Web designing Vs Website Planning

• • At the very outset it would seem that web designing and website planning are the same thing. This is because when seen from a broad sense, both are concerned with making a website. However this notion is erroneous. Website is just one of the parts of the whole which is Website Planning. Creating a website is like baking a cake for the first time without knowing the recipe or how to use the ingredients. Website Planning, as the term tells, is all about planning from beforehand how to build a profitable website. People have now learnt from experience that making a website without any kind of planning, which is a huge project on its own, is a recipe for disaster. Making a website without planning forces the designer to make many wrong decisions when making the site, results in multiple conformation calls to the client that may irritate them, increases backtracking, increases the costs and in general makes the client dissatisfied. Website Planning not only helps to finish the project on time with the optimum use of resources but also prevents backtracking and editing of errors. Know what it involves is important for not only website designing companies but also for the clients. Here are some of the things which clients and companies making the website should keep in mind:

    The PLAN method-

    • • Preparation: This involves the identification of the nature of the website needed and the nature of the target audience. There are many question to ask at this stage. Is the end result of the client in ordering the website to make money or earn revenue? Does he or she intend to share only information through the website or is it a social networking website? A client can ask for any nature of website. It is therefore best to know about the nature of each as each of them are different. For instance a website intended to make money requires a user friendly makeup, friendly and interactive interface and a shopping cart mechanism. A website made to share information of a company does not always require a shopping cart mechanism, but it does require a mechanism that allows visitors add comments. A social networking site shall be quite different from the previous ones in term of interface. Here the interface is mostly informal.

     

    Secondly, the goals of the website should be concertized. What does the website hope to achieve? What are its short time and longtime goals?

    Thirdly, who are the target audience the website wants to cater to? In case of a corporate company website, the target audience shall be employees, prospective and existing clients, distributors, suppliers etc. Various groups of target audience visiting your website have varied levels of skills and technological know how and resources. For instance, they may or may not be using the web for the very first time, they may or may not know how to download o upload files or understand how a plug in works. It should also be taken into account the technology at the disposal of the visitor. What type of computer, operating system, browser, Windows version or Mac version do they use? Is the visitor likely to keep the computer up to date with the latest security updates, what kind of internet connection is used, which browser is used etc.

    • • Landscaping– This is all about how you want your website to look, or rather how the target audience will view the website. If you don’t want to make the most boring website in the history of website development then you’ll fill it up with more than text. There are many elements one can use with which to spice up the website such as various kinds of uploaded documents, images, audio and video files, flash files, RSS feeds from other related websites, Twitter module and more. There are many things to use but one must know when to use which element. Is it necessary to make a shopping cart module and is it a module you have made or is it one of a third party? In what ways can people pay for the items they buy? Is it necessary to have secure servers or are the services of a hosting company required? How can items be shipped? How can people sign in or register on the website? Or will be free for the public? Will auto responders and email forwarding be used? Do you need to use database, MySQL an SQL?
      • Aesthetics– This is about beautifying your website. It also involves the inclusion of images and animations. There are many kinds of graphics like animated pictures, flash animations and static graphics. Which is the best suited for the website? Are these in a format suitable for visitor to view in his or her browser?

    

    • • Navigation– This involves the way in which the website pages and links are arranged. It must be easy
        to navigate or else the visitors will get frustrated and leave, even if they were seconds away from buying a product. Therefore the interface must be intuitive. It should be kept in mind that a crisp page of few text and images is better than pages having a lot of images and text.

    

    
    

  • The Website Design Process