What’s the Fastest Way to Ruin a New Web Site

What’s the Fastest Way to Ruin a New Web Site

Ive been asked, How do I design a successful Web site?

I often respond, Do you know the fastest way to ruin a new Web site design? As you might suspect, the answer is, Lack of proper planning beforehand.

Let’s put it another way. In programming, there’s an old axiom, which states: “The sooner you start your coding the longer it takes to finish.”

Planning out your Web site before you build it is essential. To borrow a technique from the film industry, I recommend that you create a storyboard, which is a type of a flow chart of your new Web site design. You dont have to be an accomplished artist to draw out your idea, but its essential to create it on paper first.

On each piece of paper, the goal is to have room for an image at the top, plus space underneath for writing down information. As you might suspect, the first page to start with is your home (or welcome) page, which will typically have the most information as it will contain the page the people visit before they enter your site and as people go through your site, the will encounter more information (in...