The 7 stages of Web Design

A well designed and structured website will make your visitors have a great experience every time they visit. The content on your site, such as text, images, and videos will help them learn more about your business and the product and/or service you are offering to them.

When designing and developing your website there are several things to consider and, so, it is best to design in stages. I will explain what each step of the process is in its essence. Here are 7 stages a web design and development team will use:

1. Gather Information
2. Structure
3. Design
4. Development
5. Test
6. Launch
7. Maintenance

1. Gather Information

It is important to gather information before getting your hands dirty with design. Design professionals usually conduct something called a discovery session with a client. What is discussed is their website goals , what their offering is, who their target audience is, and how they are trying to communicate. This helps the designer have a clear direction as to brainstorming ideas and choosing design elements for the website. In this session questions such as the following will help get the project on the right start:

1. What is our goal for the website?
2. How is (or how will) your business be successful?
3. What websites do you like and why?
4. What websites do you dislike and why?
5. Who is your target audience?
6. What service or product do you want to offer your customers?
7. Who are your competitors? (in and out of your industry)

The designer may suggest ideas on what content should be on the website and also listens to the clients input. Depending on the project, some of this may include a blog, offers, contact, newsletter, bios, etc.

2. Structure

In this step the designer will organize what pages will be made and what information will be in each section, putting together a diagram that maps out the structure of the site (also known as sitemap). This will help keep things visually organized and will help the client and designer see the big picture on the objective each page will have and their sections.

3. Design

A low-fidelity wireframe is a sketch or illustration of a page’s interface that shows the content blocks and sections, navigation elements, and functionalities. It is a visual representation of the basic structure and layout of the web page and does not include any styling, color, or graphics. Headings, body copy (text) and captions will be included in each part, which will assist in art direction and ideas for the next phase.

Once the client approves it, a high-fidelity wireframe design is made. Art direction and creativity is used here to visually communicate, emphasize and complement the information that has been on each page and section. The final outcome to this phase is to closely resemble the final design which includes typography, colors, images, icons, and CTA buttons.

4. Development

Once the wireframe has been approved and the design closely resembles the goals that were outlined in the initial discovery session then development of the site begins. Depending on the complexity of the design, the designer will choose to use a no-code design tool or code from scratch. A good practice is to include a style guide page that will set the foundation for the page styling. After creating all the pages, buttons, links, and functionalities are tested to assure everything is working properly.It is sent to the client for review and feedback for minor changes.

Designing and developing a website is a multi-step process and doing things in an organized fashion will definitely streamline each part of the project. If you are looking to get a website done you can contact The Process Design Co, and we’ll be glad to get things started for you.