Our web design process.
We believe strongly that a good communication process and a thorough understanding of our client's business will result in a better, more effective website. We want to work closely with you to find out what you both need and want from your website in order to grow your business.
Because every project is unique, the timetable will vary depending on the size of the project, the number of changes needed at each stage, and how quickly each stage is approved. Some websites may take more time and some will take less.
Planning
This phase starts with a quote request from you, which will start the conversation. We'll follow up with some questions about the purpose of your site, your target audience, and what features you'd like to include. After we get an idea of what you're looking for, we'll prepare a proposal and a contract for you based on what you told us.
Once a contract has been signed and we've received a 50% deposit, we'll begin to really dive into the details. We'll work with you to plan out your website's structure and flow. We'll profile your potential users and make sure that your goals and their goals align. We'll discuss your marketing strategy for the website and we'll also map out a content strategy.
Mood & Tone Development
At this point, we've already discussed the tone of your written content, but we also need to establish the visual tone for the website. Should it be fun and quirky or clean and professional? We'll take your current branding into account and also look at other websites that you like, discuss why you like them, and try to capture the essense of how you want your brand portrayed on the web.
When we're done, we'll send you something called a mood board, which is a color palette combined with other graphics or photos that we think should set the tone for your website.
Content Creation
The content of a website is just as important as the website's design. Once we've established a strategy for your website, we'll need to gather together all of the written content and images for the website.
At this stage, you have a few options. If you already have content, we can work with it to integrate it into your website with some copy editing and image touchups. However, if writing and finding images for your site sounds too intimidating or time consuming, we can handle it for you. We're experts at website copywriting and we'll make sure that you have a consistent and appropriate tone throughout your website. We can also find stock imagery or create custom graphics or logos for your website.
It's important to note that the website design process won't be able to move forward until all of the content is gathered, so if you have the majority of your content prepared before contacting us, we'll be able to work much more quickly.
Wireframe Mockups
The next step is for us to create a series of wireframe mockups for each different type of page that will be included in your design. As an example, we'll create one wireframe for your front page, one for your contact page, one for your blog, and so on.
A wireframe mockup is purposefully abstract, usually only black and white, and it is meant to help establish the layout and structure of each page without becoming too detailed. Because it's only a rough sketch, it helps us make sure that the primary objective of each page is being fulfilled without being distracted by other elements of the design.
For each wireframe, we'll also point out why we are making certain design decisions to help you understand the process.
High-Quality Mockups
After we've worked out all the details for each wireframe, we'll full-detail image-only mockups for select pages. These mockups will use the color palette we created before and will try to capture the tone presented in the mood board.
Once we've worked out all the details and made any necessary changes for these final mockups, the design portion of the website will be done and we'll require another 25% deposit before moving on to the development stage.
Development & Coding
During the development and coding phase, we'll take the design and translate it into code. We'll also do any custom programming necessary to implement the features your site needs.
Because we want to make it easier for our clients to update their websites, we always use a content management system to create each website that we make. The content management system will allow you to be able to log into an adminstration section and edit your content without having to call us every time you need to make a small change.
Launching Your Site
When we're done coding, we'll put your website on our test server and allow you to test it out before it goes live onto your server. During this time, we'll try to catch any errors or bugs and we'll make sure that it looks good in every browser.
Once you're satisfied that everything is the way you want it, we'll ask for the final 25% of the project cost. After we've received payment, we'll transfer the site to your server and make sure that everything is working smoothly over the next week or so.
Post Launch
After the launch, we'll send you an owner's manual for your website, complete with all of your login and server information and instructions on how to make simple changes using the content management system.
If you'd like, we can also help you track your website's progress and make improvements over time. Successful websites are constantly evolving and require testing, analysis, and constant changes to continue being successful. We can help guide you through this process.