Planning, Design & Website Building

The process of developing a successful website usually involves a few different stages.

Planning

First, we need to establish what the desired goals of the site are going to be. Having established the website's goals, planning is required to determine what content will be required to meet these goals, how it should be presented, and whether any particular features will be required, e.g. contact forms for potential customers to get in touch, or mailing lists, or shopping carts. Further planning is then required to create a site map, a structure for the website, so that different pages can be grouped logically into different sections, and that all the key elements are on the page to ensure that browsing the site is easy, and that site functions are user-friendly.

Design

Once all the necessary planning has been completed, then work on designing an attractive and usable interface, i.e. the actual look and feel, of the website can begin. I refer to this stage as the graphic design stage, and you can see examples of the sort of designs I've done in the past in my portfolio.

Coding

When the design has been finalised, work can then begin on turning the design into code that will actually be used in the pages of the website. If your site requires a Content Management Systems (CMS), the coded design also needs to be integrated into templates that will be used to create the pages of the site. With the design coded and tested in all modern browsers, and all templates ready to go, it is time for the next stage:

Website building

This is the stage where the website really starts to take shape. Pages are created with the content supplied; images, charts, galleries and video are added; and special features are set up. If using a CMS, I might set up things so that you can enter your own content, or I might set up all of the pages at the beginning, with a view to handing over the reins for future updates after the site goes live.

Testing

With all the content entered, it's time to ensure that everything is working as it should, that pages are usable and content accessible in the different web browsers, and that the site stands up to a variety of different conditions, e.g. devices (i.e. mobiles), operating systems, screen sizes, and text sizes. Although consideration of accessibility and usability has already been made during earlier stages of the site's development, it's also at this stage that time is spent on ensuring that these concerns have been addressed correctly.

Site goes live

With everything successfully tested and all the checklist boxes ticked, it's time to release the new site to the rest of the world. And then sit back and let the platitudes and visitors come pouring in. ;)

Not quite. Creating a winning design is only the first step towards success. Next, you'll want to promote it and ensure that search engines can find it.