When designing a website, it is very important to take many factors into consideration. Your website should serve a purpose in a user-friendly way.

 

The process of  building a website can be broken down into six key steps known as the six phases of website design.

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1.  Information gathering

2. Planning

3. Design

4. Development

5. Testing and Delivery

6. Maintenance

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Step One: Information Gathering

This is a very important step, it involves researching and knowing who your audience is. It may not seem like a big deal, but knowing what you you are aiming to accomplish and who you are targeting can alter what tools you will need and which services are for you. This all depends on what you are selling, promoting, delivering, or information you are sharing. The more information you can gather, the more help you have in the next step of the process.

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Step Two: Planning

Once you have the information you need, you can use it to plan for what you will build. These steps go hand in hand, as you can not plan if you don't know what you are planning for. The other parts of this stage includes building a website map, making some drafts, and deciding a navigation plan that will give your website ease of access. These can be frustrating steps of trial and error, but a good plan will make all the difference of a fully functioning and user-friendly website.

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Step Three: Design

Now that you know your audience and have a plan for structure, you can start to design the look of your website. It is important to keep in mind who you are targeting and what is most appealing to their eyes, not just yours. This is a time to experiment and have fun.

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While colours, backgrounds and text are up to you, there are some important things to keep in mind. These are the principles of design. These components help to keep a visually appealing website.

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Principles of Design

Contrast  Repetition Alignment Proximity

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Step Four: Development

This is when your website starts to really come together. Ideas and plans take shape. Here you may run into problems needing troubleshooting and work around any blocks you may come across.

Sometimes an understanding of code may be useful in working through frustrations and finding errors that arise in the website.

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Step Five: Testing and Delivery

It is extremely important to test your website for functionality, this avoids users from running into problems after it has been published. A website should be tested on multiple browsers and computers or devices. This gives you and view of what potential users will see when accessing your website. It is also useful to ask for second opinions and trial of your website. A fresh set of eyes can always catch missed errors. Once you feel that your website is fully functional and complete, you may safely upload it to the server. 

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Step Six: Maintenance

Once a website is up and running, it will need routine maintenance and updating. This job may be left up to you, or you may entrust a company or another person to access and maintain the site. Some pages on the website may keep the same content, but there is always maintenance. When completing this, it is important to keep your audience in mind and perform maintenance in a way that minimizes frustration or inconvenience to the viewers.

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