HOW WE WORK — DESIGN
Technology is a tool to help meet your goals. We try to offer the appropriate technologies for the task at hand. We do not work with standardized templates. We listen to your needs and brainstorm solutions that will provide you with a site that meets your specific requirements.
When budgets permit, we recommend bringing in a writer/communications specialist to write copy and manage the early steps of the production process. However, in today’s economy, we understand that many of you will opt to provide your own text while we provide the necessary project management.
Though the design and production process varies from one website to another, here is a rough outline of the steps that most sites require:
- Meet to assess whether the fit is right.
- Provide you with an estimate. For now, best and worst case prices are provided.
- Meet to map out the navigation for the site. Discuss the home page. Discuss use of and availability of visual images. Identify complex graphic needs and database-driven pages.
- Assign tasks and create schedules.
- Provide you with an updated estimate based on new, more accurate information.
- If we are to provide visuals, guidelines need to be established. We begin art research.
- You provide homepage text, some sample page text, and images (when appropriate).
- Design homepage, header, and first- and second-level navigation. Provide PDF samples of homepage and a couple of text pages for client review.
- Tweak basic template and navigation. May take a few rounds before receiving the client okay.
- You provide the bulk of the text and images. When providing text, consider the following:
- Provide the text as Word docs, one doc for each primary navigation button. For areas of the site that are complex and/or include several layers of navigation, you may choose to provide several Word docs, broken down by sub-navigation categories.
- Name the files to match the navigation button name. Type in the nav button name at the top of page 1 of the file as well.
- Don’t hesitate to write notes within the Word doc. Use all caps or colored text for notes.
- If you want us to insert a piece of artwork, identify it clearly in the text file as a note (provide the file name if you are supplying digital art).
- If you need us to grab text from an existing website, provide the entire URL for the appropriate page(s).
- For links, supply the entire link in the body of the text (in parenthesis) for all links. If the link goes to another nav button within the site, identify that clearly.
- Try to provide an entire section of text and visuals when possible. If you need to send additional text at a later point, identify very clearly where it is to be inserted.
- We provide you with a PDF proof of all pages. We wait to construct and program the site until you have okayed the PDF proofs. If there are text updates and corrections, we can either insert them for you at this stage, before we construct the web page, or we can wait until the site is live (but not available to the public) at which time you can input your own changes and corrections.
- Once two or more sections of the site are ready, we send it to our programmer who starts to build the architecture of the site.
- A URL will be provided to you to review the navigation and some sample pages. Once we get your okay, we continue to build the remainder of the site.
- Providing us with additional text and images can happen simultaneously to site construction as long we have identified the missing pieces in an earlier stage of the process.
