LESSON 15 – THE WEB DESIGN PROCESS

Steps to Building a Website

1 – Decide your website’s topic.

In this stage, a web designer decides on the purpose of the site. A web design company would get this from its clients.

The website’s homepage should clearly explain the topic. The purpose of the website should immediately be clear.

2 – Brainstorm your sub-topics

Along with your client, you need to make a list of all the sub-topics that need to be covered on the site. Each sub-topic will likely get its own button in the navigation bar.

This is a very important process. If you forget a topic, it might be difficult to go back and add a button to your interface. Often, one sees a website with several different menu systems because the initial site design hadn’t accounted for all of the required buttons.

Here is an example of an initial brainstorming bubble diagram. (STEP 2)

Grouping of similar items should occur. What is left is your different pages. (STEP 3)

3 – Divide your website into logical sections.

It is important that you organize your material. This involves deciding the different sections that will appear on your site. If your site is big enough, you need to organize subsections as well.

Example: When the website http://tsn.ca was created, the site was organized by sports. There was a section created for NHL, NFL, NBA, Soccer, … And then, each of these sections had their own subsections (such as Standings, Scores, Players, …)

4 – Decide on a feel for the site.

Should the site give off a sense of professionalism, or friendliness, or perhaps quality? Now that major sections are known for the site, it is time to decide how the look should feel.

5 – Develop a site navigation system.

At this point, you want to decide how visitors will go through your site. The obvious need is a menu. You need to decide how to organize the menu and where to place it. You have many tools that you can use:

· Frames,

· Tables

· Image maps

· Image slicing

· CSS

6 – Give your site an attractive look

All of the organization decisions should be done. It is now time to consider the look of the site. For most commercial websites, this look remains the same throughout all pages so that the user knows he/she is still on the site.

Consistency is important. If you are using cartoon graphics on the site, you want to try to use only those types of cartoon graphics. This gives the site a professional look.

At this point, you are designing the look of your site including the navigation decisions you made in the previous step.

7 – Create all the content pages.

Now that you have your look, you can start adding the content to the pages. If well planned, this is a very easy stage.

8 – Put your site online.

Your website is complete. However, it only works on your computer. You need to transfer it to a web server that will allow anybody on the internet to visit the site.

9 – Maintain site (updates)

Unfortunately, very few websites can simply be uploaded and forgotten. Constant maintenance is usually needed. But hey, from the perspective of the web designer, this can mean more pay!