The Biggest Secret to Successful Website Design Projects
Website design seems to be such a complicated process. However, you will be shocked that you can do it yourself right from the comfort of your home. You do not need a professional website designer to do this work. In this day and era, you can conduct website design projects with such tremendous ease. There are code dictionaries available for free on the internet. If you need a tutorial to help you get started on your journey as a web designer, you will get a million of them on YouTube, not to mention any other sites. Becoming a web designer is very easy but becoming a successful one is a totally different story.
There are several things that are involved in the process of website design. If you want people to stumble all over each other in the quest to purchase your designs, then you will have to do these:
- Plan for the project
- Manage expectations
- Deliver as per the expectations
These are three of the most important things to consider when you are developing a website design. You will never design a site without planning for it. What does the client want? What is it that you want your site to have? These are the expectations that need to be managed. They will provide plenty of information for the project planning activities. With solid expectation management, you will be able to get the project to succeed.
Expectations and customer satisfaction
As aforementioned, a successful website development project is going to commence and end with the expectations management. This is a very important fact to keep in mind if you want to create a high quality website and provide premium quality customer experience. It is your job as the web designer to establish the expectations of the customer. There is no way that you will tell the customer that you will be using blue and black color scheme in the design, then they have red and green in their mind.
You have to sit down with your client to let them know what it is you are going to be doing for them. Everyone tends to create a mental image of what they are told or what they expect to receive. For instance, if someone tells you that they will buy you a mobile phone, you are bound to get all excited and start thinking of world renowned smartphones ignoring the possibility of getting a small phone without any other function apartfromcall and text.
The main role of establishing expectations clearly is to execute a strong process for project scoping. The client should know what they are expecting to be delivered. The developer knows what they are expected to deliver. Simply put, the client and the developer are going to be in sync and this is the most important thing for the success of a web design project.
Success project planning and scoping
The developer needs to know whether they are going to be creating a website from scratch or fixing an old one. What is the scope within which they are going to work? Here are some tips that will help to make your design project successful:
- Define the project
Just like the question above asks- is it a redesign project or a complete overhaul of an existing site? It is important to understand whether the developer is going to be fixing a few aspects of a site’s design or they are going to create a totally new website from scratch. This is the first step to planning. When you know what you are going to be doing as a designer, you will be able to plan your time and also develop a pricing plan for the whole project.
Worth noting is that during this step the client needs to give detaileddescriptions of what they are looking for. Scanty descriptions of the website design project are a great way to lose track along the way. Give more information and you will be provided with a more detailed response by the designer. As a designer, you should encourage the client to tell you what they are looking for- in graphic details if possible.
- Answer developer questions
This is the second step to expectation management. Web developers can be a bit interrogative like doctors. A session with one of these professionals might feel like an interview. They will want to know a whole lot of things. Therefore, you should answer their questions as exhaustively as you can so that they are able to capture your expectations.
- Proper documentation
All the pertinent information must be in writing. As a client, you are entitled to getting a written document from the web designer. The designer should develop a contract that captures the needs of the clients as accurately as possible. Once the client has identified and articulated their requirements, these details should be documented in writing.
- Keep communicating
A web design project can take days, weeks and even months to complete. As a matter of fact, most of the time the duration is going to be in the tune of weeks and months. WalmartCanada took almost a year to implement a website design correction that was meant to make their site mobile responsive. A whole year is considered by most in the web design field a minor project. You can imagine how long it would take to build a brand new website.
It is important to keep in touch with your client during the period of the web design. Some clients are going to contact you to find out how you are proceeding, but others will leave
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