Define Goal and Scope
“Success is the progressive realization of what worth a goal.” Earl Nightingale One of the important tasks in web design is to have a project scope and the end goal, which helps you avoid unnecessary roadblocks.
For a website’s scope to be better, the designer and the stakeholders should get the agreement in writing, ask as much as possible, and avoid marking assumptions.
Use tools like Gantt charts to visualize tasks and complete the work within the deadline as it provides invaluable references for both designers and clients.
Identifying goals is the initial phase of web design and try to be as realistic as possible.
An unrealistic goal is like asking Roger Federer to compose music and AR Rahman to play tennis. create personas, identify the real problem and then design accordingly.
Some basic questions to explore in this phase of the design are
What are the users?
What are their expectations?
What is my core idea and aim?
What are my competitors, if any?
Building an information architecture
A design without proper architecture is like a television without power. If you are in any new, unfamiliar city, you need a map of that city and some signboards in a known language to navigate. likewise, good site architecture guides you to make a design in which you are aware of all user flows and information is easily accessible.
Information architecture (IA) is just like a blueprint for a website where the content is structured effectively and sustainably. An IA is a foundation for a good design. The goal is IA is to classify the content clearly and understandable and arrange it so that users could navigate with less effort.
The Information Architecture comprises five important steps. Research around the users- gather various buyer persona and get an idea of what a user wants.
Review and fine-tune content-Create an inventory for content by segregating it into headings, Media files, and links, and audit them.
Classify using techniques like card sorting- Arrange the acquired content test it to gain user perception of your product
The three types of card sorting for
Open-free labeling with no designation.
Closed- pre- designated labeling.
Hybrid-contains elements from both types.
User-friendly navigation- The main purpose of navigation is to reduce the user’s efforts to search for the product.
Navigation is of four types, they are
- Hierarchical- Information follows from the main elements to sub-categories.
- Global- Accessible from any location present across all pages.
- Local- This shows the navigation of a specific area.
- Contextual- relates to specific content, like document, page, video audio object, or related products. Create architecture prototypes for future reference- prototypes are the various embodiment of the design process from which the final design is picked.
Content Creation
If design architecture is the vessel, then the content created is the food your serve and the content writer is the chef.
It is the job of a chef to prepare healthy food that everyone could consume and it is also your job to keep the presentation of the food in a user-friendly manner.
Content creation is the process of identifying the right form of content that suits your brand language and makes it easy for users to interact with the product. The process of writing generally involves numerous rounds of editing, considering the inputs from fellow writers and stakeholders before it’s ready to publish.
Ideating good content can be done in various methods.
Keyboard Research- it’s an interesting way to find out what customers search for. You can also create new opportunities for content that you may not have considered. Gather customer Feedback- It is one of the most primitive methods for product-worthy content.
You are the customer. A designer needs to understand their users. Put yourself in their shoes as you can discover new engaging and helpful ideas.
Brainstorming- Collect ideas from your fellow workers to obtain new angles and perception that will help produce quality content.
Prototyping and Testing
A good website is like a sword made out of iron, which is flexible during the whole smelting process becomes a sharp and strong sword, once completed.
A website had to go through a lot of rigorous prototyping and testing before making it to the final release version.
A prototype is nothing but an interactive mockup of your web design. A prototype allows a user to interact with the website almost as it would behave when built, while it may not include some fully functional features.
The alpha and beta version of a website is nothing but prototypes that have made their way up to the pre-release phase.
Web design without testing is a half-baked process. The process of testing is carried out in two phases, they are
Pre-release testing- The test is carried out before release. The test is carried out before release. obtained from alpha and beta versions are used to build a good web design.
Post-release testing- The product support provided by the company after its release through various updates and patch-fixes. One of the best examples is ‘InVision’ a web-based prototyping tool that allows designers to create highly interactive mockups for web and mobile projects.
