The 7 stages of firm web design

An ideal web site.  Many pieces must work well together on a winning web site.  On each page the graphics and text flow comfortably together.  No matter how the visitor wanders, there are all the elements of a good story, conflict, place, personality, and most importantly a payoff when the conflict is resolved.  The navigator has found information, purchased a product, had a good laugh, or bookmarked your site for future review.
1.  Stage setting.  In the first stage of design we talk about your realistic goals.  You bring together whatever assets you have--photographs, existing brochures, instructions, and order blanks.  We look at these together, then put them aside.  You tell us your audience, and what transactions you plan to make.  This is not just immediate sales, but goodwill.  You want people to keep coming back to your web, so even if it's not a sale, this time, there is another chance.  You suggest specific kinds of pages for your site.  We produce an estimate of cost, based on the number of pages, the complexity of the site, and most importantly the intensity of graphical design.  Simple, fast-loading graphics take many hours of work, while sluggish unmodified images take little work.
2.  Flavoring.  The design phase is the biggest part of the job.  In the rough beginnings, we pick the flavor for the site, the colors, fonts, and other constraints.  These will change once we get further.  We then rough out the page structure and navigation tree.  They need to work together.  Repeating elements are then drafted, which might include page backgrounds, if any, page titles, headers, keywords, and directory structure.  At this point we have one or more prototypes, but they may not be working prototypes.
3.  Assets.  Now we go back to work on the story line, the text, the photographs, and really try to get everything well organized.  And we make an extra CD of all the original materials, for safekeeping, and so it's easy to get to.
4.  Home page design.  You decide whether you want a basic links page, a splash screen, or some combination in between.  The home page can be a major design project, as it is the entranceway, and may serve multiple purposes.  As it is designed it is tested in various browsers.
5.  Subpage design.  Assuming that there will be some degree of repeating elements, we design a typical subpage, make sure the HTML code is valid, that it will degrade nicely in different browsers.  We go back to looking at the image buttons, if any, and finish designing them.  These images are added to the assets collection, and the original images are kept in their original layered format, so it will not be too difficult redoing them later.  The typical subpage should have all page elements, including metatag keywords, image map(s) with hyperlinks to other pages, appropriate backgrounds, and solid table structure.  Cascading style sheets are created to make font changes easy.
6.  Production.  Using the prototype subpage, multiple pages are created, text is poured into table cells, graphics are added to pages, links among different pages are tested, pages are spell-checked, and the pages are retested in various browsers.
7.  Maintenance.  Once a web site is finished it usually requires periodic maintenance and redesign.  Once the pages have been submitted to the search engines, one must periodically review the search engine position, so that corrective changes can be made to enhance positioning.  Changes can include additional pages, revised metatag key words, resubmission to search engines, reciprocal links, and anything to keep the site accurate and fresh.

e-mail:   sales1@veld.com

Web design firm:

Open Veld
P. O. Box 290067
Fort Lauderdale, FL  33329
954-236-8622 (Voice message and FAX)