Aesthetics is only one aspect of a web design process. That harmonic combination of materials can only come about through a comprehensive web design approach that considers both form and function.  

A new website is an investment and a chance for your company to develop and thrive. However, before making any significant decisions, consider the following seven measures to ensure your project’s success. 

Step 1: Discuss your brief

1. Define the goals 

Here, the web design business gathers the required information to start the web design process. It should encompass the whole project, leaving no stone untouched. 

A few questions to consider: 

• What is your name, and what does your organization specialize in? This is a high-level summary of the business. You discuss the narrative behind the brand and your business image here.   
• Who is visiting your site, and who is your ideal customer? This summary of the target market is increasingly vital since the audience’s interest dictates most future website requirements.   
• What is the purpose of your website, and what is your vision for it? This is a summary of objectives and expectations. It indicates to the web development team how to construct your website.   

2. Find your web inspiration

The appearance of a website accounts for 94% of first impressions. This demonstrates how much website design has a direct influence on conversions. However, due to the infinite design choices, developing an appealing website design might be difficult. There are various factors to consider, including website style, user experience design, and current web design trends.  

These are five finest inspiration sites to kick-off your web design process:  

• Dribbble is a platform where designers can upload their work. It is constantly updated with the latest design entries, making it one of the finest locations to get web design ideas.  
• Behance is a social network website that allows you to showcase and discover creative work. The website features various design works, from graphic to online design concepts.  
• Awwwards is a display of top-tier web design and development portfolios.  
• CSSnectar’s inspiring websites have been triple-vetted. There is a price to submit a website for evaluation, and it is reasonable to assume that individuals will not pay unless they are confident and proud of their work.   
• The Great Discontent can stoke your creative fire. Participate in Q&As with successful designers, art directors, illustrators, and others to gain insight into what drives them — and their careers 

3. List your wanted features  

The recommended features below are by no means a complete list, but it should be enough for you to start brainstorming and prompt you to add a thing or two (or ten) of your own:   

• Contact forms are essential when you want visitors to contact you via your website.  
• SEO features: you should be able to establish SEO names and descriptions for your content and items at the very least.  
• Social media button: increase the chance of connecting with your audience 
• Comment spam prevention: Spam is more common in a website’s comments area. It is critical to safeguard this portion of your website.  
• Cookie notifications: are required if you intend to expose your site to EU visitors.  
• Backups: You should always have access to recent backups of your website in case of an emergency.  

Step 2: Project scope identification

Some businesses view scoping as the first phase in the web design workflow, while others consider it part of the planning stage. No matter what, it’s still one of the essential steps in web project development. The project managers should be in charge of creating the project scope document, which is the document that contains tasks, technical components (including UX and backend development flow design), and deadlines. 

The customer begins with a single aim in mind, but this might extend, evolve, or change entirely over the design process — and before you know it, you’ve already constructed half of the website. 

The following are the major conclusions from determining a project scope:  

• It is a reference document for managers to utilize when allocating assignments, scheduling work, and verifying goals.  
• It simplifies the project vision and prevents team members from deviating from it.  
• It assists in identifying and focusing on the team members’ common objectives 

Step 3: Create your sitemap and wireframe

1. How your pages are linked in sitemap 

A sitemap depicts the site’s hierarchy and indicates where each page belongs inside it. It would help if you kept your project’s goals in mind while you created your hierarchy.   

For instance, if you are creating an e-commerce site, selling things will surely be one of your aims. As a result, your sitemap should contain product indices and pages at or near the top of the hierarchy, so users can understand where they need to go to meet both your and their goals: buying items. 

2. Decide on menus and navigation 

Navigation is one of a website’s most critical design elements, if not the most crucial. It ultimately determines whether people peruse your homepage or hit the “Back” button. The layout of your website navigation is defined by your target audience and what format you believe would be most intuitive and accessible to them. 

There is no single “correct” technique to create website navigation. Examine how you might help first-time and recurring users get the most out of your website. Because you focused your design approach on your unique visitors, your navigation structure may appear and operate differently from another site’s navigation structure, which is a positive thing. 

3. Draft the layout  

Your website structure is how the visitors move from place to place within your domain.  

In a nutshell, consider UX (user experience) in this step. What kind of experience do you want your visitors to have? Begin with the aim you established for the site previously. You’ll construct the site’s framework while staying focused on the end goal.  

The advantage of using a mockup is that you can spend more time focusing on the big picture. This helps you to ensure that your page structures adhere to the correct standards and that your goals receive adequate attention. With the mockup, you’re building the scaffolding on which your design will be made later in the web design workflow. 

4. Tools for sitemap and wireframe creation 

• Pen and paper 
• Writemaps 
• Slickplan 
• Mindnode 
• Axure 
• Sketch 
• Webflow 

Step 4: Content Management

If the front end of your website is attractive, you may quickly capture the visitor’s attention. Yet, to motivate your clients to buy, your content should be solid and enticing. When talking about top web design trends, content is something that may offer value. So, don’t forget this steps of web design process.   

Content improves a site’s visibility in search engines. Choosing the correct keywords and key phrases is critical to the success of any website. Google Keyword Planner is my go-to tool. This tool displays the search volume for prospective target keywords and phrases, allowing you to focus on what honest people search for on the internet. As search engines get more intelligent, so should your content strategy. Google Trends is also helpful in determining search phrases that people use.  

Content engages readers and motivates them to do the actions required to achieve the objectives of a website. This is influenced by both the substance (the text) and how it is presented (the typography and structural elements).  

Visitors’ attention is rarely held for long by dull, lifeless, and overlong prose. Short, crisp, and engaging material captures their attention and encourages them to click on other sites. Even if your pages require a large amount of text — and they frequently do — correctly “chunking” the content by splitting it up into small paragraphs accompanied with graphics will help it maintain a light, engaging vibe. 

Step 5: Develop your visuals element

Finally, it’s time to design the site’s aesthetic style. This stage of the design process is frequently affected by existing branding components, color palettes, and logos specified by the client. This is the stage of the site design process in which a competent web designer may genuinely shine.  

It usually begins with research since the team wants to locate some design inspiration. In addition, the group studies the company’s brand identity and rival website designs to make decisions on things like:  

• The color scheme is the first thing a user sees and understands on a website and should be well-thought-out.  
• Font for header, body text, its size and other features are all part of typography. Typography, like color schemes, is a significant priority. It is not simply a text display tool but also a trusted component in the web design arsenal.  
• Logotypes and mascots are examples of branding components. These visual identity aspects assist in connecting a website to the firm and creating a transition across different channels, maintaining a consistent brand-centric user experience across the board.  
• Icons, buttons, controls, and other visual elements are minor aspects of the user interface but significantly affect practice. They complement the project’s tone and aesthetic while laying the groundwork for a fantastic user experience.  
• Illustrations are needed for headers, hero regions, footers, and so forth. These aspects create critical initial impression, efficiently carrying the message across the project, and tying everything together, achieving project harmony.  
• Images play a more significant part in online design than ever before. High-quality photographs offer a website a professional appearance and feel, transmit a message, are mobile-friendly, and aid in developing trust. 

Step 6: Move to Website Development

The design stage is about making the website appear pretty, but the development step is about bringing these nice things to life and letting them do their job. It is critical to note the following criteria: 

• SEO: Search engine optimization is critical. It is a vital component of any website worldwide, regardless of scale or specialization, and it stands behind the organic traffic that your company requires to stay alive. 
• Mobile-friendly: There will be a plethora of screen resolutions to cover. As a result, the website should smoothly adjust to each device that comes its way.  
• Accessibility: Nowadays, accessibility is critical. It’s not a fad; it’s a need. Everyone should be able to view your website. As a result, it should adhere to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. 
• Security: According to CISCO’s 2021 Cybersecurity Threat Trends study, at least one employee clicked a phishing link in around 86% of businesses. Security should be your primary responsibility, whether you run a tiny blog for a local readership or work with payment systems to offer items to worldwide buyers. 
• Performance: If your website is sluggish or causes intermittent waiting, your consumers will abandon it and never return, jeopardizing your marketing plan and costing you a lot of money to get back on track. 

Step 7: Test, Launch & Maintenance

Test each page thoroughly to ensure all links work and the website runs correctly on all devices and browsers. While finding and correcting them might be time-consuming, it is preferable to do so immediately rather than risk exposing a faulty site to the public.   

After the testing phase, the website is ready to launch. The truth is that you should not anticipate the debut period to be faultless. Mistakes occur frequently: website creation is prone to unforeseen events and problems. However, the possibilities of disaster are limited if everything is done precisely during the web design process phases. The following steps are included in the launch phase:  

• Integration of extra snippets such as Google code analytics, email marketing tools, advertisements, etc.  
• Functionality, performance, and security testing are completed.  
• Final user experience testing.  
• Upload the webpage to the client’s server.  

Nothing ends when the site goes live. The maintenance stage is usually optional; however, individuals who value marketing tactics must include it. The vendor delivers the following services during this stage of the web design process:  

• Incorporating new features, updates, or the installation of add-ons  
• Security checks  
• Support  
• Troubleshooting 

Synodus – An Agile Web Design & Development Company

Whether you work with an in-house web design team or hire an agency, these basic web design steps must be considered.   

At Synodus, we closely follow the 7 steps of web design while maintaining Agile Scrum methodology to meet every deadline with quality and efficiency. By doing that, our team of 300 vetted professionals has become one of the leading IT Outsourcing Companies in Vietnam, with many successful web design & development projects. We work with a plethora of tech stacks, including Java, ReactJS, NodeJS, PHP, Magento, WordPress. View our portfolio

Turn your web ideas into reality with an agile Web Design & Development Process. Engage your audience with robust web experiences and responsive interface.   

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