articles

Web Site Planning

By Theresa Wilkinson, W-edge design
Reprinted with permission from the STC Intercom magazine - December 1997, Volume 44, Issue 10.

My company, like many companies, does not understand the Internet. My bosses want me to design Web sites, but when I ask about the sites' purposes or goals, I get that "Everyone else is out there so we have to be" stare. That tells me they haven't thought this Internet thing through. To build a successful, valuable, and usable Web site, you have to start with a well-thought-out plan.

Taking the time to plan a Web site is crucial for the success of the project.

Making a Case for Planning

I'm not big on rigid standards that will limit the creativity of Web designers--the design, both graphics and architecture, can determine the success or failure of your site. But that doesn't mean you don't need a plan. I get up on my soapbox at least twice a week to preach on the merits of Web site planning. I even went so far as to painstakingly detail the planning process in the Internet Design Guidelines for my company:

• Define the goals and objectives of the Web site.
• Identify your target audience.
• Create a task list.
• Define the content.
• Define the Web architecture.
• Define your presentation (including navigation and graphics).
• Code your site.
• Develop an online prototype.
• Market your site.
• Maintain your site.

I passed out copies of my document to the appropriate managers and thought, "What more could a company want?" As I prepared to bask in the glow of success, my director emailed me to say "Great start!" and to ask me to list the standards for all sites, both internal and external. "Wait a minute," I thought, "did anyone read what I handed out?"

Planning Your Site

One thing to remember when you start planning a Web site is that the Internet is a communications tool. Most of the visitors to your site are coming in search of useful or entertaining information, not to admire fancy graphics, cool multimedia, or HTML prowess. Before you start putting information on the Internet or your company's intranet, you need to ask three questions:

• What are the goals and objectives of this site?
• Who is the intended audience--will there be multiple audiences accessing different information?
• What tasks are people coming to the site to perform?

This information is very important to consider when defining your content areas and laying out your site. If you don't know whom your audience is or what they're coming to do at your site, how can you design anything usable for them?

Defining Clear Goals

Approach the planning phase from your audience's perspective and ask yourself, "What do I want to get from this site?" Your Web site, and each of its pages, should have a goal--a reason for existing.

What is your site's purpose? Is it commerce? Entertainment? Providing a service? What do you want to communicate? A good idea is to develop a statement of purpose. Say, for example, my company wants to develop a Web site to download software and provide customer service. My statement of purpose would be something like the following:

General Goals

• to promote our company and its products and services
• to provide our customers with high-quality, downloadable software and fast, efficient customer service

Specific Goals

• to provide an area where our customers can download software for a variety of platforms
• to provide our customers with a personalized area where they can obtain documentation for their specific products, a search capability to find additional information about available products, and customer service support through an email link or chat capability

Identifying your Target Audience

Your site should also appeal to its target audience--the users you would like to attract. But who is your target audience? Whom do you want to entertain or sell your products to? What features of your site will attract them? What information are they looking for? How technically sophisticated are they? Identify the potential users of your Web site so you can structure the site design to meet their needs and expectations.

Continuing with my analysis, I can infer some information about my users at this point. They are likely to be:

• computer programmers or managers looking for information on our products
• technically sophisticated programmers
• current users of our products who want upgrades
• people who want to purchase (download) our products
• current users of our products who want documentation
• current users of our products who want to contact customer service

The Marketing Department can provide me with demographic information on our current users and possibly the names of people to contact to obtain more detailed information. If you don't have a marketing department, try to find out the names of some of your company's customers and contact them directly. I did this once and was very successful. The users I spoke with were very flattered that I wanted their opinions on a Web site I was developing.

Creating a Task List

Create a task list to identify what people are coming to your site to do. Are they coming to obtain stock quotes, press releases, or information on products and services?

The task list for my example would be something like the following:

• obtain information on products and services
• obtain information about our company
• obtain press releases
• obtain relevant or new product information
• download product software
• download upgraded product software
• obtain product documentation
• search for additional product documentation
• obtain customer support

This is a good beginning, but at this point I would also start identifying any questions that may have occurred to me. They might include:

• Will our customers pay when they download software?
• Will we need credit card information?
• Will we provide free upgrades?
• Who will code the site?
• Who will provide graphic support? multimedia? animation? sound?
• Who will provide programming support?
• Who will provide the needed servers and their support?
• Who will provide and configure the databases needed for personalization, search capability, and documentation storage?
• Will the Technical Documentation Department supply all documentation?
• Who will decide whether to have e-mail or chat? Will chat be included in a later iteration?
• Is Customer Service willing to commit resources?
• Should we list Customer Service hours?
• Is Customer Service willing to help with the personalization form (the form a new customer will
  see)?

I write up all this sort of information in a design document. In this document, I also include the following:

• potential content areas
• architecture
• page design
• navigation
• graphic ideas

Don't worry if you don't cover every detail--this is just a preliminary pass at your design. As you develop your design and include more people in the process, it will grow. In a later version of your document, you can include quantifiable goals or results, such as increasing product sales by 10 percent and decreasing customer service calls by 10 percent.

Granted, planning is my personal passion. But the effort you put into planning your Web site will pay big dividends as your site matures.

References

Apple Web Design Guidelines, Apple Computer, Inc.
Guide to Web Style, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
1997 Electronic Recruiting Index, Interbiznet.
Nielsen, Jakob, Interface Design for Sun's WWW Site, Sun Microsystems, Inc.