If you are a web designer there are a number of things that you will need to take into consideration when starting a new project. One of the first steps you must take once you have been chosen to design a client’s website is to do some proper research. Research will allow you to get a good understanding of the industry your client is in. Unless you have worked in their industry before, you need to make sure that you know what they do, why they do it and who their competitors are. Once you have a good idea of the industry then you will more easily be able to determine what they and any potential users of their website will be looking for.
Your research might be as simple as just looking at other websites in the field you are working on or may become as complex as in-depth market research involving focus groups and customer surveys. The level of research will be determined by the budget that you and your client allocates to this part of the project, but it is always worth spending some time doing this to give yourself a good start to the project.
Coming up with a great idea for a site is always the most difficult part of any web design project. It will be hard to come up with one standout idea that will be the final design so it is often best to try brainstorming a few ideas which can then be developed into the final design. It might be that you end up dismissing some ideas after a bit of development if they don’t turn out to be as great as you initially thought. The design of the site will usually be dictated by the type of industry and the content of the site. If you have a more unusual product or service to promote then you might be able to have freedom to experiment with the design and use different types of interface to enhance the site. However if you have more traditional content such as a news site then the navigation and content areas may have to be more like what your users are used to using.
Freelance web designers have several different ways to produce a website. The platform used to support the website has to be within budget and has to be able to be produced within the time frame of the project. There are generally three main different platforms that are used to produce a website, these are Content Management Systems (CMS), Flash and Basic HTML. Once you have come to a decision over the design of the site then you can decide which of these platforms would be most suitable to use to support your site.
If you are a freelance web developer then there are several different ways you can build the platform of your design project. Basic HTML allows you to easily and quickly develop a site and gives you the option to edit each page of the site individually and so can be very flexible. However this platform can mean a great deal of ongoing maintenance and your clients might find it difficult to make any changes to the site on their own. A Content Management System (CMS), free examples of which are WordPress and Blogger, allow you to develop the site for the client and have control over the design, however your client will easily be able to add content and make small changes easily. CMS can be designed from scratch or bought off the shelf and can be great for some designs. Flash allows you to create custom animations and add a lot of multimedia rich content. They are pretty straight forward to set up in terms of the layout however the actual development can be very time consuming and complex. They can however look very stylish and stand out against other sites.
Once you have decided on a basic design and platform for the project then it is useful to get all the ideas down on paper so you can discuss them fully with your clients. It is helpful if you can discuss each section of the site and what will be on each page and discuss the types of features on the site such as comments, social networking, video, newsletter sign-up and any other types of functionality. If you can present these things to the client then it will not only give you chance to get your ideas straight in your own head but will also give them chance to make alterations as they see if and add or alter sections if they need to.
Once you have presented these things to your client you can then ask for approval of the project and come to an agreement over the final budget for the project along with a timescale for production. Agreeing on a budget at this stage of approval of the project will hopefully avoid any additional fees later in the project and will get any objections or differences of opinion out in the open early on. Hope fully if you can stick to this process then you should be able to get on with your projects and provide your clients with the best possible website for them.
Find a freelancer at People Per Hour, where you can also look for other freelancers to help with your web design such as finding a rentacoder.