My Step By Step Process Designing Websites
By Charles Kolstad
Date Posted 5/15/2023
Photo credit - https://unsplash.com/@louishansel
A ton of little details go into the design of a website. Each of these small details, if overlooked can cause a business to lose customers and negatively impact its reputation. There are a lot of tools designed to help entrepreneurs design their business’s website themselves. But these tools don’t prevent you from missing important steps. Every website designer should have a checklist or steps that are followed for each website they build. Here is mine.
Discovery
My first step is learning about the business I’m building the website for. Who is the owner of the business and what is their vision for the future? How do customers benefit from the products or services offered by the business? What industry is this business in and how do the other businesses in that industry use their website?
Going over questions like these with business owners helps me to gain a better understanding of what kind of website is needed and can sometimes jog up some unique ideas too. Maybe during this process, we think of a new way to capture contact information from potential customers or offer a free sample of a product or service. The discovery phase is the time to explore all potential outcomes.
Setup Environment
The next step is to get everything organized and ready for the work ahead. One of my favorite books called, Work Clean by Dan Charnas uses the French culinary term mise-en-place which means putting in place. The book explains that all great chefs take time to organize all the ingredients and tools required before cooking anything. While cooking, great chefs always prioritize cleaning messes and reorganizing their spaces. For this reason, great chefs produce high-quality work.
Setting up my environment is the time for me to gather and prepare all ingredients, pans, and utensils needed to cook up a great website. Even in this step, collaboration with the business owner is very important. That’s why businesses I work with will immediately have access to the secure Create Voice dashboard where they can track the development progress and preview the work being done on their website.
Collect Fonts, Images, Copy, and other Assets
Copy, images, and typography are some of the typical ingredients that go into creating a great website. It's my job to gather these ingredients from the business I'm building the website for. To ensure I'm getting the best, it's critical that I'm able to explain clearly the importance and role of each thing.
What is Website Copy
Basically, website copy is the written text visitors see on web pages, but it’s also more than that. The purpose of copy on a webpage is to inspire visitors to take a specific action. That action might be to subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a contact form, or make a purchase.
What Images should be used?
Images always tell a story to website visitors, probably more so than copy does. It’s not just what the images are of, but details like how good the quality of the image is and does the placement make sense. The images you use and how they are optimized can also impact SEO in a negative or positive way.
Typography
A big part of the website design is the typography, that is the design of the text on your website. Good typography makes your website easier for your visitors to read and navigate.
Important aspects of typography like typeface, font, and length of the text all play a role in the experience visitors have even when on your site. Getting these things right can go a long way in generating leads for your business.
PUT IT ALL TOGETHER
Now that all ingredients and tools are gathered and organized it’s time to cook! Because of the leg work done in previous steps, this step can go relatively quickly.
It is important to verify that the website functions correctly. I’ll be checking to make sure there are no broken links or logic errors and that the site's design responds well on all browsers and devices including smartphones.
Once complete the business owner will be notified and they will be able to view the first version of their website from the secure Create Voice dashboard. The initial build is complete.
Approve and Go Live
The last part is up to the business owner. It is time for them to approve the website for their business. Does each of the site’s pages properly reflect the brand and convey the desired message to your customers? Are you excited about the website and is this something you can’t wait to share with the world? If anything is not quite up to snuff, I’ll return to the previous step and work to get it right.
Once everything is signed off on I will work on some of the final configuration tasks and the website will be live for the world!
Your Website is Served!
Each step of the process is complete, customers are able to view the website and all is right with the world! But websites are not quite like a gourmet course served at a five-star restaurant. Changes, patches, and updates will inevitably be needed to continue meeting clients' needs. My commitment is to be there for businesses I partner with to help take care of all future needs related to their website.
Post written by Charles Kolstad
Charles is a website developer with ten years of experience designing and programming websites.
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