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Website Design Process.
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Concept Development
Creating a website design is often a singularly artistic process, but developing the structure and content is a collaborative effort as there are many decisions that must be made during the website's construction. This outline should help to clarify the development process, and to explain each step as I work with you to produce your website.
The website design concept typically begins with a meeting (or phone conversation) about audience, content, and style as well as any existing design elements or functional requirements you may have. We want to establish the primary functions of the site and how the information will be organized and how often you will need to update the information. We will also need to confirm who will be assisting with creating the text and photography for the site.
I might ask you to send me links to websites so that I get a sense of the style and mood that appeal to you. This also helps you to define what you like in websites and things you might like to see in your site. Once we've established the design requirements for the website I'll produce an initial concept mockup (and sometimes more) which I'll email to you for approval (ETA: 1-3 days).
If any corrections or alterations are needed, the mockup will be updated and emailed to you for approval again. It's rare that more than one or two revisions are needed to finalize the design concept. However, this may sometimes be necessary and the final cost would reflect any additional time spent on concept development, or "tweaking".
It's important to address all of the design issues up front because these can become considerably more expensive to fix later in development.
Website Structure
The process of constructing the website framework is a time-intensive task, so it's important to ensure that the content requirements and menu structure are finalized well in advance of this. I'll confirm these with you before I proceed with creating the structure.While I can help you to organize your content and to ensure that it's presented in a logical way, many of the content-specific decisions will be up to you. After all, you know your business and audience far better than I do!
Once the menu structure has been finalized I begin creating and assembling the functional components and design elements in a temporary website development area (ETA: 2-5 days). Any content that you plan to write or re-write can usually be done concurrently.
When the website structure is complete I'll email you a link so that you can browse the site and get a feel for it.
Content Integration and Layout
When the content is ready in final form and no further additions are planned it can be emailed to me in electronic format. Ideally, your content should be organized using the menu structure that was created for the website (ie: Homepage, About Us, Products, etc.) and saved as a Word or .txt file. It's best if the finished content is sent in its entirety, as this will help to prevent major restructuring late in development.If you have graphic or photographic items that you want me to use along with the content (logo, product photos, etc.), these can be emailed to me. If there are a large number of items, they can be burned to CD/DVD and sent to the address on the invoice estimate.
Unless you communicate any specific preferences, I'll use my own judgment as to what layout and presentational style best suits your content offerings. The time necessary for completing this phase varies widely with different types of content, but it's generally finished within 1-5 days.
Publication
When content integration and layout is complete I'll ask you to browse through the development site to check for errors, typos and any other content issues that might need attention. At this phase we want to ensure that we have addressed SEO (what is SEO?) issues.Once the website has been verified I'll begin the process of publishing it to the live server. To do this I'll need:
• The domain name or IP address of the website
• An FTP account username and password
This information is typically included in a confirmation email that will have been sent to you after signing up for a website hosting plan. If you're not familiar with website hosting and domain name registration I can assist you, as there are some important considerations. (Find out more about hosting…)
Updates
As part of the initial concept development phase we should have established an understanding of your updating requirements. I offer updates on a quarterly (or less) basis for a minimum $200.00 fee. If you want the freedom to easily update your content on a regular basis you will want to consider a Content Management System (Find out more about CMS…)Lastly, bear in mind that coordinating and preparing the information and materials for a website is time-intensive, so the deposit I request before I begin development is non-refundable.
I hope this information is useful to you and I look forward to working with you on your creative projects!