The Process of Web Design
Talk to seven Web designers and you will hear seven different processes for creating a Web site. Generally that process will include some combination of the following:
- The Idea
- Pre Design- Setting Goals - Determining your Audience
- Flow Charts- Information Architecture- Mapping out the content
- Story Boards - The look and feel
- Final Design
- Building the Site
- Test Test Test
- Launch
Granted, you could skip all of these steps and just start coding, but chances are you would have to start over many times, as issues you might not have initially considered began to arise. If we go back to our model of building a house, imagine that you laid the foundation, nailed up the walls and started on the roof when the person you are building the house for says... "but I also want a garage". So you stop the roof, add some more foundation, nail some more walls and just as you start on the roof again, they say "... can we make it two stories?" Then you have to kill them. You could have saved a lot of time and money (and attorney fees) if you had just sat down in the beginning and planned out the design and steps for building. This is what the Web design process does.