Design and Develop a Website: Step #1
Taking a website from start to finish is not the easiest task in the world. With this article, I plan to outline the first of the five basic steps that I use to stay on time and track.
Step #1: Research, Proposal and Contract
After you have gathered the preliminary data for the individual or organization that desires a website, it is essential to do research into their market. Google is your best asset at this point. Read as much as you can about their market to insure your design work reflects the target.
Once your market research has been completed, create a project plan. Knowing your clients budget is key at this juncture. Knowing their budget will help you allocate resources that you will need to complete the job. If the client wants a brochure website, that will not be updated frequently, chances are they will not need a CMS to power their site.If your client needs to have access to the website to keep it fresh and up-to-date, they would not be able to functional without a CMS. Building that kind of powerful functionality into a site takes much more time and resources on your behalf. Understanding your clients needs up front can help you plan appropriately and make proper adjustments to the budget.
Once your game plan has been established, it is essential to get a signed contract agreeing to the terms of the project. You want to avoid scope creep! Make sure you stipulate in your contract the cost of changes and revisions allowed. If you work hourly, this shouldn’t be too much of a concern. If you charge based per project, then you HAVE to outline your fee structure for changes and revisions.
The most important items of the first step are your preliminary research and making sure your proposal/contract outlines the scope of work you are required to complete at the project cost. With these essentials covered, I will next be writing about how to create the structure of the design.
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