Any venture needs a plan. Planning a web site in the beginning is esssential avoid snags later on in the development and implemenation stages of the web site.
To properly plan any web site, you are going to need to know:
- Purpose: This is the reason for the web site. The more specific you become with this, the better off you are. You can refine this throughout the planning process, if need be.
- Intended Target Audience: This needs to be very detailed. Consider several demographics of your target audience, and espeically any demographics that pertain to the direct purpose of the web site. For instance, if the web site is an HR web site for a legal company, the audience is much more refined and specific than a social networking web site.
- Objectives: This is what you want your web site to do. Do you (or your client) want to educate users? Do you (or your client) want to inform users? Do you (or your client) want to increase sales? Be specific here.
- Goals: This is how you know your web site has met its objectives. If your objective is to increase sales, your goal should be something along the lines of "Sales increase by 25% within 6 months of web site launch date." You should include ways to make sure you can monitor the goals to be sure they are met. For instance, watch sales, or overall traffic trends (depending on the goal)
- Budget: If you get a good idea of how much money you or your client has to work with, you can also get a good idea of how many features and the things you can include on the web site. More advanced features require more programming and development, along with more hosting and storage space, and therefore, more money. Budgeting and costs will be discussed in future articles.
To obtain the information you need for planning a web site, you are going to need to meet with your client to conduct a bit of research. If you are designing the web site for yourself, then this part will be a bit easier for you. Once you determine the target audience, consider surveying a cross section (a group that represents the vast majority of said target audience) of the audience in order to determine their thoughts, and preferences on the proposed web site. This will help you in refining and editing the information you already have. It will also help you determine the appropriate features, navigational scheme, color scheme, and layout to use for the web site.
Now that you have all of this information on hand, you can begin preparing planning documentation. This documentation will include as much information about the project as possible before development begins, and if the project is for a client, make sure that everything is approved by the client. Continue refining the plans until your client approves everything, and you will save time in the end. The project planning documentation should include all of the above information, plus:
- Proposed Screen Design: This should include a color scheme and page layout based on client desires, and research findings on the target audience.
- Navigation Design and Flowchart: This should include a navigational structure and show how the pages will link together based on client desires and what the target audience user studies indicate to you.
- Proposed Features:This should include a list of features on the web site, like forums, search engines, etc. based on the target audience research findings, client desires, and client budget.
Remember, if you are designing the web site for yourself, treat your project with the same manner as you would a client's project.
Congratulations. You have successfully planned the web site, and you are one step ahead of many web designers and developers!