirements are to be structured. We use any relevant information from the preceding stages as inputs – we continually refer to these as we sketch.

Step 1 – Set up your sketchboard

First of all, you need a big, blank canvas on which to stick your inputs and sketches. We bought a huge roll of brown craft paper. Take a length (about 8 to 10 feet usually works for us) and stick it to the wall with lots of BluTack – the sketchboard gets progressively heavier and may fall off the wall if you’re too parsimonious with your sticky stuff.

Step 2 – Inputs

Gather any information that you’ll need to guide you through your sketching, whether it’s sitemaps, flowcharts, scope items, user needs or personas or any inspiration that you think will help, and stick these to the left hand side of your sketchboard. I like to include a list of the interfaces that are required in the session so I know my target at the outset.

Step 3 – Thumbnail sketches

Start with a 6-up template and give yourself a fixed amount of time (say 10 to 15 minutes) to draw as many different versions of the interface you’re going to work on. Try out any idea that springs to mind. Don’t like the vertical navigation? Try horizontal tabs. Too many photos on the home page? Try a carousel.

Use the lined area on the right of the page for text annotations, notes-to-self and anything else that helps to communicate your idea.

Fine detail isn’t important here (as you’ll see from the following photo) – the point is to get your ideas down on paper. Don’t know where to start? – just do something, then change it.

Once you’ve done your thumbnail sketches take a step back and think about which one works best. Maybe you like some parts of one, and parts of another. Do another thumbnail sketch if this is the case, then refine it in the next step.

Step 4 – Refinement sketch

Now take a 1-up template and start refining your preferred thumbnail sketch. Again, give yourself a fixed amount of time to complete the task, say 10 minutes.

The extra space in the 1-up template allows you more freedom to think about details such as visual weight, headings, content and functional elements. Again, you’re trying to communicate how an interface may work, so the details are more important than the fidelity or tidiness of your sketch.

Step 5 – Stick up your sketches

Once you’ve completed your refinement sketch, stick it to your sketchboard, then think about what problem you’re going to tackle next. Return to step 3 and repeat until you’ve sketched everything you needed to when you set out.

Try to keep your sketches in logical groups – use a Post-It note to give your group a heading. Once you’re happy with the position and grouping of your sketches, replace the Post-It headings with inked ones – a big chisel tip Sharpie works well (just make sure the ink doesn’t bleed through the brown paper and onto the wall!)

Step 6 – Evaluate, then evaluate again

Now that you’ve fleshed out your ideas, it’s time to test your assumptions and gather real-time feedback. Ideally, you’ll do this more than once. We tend to have a review session with colleagues first, then we roll up the sketchboard, pop it in a tube and make our way to our client’s offices where we’ll take over the nearest wall (don’t forget the Blu-Tack).

Explain that you’re not trying to sell an idea and that feelings won’t be hurt if the sketches are criticised – indeed, this is the object of the exercise. If you’re feeling particularly brave, start a ‘black-hat’ session where everyone tries their hardest to point out the shortcomings of your sketches. These quick insights will challenge your assumptions, encouraging creative speculation and innovative thinking.

Your clients will appreciate being involved at this stage, and it makes for an enjoyable and productive session – so much better than emailing wireframes back and forth.

During the evaluation sessions, annotate your sketches, use Post-It notes, and amend or create new sketches as required to capture feedback, suggestions and corrections.

Now that your sketchboard is complete, fire up your wireframing or prototyping application of choice and get to work – you’ll find it so much quicker working from your sketches. Your clients will have already developed an understanding of your approach and direction, so you’ll spend less time amending and annotating, or explaining your rationale.