Making It Happen PDF Print E-mail
Now that all the paperwork is out of the way, you and your website design team should be ready to get started.
Let's go through the various steps that you can expect to see taking place over the course of your website development:

1. Design styling and layout mock-ups

The first step for a website designer is to start getting a feel for the styling of the website. In all likelihood, they will provide you with at least one “mock-up design”, most likely of the homepage, which will give you a sense of what the site is going to look like. This is your opportunity to discuss colours, fonts, etc with them, and to get the website design as close to your vision as possible.

The designer will also begin creating page by page layout mock-ups, which will probably be very basic in their styling, no more than blocks and lines which will depict the placement of elements on the page. This exercise is meant to give you an idea of what the various pages are going to look like, and how all the content on the website is going to be placed in relation to each other.

Again, it is important that you get involved in this process. Ask as many questions as possible and make suggestions if you feel they are necessary. When doing so however, remember that designers are generally very artistic creatures and don’t take to criticism all that well. You are now working with a team, and it is important that your notes on design, whether positive or negative, are delivered with care and consideration, as this will ultimately benefit you in the long run.

2. Content review and requirements

Another important step that you need to be involved in is that of content preparation. Your website design team will work closely with you on the type of content required for the website, such as images, copy (textual information) and so on, but ultimately, it will be your job to prepare and provide this content.

It is very likely that once the page layouts are created, a clear picture of what type of content is required will start to form. If at any point you are unsure of what is needed, speak to your website design team and ask them for suggestions.

3. Development

This is probably going to be the most difficult and frustrating period of the project for you, as this is when the actual website design is being created. Depending on the nature of the website, some designers provide an online viewing area where you can watch the site develop over the days and weeks.

Other than that, it is very difficult for a designer to provide updates on how they are progressing, as very often, even if significant progress has been made, it might not look like much has happened on the surface.

During this stage it is important to keep in contact with your team, at least twice a week, but at the same time, do not become an irritation by calling everyday for an update as you will merely be slowing them down.
If things are taking longer than expected or agreed on, arrange for a meeting whereby the designers spend some time to explain what they have done so far, what they have left to do and when they expect to deliver on the next phase.

Click 'Next' to move onto the next lesson - Going Live
 
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