The Ultimate Guide To Website Design...

Web design refers to the design of websites. It usually refers to the user experience aspects of website development rather than software development. Designing a website goes beyond aesthetics to include the website’s overall functionality. Web design also includes web apps, mobile apps, and user interface (UI) design, and user experience (UX).

A web designer works on a website's appearance, layout, and, in some cases, content. Integrating these elements will maximize the site’s overall usability and performance. Your site’s usability includes elements such as an easy-to-navigate interface, appropriate use of graphics and images, well-written and well-placed text, and a color scheme. Your site’s performance refers to its speed, ranking, searchability, and ability to capture your audience.

Responsive design is a common way to design websites that work well on both desktop and mobile. Responsive Web Design is an approach of designing web content that appears regardless of the resolution governed by the device.

Fundamentally, your website’s appearance and text go hand-in-hand. It’s important to have your content writers and designers work together in order to create a cohesive design with balanced elements. Your site visitors have multiple ways of interacting with your site depending on their device (scrolling, clicking, typing, etc.). The best website designs simplify these interactions to give the user the sense that they are in control.

How To Plan A Website Development Project

If you have chosen a website development team, they will guide you through the whole process from start to finish.

Here are 8 steps they will take to help you plan your website project.

1. Define The Goal and Purpose of Your Website

Why do you want a website in the first place? Earlier in the article, we talked about the fact that if you own a business, then having a website in the digital age is pretty essential. Furthermore, it needs to look professional as it is your online shop window. Your website represents your business. So, what do you want to achieve from it? It could be that you sell products. For example, you have an interior design business and you want to sell sofas and chairs. Your main goal is probably to sell your products. Therefore, you will need a quality e-commerce website that stands out from your competitors. Perhaps you are an events company and you want to advertise your events and sell as many tickets as possible. Or you might be a charitable organisation and you want to raise global awareness of certain issues. For all of these, especially if you are a new business, you want to look professional and grow your credibility within your industry.

2. Plan the Overall Organisation or Wireframe

Next, you will start to put together the structure of your website. How many pages do you need without it being too complicated for a consumer. What titles and headings are you going to use? What is the main focus of your website and where should that go? How do you want your home page to look? A wireframe will include where the images go and the short descriptions and content. At this stage it looks a bit like a template or sketch of your website.

3. Organise and Prioritise Your Content

Then, you and your team will organise where you want the content to be. It may not all be written yet, but you can get a good idea of what you will need. For example, if you are selling biscuits and cakes, you might want to focus more on the images than the words. The valuable content could be the list of ingredients, or whether you organise deliveries. You may not need that content on the home page, but it still needs to be available and easy to access. Maybe your customer testimonials should be on the home page, “lovely cakes, I’ve never tasted anything so yummy.” This is the stage where you can talk it through with your web developer and designer. They are the experts, and may give you some more ideas.

4. Timeline

A timeline is extremely important for both the designer and the client. Potentially, you could build a website in a variety of different ways. Furthermore, as your business grows, you may need adaptions to your website in the future. However, assuming you don’t have an endless supply of money to pay your developer, there needs to be a cut off point. You also need an end result. Generally speaking, by following each stage of the process, agreeing on a timeline will be easy.

5. Budget

Additionally, it will help to establish a budget at the outset. Again, get some advice on this. Obviously, a complex e-commerce website will cost more than a simple site with a few pages. Also, the more functionality it needs, the more money it will cost. Generally speaking, you can expect to pay anything between £200 up to £10,000 for a large, complex website.

6. Creativity

Once all the planning is complete, it’s time to create your website. With all the knowledge and ideas you have given your team to work with, they can now create the perfect look. This will include the branding, the images and content. The web developer will do all the coding which puts each item in the right place according to your structure and wireframe.

7. User Testing & Functionality

Then, you can go through the functionality of your website. View it as a customer. This is the point where you can make any minor changes to ensure your website is how you want it.

8. Launch

Finally, you are ready to launch. Get marketing your website if you haven’t already started to.