willybfriendly - 6:33 am on Feb 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

Designing a website begins with an idea. For most of us, our first forays into web development were, well... amateurish. Excited with our new found knowledge about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or perhaps even just the ability to use a WYSIWYG editor, we tended to throw everything we knew onto a page that became a mishmash of glaring and often distracting images, sounds and words.

Given that, I thought I would offer some guiding principals that helped us to develop more effective sites. Please feel free to add, subract, edit or comment on these ideas. Mostof us with experience already know these things, but they might be of help to those that are "New to Web Development"

The Five P's of Effective Web Development

A successful and satisfying web development project needs to be based on sound planning. It is not uncommon to have great ideas about a project on the grand scale, while forgetting the detail necessary for success. The following helps us to clarify the steps needed to bring the idea to fruition.

The Purpose

The Internet is a communication medium. Successful sites begin with this understanding.

There are three forms of communication that a website can facilitate:

1. Communication to the visitors
2. Communication with the visitors
3. Communication between the visitors

It is important to define at the outset the primary form of communication the site is meant to fulfill.

The average "Brochure Site" communicates to the visitor. it presents information in a passive way. These types of sites serve a definite purpose, especially with the rise of "Local Search". It is not uncommon these days for folks to go the their browser for information before they go to their phone book.

Interactive sites attempt to communicate with visitors. This often means that the visitor will "ask" for information which the site then provides. Think of realty sites on which a person asks for properties meeting certain critera, search engines, reservation and ticket sites, etc. On all of these there is some level of interaction between the visitor and the site.

With the rise of community sites (myspace is one example) we see how the Internet can serve to faciliate communication between people. Forums, such as WebmasterWorld fall in this category, although the genre has developed far beyond a simple forum these days.

The form of communciation that a site offers will determine much about its underlying design. We have found it is helpful to design a site's purpose in terms of a clear understanding of its primary mode of communication.

The People

Communication takes place between people, and not just any group of people. Begin a web project with a target audience in mind. The selected audience will effect every stage of the design process. A site aimed at children will have very different content, copy, graphics and layout than one designed for goat farmers.

Questions to answer about the target group might include:

1. Location - Will visitors comfrom a local area or from around the world?
2. Age
3. Education
4. Technological Sophistication
5. Income
6. Ethnic, cultural or religious background
7. Connection - Don't expect rural US users to wait as their dial up connection chokes on a large Flash based site
8. etc.

The requirements of a local restaurant wanting to create a brochure site listing menu items and upcoming entertainment will be very different from those of a professional organization wanting a site to enhance member communications. A dating site for seniors will be strikingly different from an educational site for pre-schoolers. And, a site selling fine art to an Inernational clientele will have different needs than a local farm selling fresh produce.