The Main Question
When you ask yourself the question - Why do I need a website? - the initial answer will probably be quite a high level, generalised, statement of intention. Something along the lines of - To present my business effectively. It helps then to break down this goal. Is the site essentially an on-line brochure providing information to your customers or do you want to be selling your products off the site. Or maybe you are a professional skier or freelance photographer who needs a presence on the web, something on your business card, a reference point to which to send interested parties.
But in order to focus on ideas for a new website, it helps to break down the preliminary question into smaller components. These will generate more specific information about how the website will look and feel and what functions it needs to incorporate. And, of course, what sort of content, text and images, will hold it all together.
The Visual Impact of the Site
The central question here is something like - What should the look of my site convey about my business? Or about my profile as a professional sports person? Or the ethos of the organisation I have volunteered to sort a website for?
For example, the potential answers in the list below contain the sort of information that will be helpful to the web designer thinking about the design of your site.
- My company is young and dynamic and an energetic looking design would help communicate these characteristics
- My new wine bar is on the site of an old pub and I want to attract a more sophisticated clientele. The website therefore needs to demonstrate this and appeal to my target customers.
- The villa I rent out is in an area of outstanding natural beauty and I want the site to reflect this in its design
- I want potential sponsors who visit the site to get excited about my talents and enthusiastic to supply me with state-of-the-art sports kit
By going through a similar thought process analysing what the design of your site should say about your business you will generate ideas about how the site will look.
The Site's Functions
This part of the question is asking about what the website needs to do for you. Again, by being as specific as possible at the outset of the project you are more likely to end up with the site you want.
An obvious high level question asks if the purpose of the site is to sell things or to provide information, although there can be some over-lap here. A bar or restaurant, for example, might need a site to provide information that will encourage visitors to the site to become visitors to their establishment. It's still fundamentally about selling a product.
The answers to these questions will help to develop ideas about some of the pages and additional components you will want to include, now or perhaps in the future. If you want to sell products off the site then you will need to consider having an e-shopping component built in. Or it might be that you want to build a site simply presenting your products in the first place and maybe add a shopping cart later. Is an important function of your website the facility to provide a round-the-clock information service for members of your organisation? As a bar or a restaurant, do you need to provide a map for people to find you. Do you want to encourage reservations by phone call or email?
It can help to think further about your goals regarding visits to the site. Are you wanting to facilitate immediate buying behaviour or do you need people to be able to access complex information without getting frustrated. Your specifications about what you need your website to achieve for you will help us to devise an appropriate structure and navigability for the site.
Content
This is also time to start to think about the content, in particular, the written copy that will provide a narrative for visitors to the site. We will go into more detail about aspects of this in the section on Site Structure, but it is never too early to think about what the site will say.
Imagine the visitor who has just come across your website. What will they need to see to get your message in the first instance? And then what do you need them to know about you or your products that will hold their attention and keep them interested? In other words, what is special about your business that you need to convey clearly to visitors to your site?
Conclusion
It is worth putting some time and effort into analysing and clarifying exactly what it is you need to get out of having a website in advance of drawing up a list of specifications for our designers. Not only will it make the whole process quicker and more efficient, it will contribute significantly to achieving the end-product that really works.