First steps planning your web design

What is the goal of the website?

Of course you have to start from here. Is the goal to get the visitor to click “buy now” or “order now” button on e-commerce website and reach the “Thank you! Payment successful” page or just fill a form and end up “Thank you! Information submitted!” page so you have some sort of information about the visitor and can do the sales via phone, e-mail or face-to-face.

What are the visitor’s immediate needs?

Your company’s goal can be different to your visitors need on your website. One of web 2.0 ideologies is to design website so that customer finds what he’s looking for as a first thing not to try to push agressively what you want to say -  annoying advertisments, pop-up windows and long navigation path before the content what visitors most probably search for at you website. If it’s an e-shop then products must be the first thing to promote and if providing services then all services should be mentioned on the front page and must be easily found from main menu(s).

The most immediate information that visitors want to find is weather the product/service they’re looking for is offered. After that the potential customer wants to know about the prices, quality, customer service quality and see some examples of work or try the product for free. Also, people want to get guarantee (Escrow payment if service provider or using secure payment methods where dispute can be created when product/service doesn’t meet the needs).

In part 2 Runo writes how to Draw the web site’s structure diagram & Draw the web pages’ layout