JoeWall — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:28:08 +0000

hi megan,

i love post-its. yellow, plenty of them.

i usually start with a brainstorming session. i use a post-it for each of these: objectives of the websites, the targeted audience, the (brief) description of the website, a (very small) sitemap, core design principles, and one explaining why people would go to your website. there are other (minor) sections. I arrange all of them on a board.

next, i improve each of them, usually it takes a couple of hours and a couple of dozens scrapped posts-its, until all of them make sense together.

so then, i have a clear understanding of its content, of how it should look like etc...

afterwards i design the core content. the core content is what the users are after. (it would be the article for a newspaper for example). i personally think it is the most important page in a website

when it is finished then i design the 'support sections'. support sections are the 'about', 'help', 'search' pages

then i finish with the frontpage.

usually, i rework some of the pages. maybe i am perfectionnist, maybe it is just the method that needs it

demonhale — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 04:40:26 +0000

Heres mine:
(although not in-depth at the moment)

1. I start out studying what the site would be for, example flowers, etc.
2. then I categorically assign if its an e-commerce, entertainment, display, etc. kind of site...
3. Look at the demographic or niche audience, wether the age group are for young or old, or general so that I can choose a more readable font for either age group.
4. Thats when I decide the approach of the layout and colors.
5. This is where I open up my graphics program and make boxes to set a basic framework of the site.
6. I label areas accordingly and start writing the html first. Once it looks ok on the browser based on my graphic sketch, I start adding classes and ids and start making the css.
7. Once I get the basic color scheme finished... I start adding graphic splashes... this is what I do:
a. I take a screenshot of the basic site color and layout...
b. open it in a graphic program and add graphic effects here and there while imagining if I can add it to the css.
c. crop the needed graphic elements and save in an image folder.
d. insert graphics to the template manually through the code.
8. Minor adjustments are done with layout etc.
9. Validate, then upload and test, then cross-browser check.
10. Sometimes I then add the php scripting needed.

Thats basically how I do it in a nut shell, I hope this gives you some insight.

steve40 — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 03:51:06 +0000

Usually I start by surfing around on the web, as I tend to get stuck in ruts. This is not to find a template, or someone else's site to copy, but an inspiration. I usually get a pretty clear picture in my mind of what I want to do, or don't want to do from this. Sort of like clearing your cookies, I let what I see clear my mental ruts.

I don’t put anything on paper, I just start out and change things around unstill the little bell rings, that says that’s it. Then I work out the rest of the problems from there. After the first page, it’s pretty clear sailing from there on.

I really don’t think for someone just beginning, it’s a good idea to draft something out their knowledge of coding will not let them complete. As the old saying goes, “your eyes are bigger than your stomach” much of the time. So it is with someone who does not have some coding experience. I would suggest something simple in the beginning, that way they can build a solid code base for later bigger websites. At that’s the way I see it.

Greg K — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:20:03 +0000

The main thing I concider is if there is enough content to start, several times I was asked to do a site, and the contnet was jsut not there. I won't spend the time designing anything anymore just off of the idea "we'll get that for you later", it usually never comes. I want to see good content before I go through the trouble of building anything to begin with.

-Greg