Designing a Website

A Website if produced correctly should be an asset to your business. Having a plan from the very start is a key factor in designing a website. The essential questions to ask when building a site are:

What are the goals of your site?
Who is your target audience?
Will your site appeal to more than one audience?
What information/products/services will your site offer?

If these questions are answered from the very beginning you will know exactly what you are aiming for right from the start.

To your right we have touched on some of the key areas in the actual design process.

However have a good look through this site especially the Portfolio to see these ideas in practice.

Navigation

Navigation is probably one of the most important factors when creating a website. It should be simple to use and easy to understand. The end user should know exactly how to navigate the site just by looking at it. They should be able to access the information they are looking for within 2 or 3 clicks maximum.

Presentation

Presentation is another key area in creating a good website. Information should be clearly presented and visually appealing. Colour also plays a key role in producing a well presented site. Although graphics are a great way of presenting information they should be used wisely, as a large amount of graphics can seriously slow a page from displaying. Also huge amounts of content can be very off putting to a potential visitor, content should be informative but minimal.

Functional

You website should be completely functional, there is nothing worse than clicking on a link to find a blank page. Or filling in a form to find that when you come to hit the submit key it does not work.

Consistent

Your site should be consistent, for example if you are using a logo, banner etc they should remain the same throughout the whole site. The navigation should also remain as consistent as possible.

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