The Web Design Process: Building a Meaningful Web Site for Your Business
The Pencil: Arguably the Designer's best tool.
I’m often approached by small businesses and asked to quote a price for building them a new web site. In response, I usually ask for a meeting to discuss their needs and properly lay out what their expectations are for their site. I sometimes get a twisted look of confusion, or a question as to why I don’t have a price list of services available so they can pick and choose based on their needs. Unfortunately, I don’t work that way, and to my knowledge most good quality design firms don’t work that way either. In this post, I’m going to attempt to describe why, and hopefully give you some insight on the process that I go through so that you can make a more informed decision if you decide to build (or re-build) your web site in the near future.
Selecting your Team
Building a web site really requires two distinct types of people. On the one hand, you have your designers who interview you, look at your company assets, and develop a unique look for your site. On the other, you have your developers, who take the layout you’ve defined for your web site and images you might have and make it all work together. These groups are not mutually exclusive; sometimes you’ll have a firm that will handle both design and development, while other times you’ll work with two separate companies.
Most good companies will have a portfolio of work that they can show you of sites they’ve done in the past. In a tough economy like the one we’re in now, there will also be a lot of freelance designers or small start-ups that might not have much in the way of a portfolio, but will be able to point to projects they’ve worked in the past while they were at another company, or will be able to provide you with a price that is well below the larger competition. Ultimately, you’ll have to go with your gut and don’t be afraid to “interview” a potential vendor to get more information on their credentials.
Considering your Design
A big part of really effective web design is all about location. Location of your content, location of your graphics, location of anything that’s important that you don’t want your visitors to miss when they come to your site. As a business owner, you don’t necessarily have to get involved in terms of exactly where everything goes; a designer should be able to help you figure it out. However, knowing what your assets are and being able to express those during the design process are pivotal in making sure the end results satisfactorily address your needs.
Make sure you go for a design that’s consistent with your logo, template letters and forms, and any other marketing material you might have. If your logo is blue, for example, you’re probably going to want colors on your web site to match the logo. Most good designers and developers will be aware of this as your building your online presence, and should design around it. If your logo and other material are a little outdated, it might even be a good opportunity to have your designer update all of your marketing assets and give yourself a fresh, new look.
Look to strike a balance between graphical information and text. We are visual creatures by nature, and our eye tends to gravitate towards images that we see on a page. If the image can convey a message to your audience, the more powerful your page will be as a communication tool. That said, text is important because it can both hone your message with more specific details, and provide search engines with the information it needs in order to contextualize your site for searches. Therefore your text should be clear, concise and direct. Choose the shortest distance between point A (your readers) and point B (their understanding of your web site).
Be sure not to overwhelm your visitor with choices. Your navigation system should consist of no more than 7 categories from which the reader can choose. If you have more, then consider grouping things into sub-categories for the reader. The ability to clearly categorize the information on your site will help your readers immensely and allow them to more easily find what they need.
Finally, don’t be afraid of the word “template” if you’re looking to save money. There are a lot of pre-designed templates out there that can be customized to your needs and might not be exactly what you’re looking for but will serve as a good representation of both you and your company. The cost of a template varies from free to a couple hundred dollars, but are almost always less costly than having a designer build a look for you from scratch. Be sure to explore this option with your team if you’re budget-conscious, and they’ll be able to help you determine if that strategy is right for you.
Considering your Audience
While it’s tempting to design the site for you, keep in mind that its purpose is really to express your business in a way that’s consistent with your other marketing assets; that is, it will draw in your audience. Your audience will need to see your message to them within 15 seconds of getting to your site, or they will move on (arguably, this number is lower for some people). Knowing every single type of person that may visit your site might be difficult even if you keep some good demographic statistics; it’s therefore advisable to create a persona that can represent the most common characteristics of your visitors. Going so far as creating a name for your persona, identifying his/her gender, even a little background such as age, location, personality, line of work, etc. can be helpful in keeping you focused on the kind of information you need to place on your site.
Knowing your audience will also help you to determine what kind of tools they’ll need when they visit your site to get a more robust experience. Think about how often visitors will want to come to your site to get updates on your business, and think about ways in which they can interact with you in order to give your business direction. We’ve already covered blogging a bit on this site, but online surveys, chat rooms, forums and rating systems are all things you can consider. Even simple page updates to announce the release of a new project or new news within your company might be useful to your clients and prospects. Make sure, of course, that the medium for communication fits the persona or personas you create that describe your visitors.
As with striking a balance in design, you should strike a balance with features for your audience and do what makes sense for your business. Use the tools that effectively communicate your message, and your audience will come.
The Release
So you’ve gathered your content and designed your site based on personas that represent your audience. Now comes…the release! If you’ve done your work up front, the release should be a relatively low-stress event, allowing you to see your vision become a reality. But once your release has occurred, be sure not to let the work stop there. Get your development team to help you determine how traffic is being driven to your site, and whether the personas you’ve created were effective in predicting how people would use your site. If they were, congratulations, you’ve done your job! If they weren’t, there’s no reason to panic. Depending on what your visitors are using, you can adjust the features and content on your site accordingly to have more of an impact on your customers.
Regardless of your ability to predict your audience, you should not let your site become stagnant. Search engines hate idle sites, and so do customers. At least once a month you should ask yourself whether your site is providing the information you need it to, and whether its current features are enough to keep your customers and prospects interested. Web sites in a web 2.0 world should not be newspapers to be discarded after reading; instead, they should be resources for your customers and prospects that adapt to the ebb and flow of their needs.
Further reading:
(Please note, unless this is a review on a specific book, I have not necessarily read the books I list for further reading. I simply look for related books on amazon and put them here for your convenience.)
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Comments
Good, clear article! I’m going to post this as a link on my site. If you do run into clients that are looking for professional templates please check out http://tinyurl.com/ce4zf2 as an alternative to 100% custom.
Jenn
Thank you for the info. My business is just beginning. My website it just up in the last week, but there is a lot of work to do with it. My website developer is in China and we found out that the FTT is blocked from China. My site is http://www.ibeaninspired.com It isn’t interactional as of yet. Thanks again for your insight.
A newbie
Jonathon
[...] We’ll assume, for the moment, that you followed the guidelines we highlighted in “Building a Meaningful Web Site for Your Business” and you’ve already got a steady flow of visitors to your web site who also frequent [...]
[...] are looking at it as an opportunity to review and update their web presence. We’ve had a high-level overview of the web design process earlier, but I wanted to delve a little deeper into the user interface itself. I was very excited [...]
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You’re right, of course, about avoiding stagnation. That’s one reason why I think a blog is always a good addition to a site. Either that or simple enough CMS that it’s easy for folks to add more content.