Content is King: Information Architecture - Know the Site Goals
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The first stage in getting the web site designed is to know what information will be designed into it. It is the very first plan, a blueprint from which all the design aspects emerge. This can be a very lengthy process for most web sites. The reason why people visit a site and then come back is due to the quality of the information and how that information is accessed. Good content planning and research at an early stage saves a lot of time and effort later.
Who Cares Anyway?
Who will be interested in the site, and why? Nine times out of ten, it is the content that makes the difference between a site worth revisiting, and one that can be forgotten very easily. Be clear on the site audience needs. Who will be viewing the site on a regular basis?
Research the Competitors
A very important step in designing any commercial web site is to analyze the competition. But then everyone has to start somewhere and although it may seem somewhat intimidating after viewing the competition, it is important to remember how they started. Many commercial web sites began in a bedroom with one PC and a single user. Getting to know the competition is an excellent way of learning how to design the site. Browse around competitor sites related to the site theme and make notes of how they designed the site, how they started, and analyze how their business model came to fruition. The initial salient design factors include:
Information Design
It is time to design the most crucial parts of any web site -- the content. The site MUST present interesting and useful content. Start writing and developing ideas. It is time to put all this creative energy to work and build a production process that meets the goals of the site and keeps the audience coming back.
Begin gathering all the pieces of information that will fill the content. What content is needed? Write out a list of all the content and functional requirements that will comprise the content separating the areas into various groups. This task will present a good idea of the site structure.
Start crafting some design templates, maybe a few initial mock templates. Now write some content for those templates. This does not need to be the final content for the page, nor do the final web design touches need to be shown here; treat it as just a heads up on the initial feel of the site. Dreamweaver is quite useful for designing mock templates. Photoshop also allows complete visual flow and is therefore a good choice.
There are generally four types of content: static, dynamic, functional, and transactional. Static content tends to be privacy statements, terms and conditions, copyright information and help content. A page of the site where visitors may be required to log onto their accounts, upload files, or access a forum to chat with other visitors, forms the transactional content. Dynamic content refers to the information changing through each page. The functional parts are where each section leads to another as in the site navigation to member pages via a login button. Referring to the movie hosting site idea, members will need to be able to log into their own personalized page so a bio can be written or a movie uploaded.
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