Orlando Web Site Design

The Web Site Design and Development Process

There are numerous steps in the web site design and development process. From gathering initial information, to the creation of your web site, and finally to maintenance to keep your web site up to date and current.

As each project requires special respect, the exact process on specific projects may vary.

Steps
Information Gathering
Planning
Design
Development
Testing and Delivery
Maintenance

Phase One: Information Gathering

The first step in designing a successful web site is to gather information. Many things need to be taken into consideration when the look and feel of the web site is created.

This first step is actually the most important one, as it involves a solid understanding of the company it is created for. It involves a good understanding of you – what your business goals and dreams are, and how the web can be utilized to help you achieve those goals.

Your web designer or project manager will start by asking you a lot of questions to help understand your business and needs in developing a web site.

Consideration is given to:

Purpose
What is the purpose of the site? Do you want to provide information, promote a service, sell a product… ?
Goals
What do you hope to accomplish by building this web site? Two of the more common goals are either to make money or share information.
Target Audience
Is there a specific group of people that will help you reach your goals? It is helpful to visualize the type of person you want to visit the web site. Considering a visitors age, sex or interests – this will later help determine the best design style for the web site.
Content
What kind of information will the target audience be looking for?

Phase Two: Planning

Using the information gathered from phase one, a written plan, specifications and work orders are created. This is the point where a site map is developed.

The site map is a list of all main topic areas of the site, as well as sub-topics. This serves as a guide as to what content will be on the site, and is essential to developing a consistent, easy to understand navigational system. The end-user (site visitors) of the web site must be kept in mind when designing the site. A good user interface creates an easy to navigate web site, and is the purpose of this step.

During the planning phase, your project manager will help you decide what technologies should be implemented. Elements such as interactive forms, ecommerce, flash, etcetera are discussed when planning your web site.

Phase Three: Design

Drawing from the information gathered up to this point, the look and feel of the web site is determined.

Target audience is the key factor taken into consideration. A site aimed at kids, for example, will look much different than one meant for a non-profit organization. As part of the design phase, it is important to incorporate elements such as colors to help strengthen the identity of a company at the web site.

Your project manager will create one or more prototype designs for your web site. This is typically a .jpg image of what the final design will look like. You may be sent an email with the mock-up of your web site, or be given access to a live development meant for customers to view work in progress.

Either way, the project manager will allow you to view your project throughout the design and development stages. The most important reason for this is that it gives you the opportunity to express your likes and dislikes on the site design.

In this phase, communication between both you and the project manager is important to ensure that the final web site will match your needs. It is important that you work closely with your project manager, sharing ideas, until the final design for your web site.

Phase Four: Development

The web development stage is the time frame when the website itself is created. At this time, your web designer will take all of the individual graphic elements from the prototype and use them to create a functional web site.

This is usually accomplished by first developing the home page, followed by a shell for the interior pages. The shell serves as a template for the content pages of your site, as it contains the main navigational structure for the web site. Once the shell has been created, your website designer will take your content and distribute it throughout the site, in the proper areas.

Elements such as interactive contact forms, flash animations or ecommerce shopping carts are implemented and made functional during this phase.

During this phase, your project manager should continue to make your in-progress web site available to you to view, so you can suggest any changes or corrections you would like.

On the technical front, a successful web site requires an understanding of front-end web development. This involves writing valid XHTML / CSS code that complies to current web standards, maximizing functionality, as well as accessibility for as large an audience as possible.

Phase Five: Testing and Delivery

At this point, your project manager will attend to final details and test your web site. Testing areas include functionality of forms or other scripts, as well as testing for compatibility issues in different web browsers, ensuring your website is viewed properly in recent browser versions.

A good web designer is one who is well versed in current standards for web site design and development. The basic technologies currently used are XHTML and CSS. As part of testing, your designer will check to ensure all code written for your web site is properly validated.

Once you give your project manager final approval, it is time to deliver the web site. FTP programs are used to upload the web site files to your server. Domain name registration and web hosting services are offered if needed. Once the referenced accounts are set-up, your web site uploaded to the server, the site should will now enter a quality assurance process. This confirms that all files have been uploaded properly, and that the site remains fully functional.

Phase Six: Maintenance

If you prefer to be more hands on, and update your own content, there is something called a CMS (Content Management System) that can be included with your web site. This is something that would be decided upon during the Planning stage. With a CMS, a web developer will utilize softwares to develop a database driven site for you.

A web site driven by a CMS gives you the ability to edit the content areas of the web site yourself. You are given access to a back-end administrative area, where you can use an online text editor. You will be able to edit existing content, add content, new pages, articles, posts, video and pictures yourself.

There are other steps involved in search engine optimizing your web site for search engines – enough to require a separate post. Though you now have a web site, you need to make sure that people can find it!

Web Design Process