Comprehensive Web Design Checklist

Not all the questions and suggestions listed below apply to every client. However, I find that using this document as a starting point really helps. So go through, read what you can, answer what you can, and when you are done, send me back an email with any relevant comments. This will help me a lot.

Your Web site needs to do more than make your company look good. It has to support your overall business operations – customer service, sales and marketing and collaboration. Whether you’re planning an intranet or Internet site, don’t start before you check your strategy against this comprehensive checklist.

The following checklist and the associated answers will facilitate the analysis process for designing and building the website that allows your company to turn the corner.

GENERAL

1. Where did you hear about us?

2. Do you have a domain name? If not, do you have ideas on one? If so, what is it?

3. What is your company name? Do you want to use the entire name on the site, logo, and graphics?

4. Do you have special features in mind like ECommerce shopping cart, BLOG, RSS, Forms with emails, EZine, Newsletter signup, autoresponders, advertising landing/call-to-action pages, etc.?

MARKETING

5. Who is your intended audience? Are they regional, industry specific, company size specific, etc.?

6. Do you intend to provide a call to action – make a sale, call in to your office, fill out a form, etc?

7. Describe your ideal client and the specific attributes that we’ll be targeting in the website.

8. What are your website expectations, main emphasis and primary goals – increased sales, increased leads, etc.? Please prioritize.

9. What separates your company from your competition and what do you expect will draw clients to the website?

10. How do you plan to market the website?

11. What company properties do you want to emphasize on the website? Please prioritize.

IDENTITY

12. Do you already have a logo and other graphics to be used? If not, do you want to have one created?

13. Have you identified a tagline? That would be something like “Just do it”, “Reach out and touch someone”, etc. Here is some information on the subject http://advertising.about.com/od/copywriting/a/guesttagline.htm.

14. What keywords do you want to be found by in the search engines?

LAYOUT

15. Please provide a list of websites that you like and don’t like. Why do you or do you not like these sites?

16. Please provide a list of competitors websites.

17. Do you have ideas of the colors to be used, and colors you don’t like? Please provide example sites.

18. Do you have an intended website screen size – 1024×768, 800×600, or stretch to the entire width of the screen?

19. If the site isn’t the entire width of the screen do you have a preference for left or center alignment?

20. Do you have a horizontal or left-side vertical preference for the main navigation?

21. Please provide the main pages you need in the website.

22. Have you created the copy text for any of your pages?

23. Do you have existing business cards or other printed material we need to match?

24. Are you leaning towards custom drawn artwork or photographs?

POST-CONTRACT

25. Once we start designing the website we’ll need the following (Note that this information will be kept in strict confidence):

  • FTP access information – username and password
  • Hosting company and their tech support phone number

LOGO

26. Is the logo for the company or a product?

27. What is the overall mood of the company?

  • Playful?
  • Serious?
  • Ultra-professional?

28. Should the logo reflect the mood of the company or is it stand-alone?

29. Do you envision something techy or more organic?

30. Any colors you have in mind?

31. What is the primary product of the company?

32. What are the demographics of your customers?

33. Who is your competition?

34. Where will the logo appear on a product?

  • Letterhead?
  • Business cards?
  • Television?
  • All of the above?

35. What is the purpose of the logo?

CLIENT EXPECTATIONS

I find checklists can be very useful, so I’ve prepared a checklist of things that clients should provide their designer at the outset. To follow this list will ensure the client and designer are dealing professionally as well as creating an efficient workflow.

A budget

Knowing the client’s budget allows the designer to establish what they will be able to realistically achieve for the money, and to perhaps suggest a range of options.

A complete list of the client’s design requirements

The client must make clear at the beginning just how much design work they will require, e.g. layout for a business card, letterhead and envelopes OR logo design plus web design plus email marketing template. Occasionally unexpected new design needs emerge for the client when a job is well underway, but any “extras” which are requested after work has commenced will involve more time and money, and should be bound by a new contract.

I once had a prospective client say “We don’t know yet how many layouts we want, so can you just give us a rough quote estimate in the meantime?” How can a designer quote on an unknown quantity or scale of work? That would be like asking an architect to quote for designing your house but not telling him how many rooms you want. It’s impossible.

A clear outline of why the design work is necessary and what the client expects to achieve

Whether it’s a print campaign, posters for a conference stall or a multimedia presentation, every design job involves a goal to be fulfilled. It’s good for the client to think through precisely what that goal is when preparing to meet with the designer. Equally, it’s important for the designer to ask questions about the client’s objectives, because the designer’s job is primarily about meeting the client’s needs.

An outline of who the target market or audience is for the design work

This is very important information which will guide a designer in all aspects of the work they do. An advertisement or poster aimed at teenage boys will look vastly different to one designed to catch the attention of their parents. Look at a well-designed promotional campaign and you will easily be able to tell who it has been designed for. A client who has a detailed understanding of their target market will get the design which best suits their needs.

A deadline

Even if the work isn’t urgent, a deadline is important for effective time management. Unless the scale of the design work is small, it may be useful for the client and the designer to negotiate a series of deadlines for stages of work.

High quality images

If the client has an existing logo to be used in the design work, it should be provided in vector format. The most common vector formats are Postscript (.eps) and Illustrator (.ai). A vector format allows the logo to be made bigger or smaller without losing image quality and clarity. A .jpg file is not a vector format and may not represent a client’s logo at its best, depending on its size.

Any photographs provided by the client should have a high resolution. The best resolution for photographs is 300dpi (dots per inch). I always recommend this to my clients even if the photographs will go on the web. Although the final photo will be published on the web at the lower resolution of 72dpi, I prefer a higher resolution to begin with. This enables me to better optimise any photographs (where necessary) and there is greater scope for resizing.

Images and text in their final form

Any text, photographs, illustrations or other material provided by the client should be given to the designer before work commences. It can be a drain on time and resources if a designer is left waiting for these things halfway through a project. All materials provided by the client should be in their final form with no future revisions necessary. Any changes which have to be made after the design work has been done will cost time and money.

 Ownership info for third party images and text

When the client is providing images or text sourced from someone else, it’s crucial to also provide information on the legal permissions which have been obtained for the use of the material (if any are required). If attribution is required, the details should be provided to the designer before any work commences. This also applies for any other material (e.g. music or video) obtained from a third party.

 Samples of previous design work (where applicable)

If a client has a seasonal marketing campaign, or their corporate identity needs to be revised, it will help to provide past design samples to the current designer. It’s useful to discuss what worked or didn’t work for the client last time, particularly in terms of customer/audience response or the direction which the client and/or their organization wishes to take in future.

This may seem like an extensive list but all of the above can easily be covered during the first meeting to discuss the design brief.

PROCESS

Here are two checklists I use for most of my projects. Just to give you an idea how it works.

Project Activities

  1. Preparation and Planning
    1. Briefing
    2. Appraisal of existing web site, IT systems
    3. Confirmation of corporate and marketing objectives
    4. Budget indication
    5. Roles and Responsibilities
    6. Pilot Selection
    7. Initial timetable
    8. First draft web marketing plan.
  2. Content development
    1. Overall look ‘n feel
    2. Standards and templates
    3. Information Architecture
    4. Navigation Paths
    5. Interactions
    6. Writing
    7. Page mark up
    8. Response forms / scripts
    9. Other special content.
  3. Technical
    1. Server/ provider selection
    2. Mirror sites – if applicable
    3. Server software
    4. Domain registration
    5. Applications development
    6. Transaction and payment systems development e.g. catalogues, shopping baskets
    7. Supported browsers
    8. Development systems
    9. Management processes
    10. Technical standards.
  4. Testing and Going Live
    1. Page quality check, validation
    2. Link testing
    3. Coherence consistency checking
    4. Security testing – password access etc.
    5. Transaction testing
    6. Complete testing off-line
    7. User testing
    8. Site uploading.
  5. Marketing
    1. Marketing model – ads, referrals etc.
    2. The 7Ps – how are these addressed?
    3. Link negotiation
    4. Marketing ‘hooks’ in each relevant page
    5. Response mechanisms
    6. Entries in search engines
    7. Off-line promotion
    8. Research and feedback
    9. Data Collection (e.g. web stats) and Analysis
    10. Revised marketing plan.
  6. Sustenance
    1. Webmaster activities
    2. Content feedback
    3. Content updating program
    4. Commissioning new content
    5. Supporting new facilities e.g. video plug-ins
    6. Link maintenance
    7. Update release planning.
  7. Management Processes
    1. Overall project management – progress vs. plan
    2. Use liaison
    3. Legal and contractual e.g. copyrights
    4. Release / change control
    5. Performance measurement system
    6. Budgeting
    7. Ongoing roles and responsibilities
    8. Documentation
    9. Process Descriptions
    10. Extracting Lessons
    11. Periodic strategic audits and reviews.

Or to put it slightly differently….

Development

  • Gathering of information related to site content
  • Website Name (Domain Name) Research
  • Competition Researched
  • Website Title Chosen
  • Website Host Research
  • Website Host Chosen and Registered $
  • Website Name Chosen
  • Website Name Purchase $
  • Website Structure and Organization Established
  • Link Exchange Researched
  • Link Exchange Page Set Up
  • Articles/Resources Provided/Researched
  • Articles/Resources Chosen
  • Advertising Inclusion Implemented
  • Search Engine Submission Prepared
  • Search Engine Submission Implemented $
  • Review Search Engine Submission Results (1-4 months after public release)

Design

  • Artwork Compiled
  • Logo Designed or Prepared as Digital Art
  • Color Scheme Research and Presented
  • Layout Design Research and Presented
  • Color Scheme Chosen
  • Layout/Design Chosen
  • HTML and CSS Coding Design
  • Content and Articles Added
  • Review Web Standards
  • Validate Code
  • Check Website with Other Browsers
  • Check Website with Other Computers
  • Check Website with Various Screen Resolutions
  • Edit and Review Website Presentation
  • Test Website (typically 2-4 weeks)
  • Test Links
  • Website Maintenance
  • Frequently Update
  • Check for Errors
  • Add Link Exchanges
  • Check for Bad Links
  • Keyword Review and Update
  • Check Link Popularity
  • Review New Technology
  • Review Web Standards and apply
  • Check Site Statistics
  • Add New Content
  • Check Links
  • Validate Code
  • Re-Submit Site to Search Engines
  • Check Web Page Descriptions
  • Check Web Page Titles
  • Review Meta Tag Standards and Update
  • Review Top Searches from Search Engines (potential new content ideas)