Know what you want your website to accomplish
Posted on July 19, 2010
A lot of people start the website design process thinking about what they want their website to look like. I guess it’s natural to think that way, and I’m not going to tell you that what your site looks like doesn’t matter. It does matter, quite a bit.
But the look of your website should not be the only thing on your mind as you go through the website design process. In fact, it probably doesn’t even to be the primary thing on your mind.
You’ll get the look of the site right eventually, don’t sweat it. But the thing that needs to come first is the purpose of the site. What does the website do? What is it supposed to accomplish? Why should it even exist at all?
I’ve always been surprised how common it is for clients to be willing to fork over thousands of dollars for a website without being able to answer the following question:
What are you trying to accomplish with this website?
Do you want to just set up a page or 2 that tells people how to get in touch with you? Do you want to sell products? Do you want to provide weekly or monthly updates about the latest news from your company?
There are hundreds of things a website can do. If you don’t know what you want yours to do, it will be difficult to think clearly about about what the site should look like.
Building a website that is well-structured and well-organized, that has the ability to grow and scale, and meets relevant technical requirements — that’s where web design starts. A good designer can make the right decisions about all of these issues, but only if he/she has a good understanding of what the client is trying to get done.
As far as making it all look good, modern web design methods allow the look of a site to be changed with relative ease once the structure of the information has been determined.
The idea here is not to say that the look of your site doesn’t matter. It’s just not the only thing that matters, and typically not the best place to start.
Think about what you want and what you need from your website. Make some notes and be prepared to communicate these things to any web designers you discuss your project with. This will help you choose the right designer and get the best work from the designer you hire.
When I began writing content for Spinning Wheel Studios, this is where I began. Knowing what a website is supposed to do makes the whole process a lot easier. Plus, nice looking websites are everywhere nowadays. It’s the ones that have good content that people can use that will thrive.
Great article.