Simple Planning to Optimise Your Designs... (11/11/08)

Designing is not just about what the designer thinks looks 'aesthetically superior' to that of its competitors - there are many other factors a designer must establish before the physical design process even commences. Allow me to break this up into 3 categories or rather questions to ensure you can produce a systematically planned web design.

1. Before you even consider loading up your lovable applications and getting carried away with your inspiration that you are so desperately eager to evolve, first consider the most important point. What are the main goals and objectives of this website? If you can establish what the fundamental objectives of the site are, you can seamlessly create a structure or framework that will seem logical. It is often wise to refine these objectives and concentrate on the individual pages within the structure to optimise its content.

2. Who is your target audience? It is important not to try to cater for everybody, because you will end up not pleasing any of them. It is imperative you pinpoint a specific audience you wish to target. This essentially allows you to form your web pages in a way that is accessible to the targeted audience based on their needs and characteristics.

3. Last, but certainly not least - How should you structure website content? Planning the structure of the website as a whole can allow you to categorise the content efficiently, which will result in a usable and accessible website. Although you could take this method back to basics by using a pen and paper, personally, I prefer using an application called Microsoft Visio.

I've always been a big fan of planning, and if you answer the above questions before delving into the design itself, you will most likely find yourself more inspired than you were initially, which is only going to improve the design process. So good luck. Ciao.