- Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
You have most likely been exposed to the old saying, those who fail to plan plan to fail. While this may be a well used cliche it also has more than a grain of truth in it. Over the years I’ve become a big fan of following a checklist when doing the same task over and over again. This is especially important when you’re just starting out as a web developer. You want to find successful processes and then repeat them until they become second nature to you. From there, once you’ve assimilated the process and learned from experience what works and what doesn’t, then and only then are you ready to modify your checklists.
Though I went through a college program to learn web design I found that it failed to give me the organized process skills I needed to survive in the real world. Remember that you are building your brand with every client that you service. If you do a good job people will refer their friends and acquaintances to you. If you are disorganized or forget important details during the process of planning, creating and implementing the clients’ website your chances of getting positive referrals diminish greatly. Let’s look at a few web design process checklists from around the web.
BOXuk – The Ultimate Website Launch Checklist
This is a very nice checklist. It includes all of the major categories a web designer would need to complete a typical design project. The prelaunch checklist includes Content and Style questions, Standards and validation, Search engine visibility, SEO and metrics, Functional testing, Security / Risk assessment, Performance questions, and finishing touches including making a 404 / error pages and a favicon for the site.
The post launch checklist has two main headings. Marketing and Ongoing. Marketing includes launching a social media campaign using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg and Stumblupon although you could add all kinds of other sites here including but not limited to Google+, Reddit, MySpace, Flickr, Youtube, and tumblr.
BOXuk’s ultimate checklist is well worth your time to check out and put to use in your business.
Apple Learning Interchange Web Design Checklist
This checklist is a little dated but still useful. Personally, I prefer planning checklists that are made in PDF format because they feel neater to me and are usually more organized. Keep in mind with all of these checklist I’m listing here that you should take what you feel is useful for you and throw out what you feel isn’t. As you build experience using the checklists mentioned here and ones you may find yourself elsewhere that you will eventually want to put together your own process.
Not enough people understand the importance of establishing effective processes in their business. This might be especially true of creative types. It can feel restrictive to follow the same process every time. You need to understand something though. By following the same process you will start to memorize the process. It will minimize forgetting something important. It increases professionalism and it will allow you to train new web designers to come on board with you if and when your business grows so much that you can’t handle all the work coming your way.
Wireframing Tools
There are a lot of resources online about the fact that taking the time to create a wireframe of the design of your clients’ proposed site is smart. It allows you to work out design and usability decisions before even doing a design comp in Photoshop or Illustrator. If you take the time to Google the term ‘wireframe tutorial‘ you’ll find all kinds of useful articles and resources on the topic. I plan on writing about it in more detail later.
I’m including a video (fast version) of a web designer who is creating a wireframe of a web design.