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Web 101
We've provided the Web 101 section to guide you through the web design and development process. It should generally be used as a resource for a quick and simple explantion of complex concepts. We will present it in blog format for and easy and hopefully interesting read.
Wednesday May 7 2008 By Ryan Mannion
This is the continuation and final installement of How the Design process works. You can view the other two installments by going to How the Design process works or by going to How the Design process works part II of III.
After the wire frames have been approved, you should receive a 2-3 different deisgn comps (depending on the agreement and company) which take into account the information that you provided to your design company at the first meeting. Generally a design company will design one comp at a time, to ensure that they direction they are taking design is on the right path. If it's not, then the second and third design should be much closer, as they can take your feedback and apply it heavily to any other designs they deliver.
What do you do if all 2 or 3 designs is no where close to what you wanted? This all depends on your agreement, and the company you've hired. As long as the discovery process was well done, and the design company listened to your requirements, the designs that come out of this process should be close to what you are looking for.
After you receive the comps, you'll have to make any changes to the layout or structure prior to moving forward. After your changes are finalized, all of your content, photos, logos, videos etc should be in the hands of your designers. The quicker you provide the content to the design company, the quicker the turn around will be.
After the finalized product is delivered, you'll have to make any final adjustments, and then take steps push your new website live!
If you are new to the web development world, the good news is your design company will generally do this for you, or help you do it, if you want some involvement yourself.
My next posting will talk about what web hosting is, what it's used for, and why you need it!
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Thursday April 3 2008 By Ryan Mannion
As a continuation from the last and original posting, How the web design process works, we will pick up where we left off. You now have your elements, buckets or sections, and the color palette you want to use, but now comes the hard, yet exciting parts.
If you followed along in the last posting, I recommended that you visit several sites in your industry across the web which would help you decide what sections or buckets that you'd like to add to your website. Additionally while visiting these sites, you probably took notice of some of the visual elements that you liked or disliked on each site.
The next step in this process is to start paying attention to websites that you visit on a daily basis and start keeping a tally of all the elements that you like or dislike. It's important to have a fairly lengthy, yet non exhaustive list. I'd recommend gathering a total of 10 likes, and 10 dislikes, which will greatly help your designers and developers learn your tastes.
Good webdesign companies will provide thier clients with a good "Web Design Questionnaire". This questionnaire asks a range of questions which help the designers narrow down even further the direction you want your design to take. The idea behind the questionnaire is to ensure the designs that are produced are as close to what the client was looking for as possible. If the design company you are considering does not have a design questionnaire, I would be worried.
After identifying and gathering more details about what you want your website to resemble, the design company will take that information and carefully develop "wire frames". Wire frames are essentially visual representations of how your website will be laid out, but with the least time investment possible up front. For instance, instead of developing several full designs, the wire frame process gives you a good idea of what type of layout and structure your website will have, without too much of a time committment. This benefits both parties because if the design company goes down the wrong path with a design, you could lose several weeks of time.
Once the wire frames are delivered, generally a home page and subpage, you will then start to make changes to the wire frame layout. After you come to a decision on the wireframe, and have an approved layout, the design company will then start the design process.
Meanwhile you should be gathering the content that will reside on your website. This will include all written text, photos, logos, and any other type of assets you will be adding to your website. If you plan on adding any audio or video content at the launch of your website, this all needs to be done simulaneously. We ask all of our clients to provide photos in large jpeg format, logos in photoshop or illustrator files, and all text should reside in a popular word processeing tool such as Microsoft Word, Word Perfect, or Google Docs.
Stay tuned for the third edition of "How the Design process works"..
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Wednesday March 26 2008 By Ryan Mannion
The web design process is a process that ranges greatly depending on who you talk to. Generally you will start off with the customer (or if the customer is you, start off with yourself) and really try to map out all of the elements that you are looking to include in your website.
After developing your list of elements, you now want to start putting those elements into buckets or containers. These containers end up being your website sections. All like items should be grouped together. For instance your "About us" section could end up with a company mission statement, careers, bios of executives, as well as the company location, and possibly even a contact us section. Logical sections of your website should be grouped together. If you have questions about what items should go together, start to look around the internet at competitors sites, as well as websites in different industries to give a better idea of the content you'd like to include in your website.
After you have your list of elements, containers (or sections), you now want to identify websites in your industry (and other industries) that you like, and you also want to identify elements on websites that you want to stay away from.
You are now at the point that you want to pick a color palette. A color palette selector Color Schemer is a good tool to use to give you a better idea of what colors go with each other. All you need to do is select a color to start with, and it will give you all of the complementary colors. Another website I just came across Degraeve is a really cool tool for matching up that great photo with a color palette. Sometimes people start off with a great picture and go from there. With this tool you can take advantage of that great picture to the extent that you need to.
To recap -- You now have your elements, your buckets or sections, and the color palette you are going to use.
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Can I add a shopping cart on my existing website?
We can add a shopping cart to any existing website. It can be a simple shopping cart solution, or a full e-commerce application.
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