“Hey, will you build me a website?”
Sure!
- What does the site do? What should users be able to accomplish?
- What are some similar sites that you like? How about ones you don’t like?
- Is this a completely new site, or are giving the existing one a makeover?
- Are we talking a webpage or a web of pages?
- Do you need hosting? How about a domain name?
- Will you want to add, edit, and delete pages yourself?
- Think you’ll want to do some blogging on there? If so, is there a CMS you already like?
- Do you have a certain design in mind, or can it be some out-of-the-box template?
- Should visitors be able to contact you through a form? Where do you plan on storing form submissions? Many more questions here!
- Are you planning to sell things? It’s cool if you are, but I’ll have another set of questions for you.
- Do you have content and images, or will you need help with those?
- Speaking of content, does it need to support multiple languages?
- Who will be responsible for looking after the site after it’s done? Will someone need to be trained, or are you looking for a contractor to maintain things?
- How do you want people to find your site?
- Are you familiar with accessibility? It’s something you’ll hear me reference often to guide decisions.
- If you want your site to be “better, faster, and cheaper” but can only pick two of them, which two would you choose?
- What’s the timeline for getting it done? Is there anything driving it to be done by a certain date?
- Oh, and what’s your budget?
Radio silence. ????
17 Comments
@geoff
this one goes straight to obsidian
These are definitely all valid questions. In my experience, clients often don’t know to even think about all of these things and it can be helpful to present them a standard approach that works for most other clients.
By answering these questions for them, you give them an idea of what’s “normal” for a project like theirs when working with you and they can make comments like “actually I don’t need to be able to edit the content myself” or “It takes 3 months? We have a product launch coming up, is it possible to complete the website in 2 months instead?”
This week we catalog the risks we’re addressing, run Postgres in the browser, modernize our app using generative AI, learn about focus and ADHD, stop trusting product reviews from Google search, and keep the operating room free of cats.
@geoff Masterpiece!
What a goood list. Thank you Geoff! Really got me thinking. If it helps anyone I organized it down a bit and changed the language to something I’m personally comfortable sending to acquaintances who are interested
Is this a completely new site, or are giving the existing one a makeover?
What does the site do? What should users be able to accomplish? How complex do you need the site to be?
Examples (this is a gradient…):
Level 0: just a front page with text, links, and images – essentially a pretty word doc on the web
i.e. artist page, resume page, restaurant site, small in-person-only shop’s site
Level 1-3: A blog with a homepage, and different blog posts
a simple blog about something with collections of simple posts
Level 2-999: more complex – a site with a homepage and sub-home pages which act as front pages for different ‘folders’
resources for a school or professional society
Is email and phone enough or should visitors be able to contact you through a form? Where do you plan on storing form submissions?
Are you planning to sell things – this can get complex
Do you have a certain design in mind, or can it be an out-of-the-box template?
What are some similar sites that you like?
Check out the website of organizations or brands that you like – what characteristics do you like about them?
could be any brand that you’re a fan of really – even one you’ve never seen the website of
What are sites you don’t like?
Do you need hosting? How about a domain name?
Do you have content and images, or will you need help with those?
Speaking of content, does it need to support multiple languages?
How do you want people to find your site?
Are you familiar with accessibility on the web?
There are a lot of standards sites use to provide a good experience for all users – wide-screen views; tablet views; screen readers; keyboard-only use
What’s the timeline for getting it done? Is there anything driving it to be done by a certain date?
What’s your budget?
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