Design Strategy

What do you want from your web site?

"I want a simple web site."
"I want a cheap web site."
"I want my web designer to be easy to contact."
"I want to be able to maintain it myself."
"I want to appear in Google."
"I want a membership who can put stuff on-line."
"I want to run my diary on-line."
"I want to put my catalogue on-line."
"I want is slick - and I mean slick."
"I want my site to be searchable."
"I don't want my site searchable but I want to search it."
"I want my contacts database shared but controlled."
"I've got 500 products and 2,500 files that I want on my site - and I want to be able to manage them easily."

What do your prospects want from your web site?

To find you easily.
To know they are at the right site right away.
To get the information they need at once.
To get added value in the form of further info or freebies or links of use.
To be enthralled, entertained or otherwise kept engaged.

Question

Are what you and your prospect want compatible?

It would be easy to make a site that suits us but not the customer and vice-versa. An excellent design will do both these. You cannot achieve both without understanding the difference.

Buy a good domain name

It's a good idea to spend time dreaming up good names for your web site. No-one can tell you what is good but is is normally a good idea to find something unique. Use a domain registration company to check that the name is available and preferably with a few spare 'TLDs' - the bit on the end like '.com' or '.me.uk'

Palava Arts recommends 123-reg for domain name registration. We can make a quick buck - at no expense to you - if you click the picture below when you want to buy a name!

Functional Priorities

Your site is a piece of bespoke publicity software and therefore requires your organisation to be clear about what it must do. A web site handles a variety of tasks for you ranging from presentation of message through to customer services. It also provides you with a service in its facility for change.

Palava Arts has been developing and deploying Content Management software as a part of our on-line business management application ARIA. This tool has arisen from repeat demand for web sites that satisfy the same basic set of functional priorities. These are ;

Your 'World facing' priorities
• Excellent search engine optimisation results
• Clarity of content and subjective layout
• Speed of delivery to the browser
• Graphic Slickness

Your organisation's internal priorities
• Ease of update and extension
• Low cost
• Speed of support and delivery by the supplier

Development Priorities

The best sites have not only the best content but also the best navigation and subjective layout. This means that information is organised in a way that meets the needs of your visitors - not your needs. Knowing what the customer base you want to attract is like - and what they will be thinking has to be top priority.

You must change your mind - and often. Sites that sit still do not sustain an audience therefore the development plan must include ideas as to why your customers will return to the site. Perhaps even more importantly you must decide why you are going to return to the site after 'go-live'.