Web Designer Miami

The first step of the design process is likely the most technical and creative part of website development. There are sketch, layout, color and content decisions and at times it seems to be just too many things to track and yet there seems to be important aspects that seemed to escape you in the final layout.   These are the design aspects that you, being a first class web developer, should give the highest priority to; the ones that can make (or break) a website.

You definitely don’t learn these from a book.  They are learned by exploration and grasping.  This is also known as the ‘look and feel’ of the website - the first impression. Hinging on your personal style and your personal work ethic, you will note the points which you consider to be the most important in your designs - in accordance with your experiences with clients, user trends and feedback.

Finding the right key is THE task on which web developers need to zero in.

Often clients will want a website ‘next week’ and hurry in trying to nail down a look and feel. So we fill our mugs with java and pull all-nighters on designing a template - cutting out ‘non-critical’ processes and tasks. We present the standard three custom designed template only to find that the client who originally thought they didn’t know what they wanted and asked us to come up with ‘anything’ now has a very strong opinion about the design.

So the question becomes, how does one design a website quickly while ensuring minimal rework.

1. Find a sample - try to get your client to give you at least three sample sites that he likes. This will really go a long way in understanding the style, colors and level of detail the client requires. If they are too busy then find three yourself and ask the client to pick one. I had a client recently who had a ‘general idea’ of what they wanted but couldn’t quite pin it down. I found a competitor site as well as two sites that were completely outside of his industry and he was able to select the style he liked.

2. Wire frame it each page - You don’t have to do a fancy wire frame. Even a black marker on paper would do (if you are lucky enough to be sitting in front of the client) or a mock up in Photoshop or Fireworks. I’ve even used PowerPoint to do wire frames. Keep it simple - boxes and dummy text to get an idea of where content should go and to also help the client in deciding how much content to write for each page.

3. Collaborate with the client - I say this with hesitancy because it may not always work. It depends on the client so use discretion. If you’ve got a design that you’re happy with and are going back and forth about colors (which happens sometimes), I’ve found that it is faster and more efficient to either nail down a color palette in advance or if the client does not want some specific colors but does not like the ones you chose, to just sit with the client (or share your desktop) and change colors on the fly. Again, this depends on if your client has time, the inclination and ‘good taste’.

4. Document Fixes - while some clients WILL take the time to take screenshots of each web page and note down their fixes, often very busy clients will just want to speak to you over the phone. If this is the case, I strongly suggest documenting the fixes and then either emailing it back to the client for confirmation OR reading it back to them over the phone. Explain to them that if the site is to be launched in a couple of days no more fixes will be entertained prior to launch unless they are mistakes or bugs on your end.

5. Ask for the client’s help - explain to the client that you will need her to respond to email or return calls quickly if they truly want the website launched that quickly. Emphasize the fact that the quicker and more complete the communication the more probable it is that the site will get launched on time.

I sometimes wonder what did we do before the invention of the wondrous search engine.  The internet surely is the greatest invention of our time and subsequently the search engine has to be THE best use of the internet ever.

Just think of it.  We need information on a particular topic.  We type in a word or phrase related to that topic in the search bar of the search engine.  We then hit ‘enter’ and within seconds, loads of information pop up before our eyes, each ranked by their popularity on the worldwide web.  We can refine and super refine our search by choosing our words very carefully and by not using unnecessary words.

On the flip side, the search engine holds a different meaning for the website owner.  The website owner depends on his website design team to tweak the keywords and key phrases of his website and to tactfully write content so that the when you or I do a search, the website owner’s website will rank high int he SERPs - that is the Search Engine Results Pages.