The Design Process - Introduction

I’ll make it clear again - I am no master at web design, but I have grown as a designer so much over the past year that I feel sharing what I’ve learned will in turn help others. This is the first entry in a series I plan of doing that will talk about each part of my process of creating a website. It will start out with simple things like filling out a questionnaire and planning a design, and eventually finish off with you sending the final files to your client.

Generally there are 5 or so parts of the design process.

1. Planning

Planning is much more important than most new designers could imagine. At first all I did was ask a few questions about what the client wanted and then I went right to work. Now I do much more than that but in turn it saves me a lot of time. 

2. Designing

Designing is when all the real fun begins. Open up Photoshop or whatever program you prefer and start designing the look of the site. Many times you submit multiple design variations to the client and they decide which they feel best suits their interests. From there you will revise various areas of the site they feel need some fine tuning. Once the design is approved it’s time to turn it into a file suitable for the web.

3. Develop

While it could be said that converting an image file into HTML/CSS is part of the design process, I prefer to consider it part of the development process. Once the front-end coding is complete you can begin adding different frameworks such as ASP and PHP or ship it off to a partner to handle that stuff for you.

4. Deliver

Now it’s time to get the design online! It is usually in your best interest to test it out on a temporary web page before moving it to the permanent one. This way, you can test out the pages and make sure everything runs clean for the viewers. You can even ask friends and family to test it out before it goes live.

5. Finishing Touches

Once the site goes live it’s time to wrap things up. A list of all the files should be handed off to the client. Meet with them to ensure everything is running smooth and what they wanted. Then it’s time to collect your check!

Things always tend to get change a little during the process but this is a good start. Be sure to check back for more updates on the Process series! Thanks for reading.