I’ve gotten a lot of questions about what I think about when I have to design a new site from the ground up. So I’m going to share how my process is, but first I have to tell you that this is just how I do it and you might need to think about other things when you do it. But here goes:

• Defining the goal of the website. What is it that you want your visitors to do? Are the site trying to sell something? Are the goal to get sign-ups? Are you trying to build a community?
• Defining the future scale of the site. Where will this site be in a year? Will it expand to 200 pages or 20.000 pages? This is of course important for the way the navigation has to be designed
• What will the best structure for this website be? Does the site need to be divided into sections or would a more flat site structure do the job better?
• What is the target group be for this site? Will the site have web savy visitors or will it be new internet users?

When you figure this out you’ll have some idea of what design limitations you are facing. Flashy navigation looks cool but when you find out that the site will eventually be 20.000 pages and it will be targeting inexperienced web user that might not be you best option.

Again this is a very basic list. Depending on the site I’ll usually add more questions as I go.

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