Good quality web design comes in many forms and is only really restricted by the imagination, creativity and skill of the designers and developers in question. The huge number of technologies and formats now available means web design is an art.

There are still some things that should be considered before you let your creative juices flow, however, because at the end of the day the site has to do a job and that should never be forgotten! Here are five things you need to decide upon or remember before you embark on your next web design project.

1) What is it FOR?

Is the site you are about to design an ecommerce website? Is it a brochure site? Is it a corporate site? The reasons you need to ask yourself these questions are that it will determine where you start and what your priorities should be.

A brochure site will require a heavy focus on aesthetics while an ecommerce site will require a far greater level of functionality. A corporate site will probably lie somewhere in the middle.

At the end of the project your final website will, of course, be both beautiful AND functional, but it helps to know where your focus should lie.

2) What will the content be?

This ties in very closely with point one. An ecommerce site will rely heavily on high quality images, eye catching layout and strong calls to action. A brochure site will require some imagery but will also feature more copy so your website design needs to take this into account, your layout needs to reflect it. A corporate site is likely to be more text based but it can’t look boring, so you’ll need to find a way to make the text come alive on the screen.

3) What framework will you use?

Will your site be created using HTML and CSS, PHP, an ecommerce platform like Magento or a readymade content management system like WordPress? This will ultimately be determined by, again, what the website is for and your budget, but it is an important point to consider.

Does your website have to work on mobile phones as well on a PC or Mac? If so, this too will determine what framework you will use and what extras you add in. Flash, for example, won’t work on an iPhone (or in Google Instant Preview as it happens!) so will you have to build a mobile version of the site to compensate?

4) Who is your audience?

Think about who you’re building the website for – and that doesn’t mean yourself or your client! It means the people who will be visiting and using the website for whatever its purpose is meant to be. Think about what they will expect to see, what will excite them, what will make them stay and return and, if appropriate, what will make them buy or enquire.

Design your website with your audience in mind at all times!

5) What does the future hold?

While any website can be extended or changed at any time, you can save yourself (or your client) considerable time and money if you anticipate any likely future requirements that may not be part of the current specification.

For example, if the site is an ecommerce website, will it need to accept different currencies in future, will it need to be expanded to accommodate new ranges, new product types, whole new sections of online store?

Design and develop your website in such a fashion that these things can be relatively easily done further down the line and you’ll save yourself a potential headache.

Good web design begins with planning and the more you plan the better your eventual website will be.

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Fluid Creativity, a web design company based in Manchester, UK.

Category: Advice
Keywords: web design, web development, website design, web design company