A Sound Design

The purpose of this document is to help you understand the process of putting together a web site from start to finish.

This has several stages. These are not an exact science that happen a linear order but serves as a guide to the likely serious of events.

Overall, I like to think of there being 7 broad processes involved:

1)    PLANNING
2)    DESIGNING
3)    TESTING
4)    REFINING
5)    PUBLISH
6)    MAINTAINING
7)    PROMOTING

I’ll elaborate on these below

Process 1: PLANNING:

1.    Enquiry Stage:
The customer completes an Enquiry Form if contacted by the web site or over the phone. I receive and review the initial enquiry. I will then get back to you and discuss your requirements and clarify issues. To keep travelling costs and time to a minimum I prefer to keep meetings to bare necessities. I offer a free initial consultation (I don’t mind travelling anywhere within Northern Ireland and border regions as long as there is a high chance of the project going ahead). However, most of the process can be done via e-mail or phone.

2.    Making a Commitment to Proceed – Once we have clarified any issues if you are happy to continue then we will start to agree terms and begin the process of constructing the site. Both of us need to be committed to the process – I will commit myself to producing the best that I can; you commit yourself to providing content and any necessary information. This leads nicely on to stage 3…..

3.    Project Acceptance – Once you are happy to proceed a 25% deposit needs to be paid. This is part of your commitment to see the process through and respects the fact that I will have put a lot of my time and energy into planning, information gathering, designing, etc. even if you decide not to see the process through to the end (or due to other circumstances your project/business ends). This is a non-returnable deposit. I prefer a cheque for this but will accept PayPal if you are either not UK based or do not have a cheque account. A 2.7% charge is added if paying by PayPal to cover admin costs.

4.    Information Gathering – either by post, e-mail or face to face meeting. This is the important part that sets up the direction of the process. With careful planning and clarity about your goals and objectives for the site there is a greater chance of getting the design and structure right without too many re-designs and re-organisation.

5.    Send Your Content – you can send content (words, artwork, logos, photos, videos etc.) that is to go on the site on either CD, DVD, Floppy Disk or by e-mail. Please note that there may be a small administration charge if there is a lot of information on hard copy, which I will need to type up or needing scanned.

6.    Clarifying – this is where I make sense of your content and start to see how it will relate to the web site. For example, starting to group content according to pages, sections etc.

Process 2: DESIGNING

7.    Creation of a Prototype of the Site – based on content received, any special requirements and the project brief I will construct an initial design. This is not necessarily how the site will end up but is designed to open up discussion about style issues. It is an important part of the process as I take your content, ideas and project goals and attempt to put them into reality. This can be in the form of an image (jpeg) or an actual page design, which will be posted via a password-protected section of either my own web site or yours, if hosting has been set up yet.

8.    Design Approval –  This is where I can process your feedback and work on it until the design is just right for you. When you are happy with the design I will go ahead and start creating it using content and developing the structure and style more.

9.    Web Site Creation – now that the initial design has been approved I can start to build the actual design using photos, artwork, content, interactive features and others.

Process 3: TESTING

10.    Transferring Files to a Testing Server – I will then put the files for the site on a space on the Internet that only you and I (and other colleagues that you may designate to view it) can view. This will be in the form of a link sent via e-mail to the place where you can view it. The site at this stage will be password protected. The e-mail will contain a username and password. The testing site will either be on a section of my own web site or on you own domain name if you have yours set up.

11.    Checking Links and Site Features – now that the site has been built and put on a testing server it needs to be checked for errors before it can be put live. For example, if you have requested a Contact Form for your site I will test that when a site visitor clicks the ‘Send’ button that the form’s contents are actually sent to the destination e-mail address. I will also invite you to look at the finished site to test it for yourself so that you are satisfied that it is ready to go.

Process 4: REFINING

12.     Adding Finishing Touches – from testing the site it may be noticed that some things need to be re-worked slightly, correcting issues that have been highlighted in testing.

13.     Final Look at the Site – when I have finished making any corrections I will contact you to have a last look.

Process 5: PUBLISHING

14.     Putting the Site Live on the Internet – if you are now happy with the final product I will send you an invoice for the remaining balance. Once I have received your payment and I can very that it has been cleared by my bank I will remove any password protection if on a testing server or upload the final site files to the server where your domain name resides.

The following 3 stages may be handled earlier or later in the process according to your initial needs (eg. if you need an e-mail account set up):

15.    Register Domain Name and Web Hosting – web hosting simply means that the files for your site will be placed on a computer on a web server (glorified computer) so that people can see it. I do not personally provide the computer to host the site but use a reputable, reliable company based in America. When the time is right to set this up I will forward you a link to their site so that you can set this up. I get a commission for doing this, which costs you nothing extra. Please note: this is an additional cost to the priced of web design, which you will need to pay for separately and not to me. At the time of writing they offer a free domain name with a lot of privacy protection built in, which is another good reason for choosing this company.

16.    Set up a Holding Page for the site (if required) – once you have a domain name and hosting you may want me to set up a simple page (no fancy designs) that informs people ‘Site Under Construction’. A good reason for this may be that you have already set up advertising in a telephone directory or other place and have already included the web site address.

17.    Set up e-mail accounts (if required) – whilst there are a number of good free e-mail accounts around a lot of businesses look upon them with disdain as many (especially Hotmail) are used to send Spam. An e-mail address at your domain name creates a very professional image. I will advise you on how to set this up on your computer so that you can send and receive e-mails.

Process 6: MAINTAINING

18.    Updating the Content of Your Site – There are broadly 2 choices here:

1)    Using a Content Management System (CMS) – with the introduction and rise to fame of blogs, community sites, social networking sites and others this has become the most popular form of managing a web site. The advantage is that many designated people can log in and manage a site via the Internet, and therefore, from anywhere in the world that has a computer with access to the Internet.

2)    Updating Manually on a ‘Static’ Web Site – this is in many ways the ‘old’ way of designing and adding content to a web site. It still has its uses and there are advantages and disadvantages of both approaches (too numerous to go into here as this is not supposed to be an exhaustive guide).

Let’s just say for now that this issue will be discussed in more detail if you agree to use my design services to ensure that the best solution for managing your site is used. Maybe one of the deciding factors is that many businesses and organisations that come to me for web design are small ones with only 1 or 2 people that are already under pressure to meet their current work demands, let alone do more, and do so because they want me to manage the site and allow them to concentrate on their core business. This is one business lesson that I myself learned many years ago when I was a Sales Administrator in a small business. My manager told me not to fiddle around trying to fix things unless I knew what I was doing.

Process 7: PROMOTING

19.    Search Engine Marketing (SEO) and Internet Marketing – you may have a really good looking site but it may just stay as that if no one visits it! SEO is the process of preparing the site to be as ‘friendly’ to the Search Engines, such as Google and Yahoo, as possible. Wikipedia defines it as:

“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.”

Phew! What a load of words! In a nutshell, SEO is about getting your site as ‘friendly’ as possible to be found by the major Search Engines, such as Google and Yahoo.

Internet Marketing is then about advertising the site as much as possible in Directories (eg. Yell.com and many others).

Again these are both huge issues and are very time consuming and would need a separate costing from me if you would like me to undertake them for you. As a courtesy, I will submit your site’s address to the top 5 Search Engines at the time of submission, which generally includes Google, Yahoo and MSN. I do this for free for all new customers to help kick start your site. But this alone is not enough and will not guarantee you a number position in Google.

Other Resources:

I hope you have found this useful. Please contact me if anything is unclear. I have written a more comprehensive guide on the subject of planning entitled ‘Planning Your Web Site’. You can download this from the web site.