Over the years, I’ve built many websites. The most successful projects always started with a good plan. Who was the audience, is there special things that they will be looking for, what are they going to need to do.
I’ve mentioned user personas as a great way to start to get a feel for what the website is going to look like. However, you need to know what your website is going to include.
This means knowing the pages that will be filled with content and use. Now, you might have an existing website, but don’t let that limit you. Instead start thinking about what your personas are going to need. Is there something missing from your current design? Maybe your current website is based off of what the owner/manager wanted people to need to know, not what they actually needed to know.
Take the ideas of content that they do need to know, along with their personas, and start making a list of pages. Think of this like an outline. They aren’t the pages specifically, but they are there to give you a good idea of what is needed.
From here, organize your content. Menus that have more than four or five items in them tend to get overlooked as too confusing, and people go some place else. Can you group information together?
Think about a large bank. They might have people who are wanting to open a saving/checking account, others that are looking for a loan (home, car, boat, etc), and others still are looking for banking for their business. By creating a simple set of buttons on their home page, you can direct them to the section with content that is specific to your user, without overwhelming them with content for everything else. (Did you see those personas hiding in there?)
By creating (essentially) an outline for your website, you make it easier to fill in the content. That way you’re not having to guess what the user really wants, instead, you know and build that into the site.
There is no correct size of a website, as far as the number of pages go. I’ve built them as small as a single page, and as large as thousands of pages (eventually). The key is to start with a good plan, organize your content, and grow from there.
Remember, to also plan more than just words. Images become important in today’s modern world, so think about what images you need to convey the message through the website.
Planning for a Website was originally found on Access 2 Learn
