How the Process works…
The exact process will vary slightly from designer to designer, but the basics are generally the same.
- Free Consultation
- Information gathering
- Planning
- Design
- Development
- Testing and Delivery
- Maintenance
Phase One: Free Consultation
Contact Sherab Design to tell your needs and requirements. The first consultation is free. During this phase an outline of the requirements, pricing and time frame is discussed.
Phase Two: 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 your site is created. Sherab design will ask you questions to understand your business or website vision.
Things we consider are:
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 picture the “ideal” person you want to visit your web site. Consider their age, sex or interests – this will later help determine the best design style for your site.
Content
What kind of information will the target audience be looking for on your site? Are they looking for specific information, a particular product or service, online ordering…?
Phase Three: Planning
At this point a site map is developed.
The site map is a list of all main topic areas of the site, as well as sub-topics, if applicable. 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. Your customer – must be kept in mind when designing your site. These are, after all, the people who will be learning about your service or buying your product. A good user interface creates an easy to navigate web site, and is the basis for this.
During the planning phase, I will also help you decide what technologies should be implemented. Elements such as interactive forms, ecommerce, flash, etc. are discussed when planning your web site.
Phase Four: Design
Target audience is one of the key factors taken into consideration. A site aimed at teenagers, for example, will look much different than one meant for a financial institution. As part of the design phase, it is also important to incorporate elements such as the company logo or colors to help strengthen the identity of your company on the web site.
I will create a design for your web site.
You will be able 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 I is crucial to ensure that the final web site will match your needs and taste. It is important that you work closely with me your designer, exchanging ideas, until you arrive at the final design for your web site.
Phase Five: Development
At this stage the web site itself is created.
The home page, followed by a “shell” for the interior pages is done. 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, the content to your website is placed.
Elements such as interactive contact forms, flash animations or ecommerce shopping carts are implemented and made functional during this phase, as well.
Technologically, a successful web site requires writing valid codes such as XHTML / PHP / mySQL / CSS that complies to current web standards, maximizing functionality, as well as accessibility for as large an audience as possible.
Phase Six: Testing and Delivery
I will attend to the final details and test your web site at this phase. The tests are for such things as the complete functionality of forms or other scripts, as well last testing for last minute compatibility issues (viewing differences between different web browsers), ensuring that your web site is optimized to be viewed properly in the most recent browser versions.
As part of the testing, I will check to be sure that all of the code written for your web site validates. Valid code means that your site meets the current web development standards – this is helpful when checking for issues such as cross-browser compatibility as mentioned above.
Phase Seven: Maintenance
The development of your web site is not necessarily over, though. One way to bring repeat visitors to your site is to offer new content or products on a regular basis. I will be more than happy to continue working together with you, to update the information on your web site. I offer maintenance packages at reduced rates, based on how often you anticipate making changes or additions to your web site.
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 implemented to your web site. This is something that would be decided upon during the Planning stage. With a CMS, I will utilize online software 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 (similar to a mini version of Microsoft Word). You’ll be able to edit existing content this way, or if you are feeling more adventurous, you can even add new pages and content yourself. The possibilities are endless!
It’s really up to you as far as how comfortable you feel as far as updating your own web site. Some people prefer to have all the control so that they can make updates to their own web site the minute they decide to do so. Others prefer to hand off the web site entirely, as they have enough tasks on-hand that are more important for them to handle directly.
That’s where I can help you, once again, by taking over the web site maintenance for you – one less thing for you to do is always a good thing in these busy times!
Other maintenance type items include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SES (Search Engine Submission). This is the optimization of you web site with elements such as title, description and keyword tags which help your web site achieve higher rankings in the search engines. The previously mentioned code validation is something that plays a vital role in SEO, as well.
There are a lot of details involved in optimizing and submitting your web site to the search engines – enough to warrant it’s own post. This is a very important step, because even though you now have a web site, you need to make sure that people can find it!
