Developing a Website Design Process

With the new year’s upon us and resolutions being made, I have one big goal of launching my pet project website that I’ve been kicking around in my head for a few months. The first order of business to get the site going is to define my process for designing and developing it. I’ve gone over my design process for making this WordPress theme, but now I want define my process for building a site from scratch.

I’ve spend the last few weeks reading through several posts/e-books that attempt to define a proper website design process or expound on a certain step in the process. I believe that I’ve come up with a good process that can work well for individuals or for small groups building websites. I’ve also included a list of resources used to help me define my process in case you’d like to delve into the subject a bit more.

The Website Design Process

1. Site Concept

2. Content Strategy

3. Technology Strategy

4. Abstract Design

5. Content Development

6. Prototype Development

7. Technology Implementation

8. Final Design Integration

Overview

This is a very high-level view of the process I will be taking. It is purposefully vague so that the process can be viewed without being distracted by the multiple subpoints under each process step. As I go through this process with my website I will write a post for each step giving detailed descriptions, examples and resources to give a full picture of what each process entails.

If you’d like keep track of my website design process, you can subscribe via RSS or you can follow me on twitter to get all the updates.

Resources

• The Web Design Process
  A collection of other’s posts defining their website design processes.
• Web Style Guide
  A detailed, web-formatted book defining and describing a complete website design process.
• How to Create a Standardized Web Site Development Workflow
  A website design workflow with details on each step.
• Web Design and Workflow Process Comparison
  A collection of other’s high-level website design processes.
• The 3 Components of Good Web Design
  A starter post giving an overview of three main components to website design.
• The Website Development Process
  The telling of a basic website design process through lego men. Very fun to look through, and yet very helpful.
• The Nine Pillars of Successful Web Teams
  Defines the different website design processes as pillars to be given to different team members.
• 6 Steps of the Web Site Design and Development Process
  A website design process with details explaining each process step.